031806 Senators vs Sabres, Ottawa, ON

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I lament the ‘development’ of ticket stubs that has occurred over the course of my concert-going career.  In the beginning tickets were printed specifically for an event, they contained the band info, date and seat number (though general admission was all the rage back then) in actual, physical, one-time printed ink.  Before the show went on sale every ticket was already stamped out, fresh and ready to go.  

I even kind of liked the fact that your ticket got torn in half upon entry.  It made them all unique.

Then computer terminals started spitting out tickets as they were ordered, old-school dot-matrix printers sputtered away stamping pre-fab ticket blanks with the appropriate event info.  I hated them, but at the time I had no idea how bad things were going to get.

Of course print-at-home tickets were the ultimate insult (or so I thought).  What could be more unspecial than a slice of paper printed off of your computer at work?  I actually saved the first few – they’re folded up in the ticket albums and plenty ugly – but I soon realized these non-relics basically ran counter to an actual ticket collection.

Who knew it could get even worse?  While I have not yet experienced credit card entry – which is ticketless – as a person who does not own a cellphone* (and hopes to never own one) I am extremely worried about the rising popularity of scanning a bar code on your iPhone to get into a show.  There may come a time soon when we non-phonies won’t even be able to buy a ticket.  This has been prophesied in the Book of Revelation; more on that in the future.

And then there is what we have here.  This little Shroud of Turin was actually a ticket to watch the Ottawa Senators play the Buffalo Sabres at the Palladium on March 18th, 2006, but you wouldn’t know it.  Somebody along the way decided to save a buck or two on their ink-cartridge contract and I’m left with this near-blank ticket stub in my collection.  

Could be worse though.  At least I have something physical to be disappointed in.

The Sens won, 4-2.

*They aren’t even called “cellphones” anymore, are they?