From Screen to Stub: Why Souvenir Tickets Are Making a Comeback

In the '90s and early 2000s, one of my favorite things to do was to collect ticket stubs from movies, concerts, and other events to use in my various journals and scrapbooks. I still have the ticket stub from the *NSYNC No Strings Attached tour I went to at Madison Square Garden in 2000. Not only was it a way to prove I was there, but it serves as a reminder of one of the many happy times in my life. I remember meeting someone in college who had been to every tour of their favorite band for decades and had saved every ticket in a binder, sorted by date.

However, if you've been to a concert or sporting event in recent years, you've probably noticed something missing from the experience: a printed ticket. Like many facets of society, they've gone digital. Personally, I miss the experience of having a physical ticket and I know I'm not alone.

A recent digital ticket I received for an event.

In fact, NPR recently reported that some sporting events and musical venues are integrating physical tickets back into the mix. Rafael Nam relayed one story of a "diehard Texas Rangers" fan who had tickets to the World Series to see his favorite team play. His one regret? That he didn't have anything to commemorate the game with. Nam explains in the piece that teams and concert promoters are now seeing a business opportunity in offering souvenir paper tickets — selling them for an astounding $15-20 each. Although the extra ticket price may not be an attractive option — considering it used to be the standard for any event — for that one Texas Rangers fan, it turned into the perfect keepsake.

"This is something you can look back on and say, 'Hey, I was there. This is where I sat,' you know, [it] just brings back memories and stuff like that," the Rangers fan said in the report.

Print has permanence and people are yearning for that connection. There are even printing companies that specialize in this service. Take, for example, Fort Smith, Arkansas' Weldon, Williams & Lick (WW&L), which states on its website, "WW&L is the proven leader in driving revenue and fan engagement through innovative ticketing and custom, secure access control solutions."

Weldon, Williams & Lick produces printed tickets, including souvenir tickets for a variety of events, pictured here. | Credit: Weldon, Williams & Lick

In a 125th anniversary video posted on the company's website last year, the company's president Ron Wilson said, "The new things they can do to really enhance the overall fan experience. ... Not just getting a ticket to get in the game, but really, we now have a chance to impact the way they interact and the way they experience live entertainment before, during, and after the event."

There's also a bit of nostalgia attached to the idea of a souvenir ticket. Going back to my example of saving my *NSYNC ticket, or my college acquaintance's binder of tickets, there is something special about having a tangible item to remember an event.

"People still want to go to events, they want some type of Memento attached to it," WW&L chief revenue officer Evan Gitomer, said in the video. "So, we created this whole concept of souvenir ticketing. We engage with these audiences, we engage with these universities, we engage with these professional sports teams. They're looking for that [other] level of connection. They're looking to get even deeper into that fan relationship and finding a simple way of tying in a little bit of that nostalgia element of having something physical — like a ticket, that could end up in a shoe box or end up on a wall somewhere, or commemorate something that's actually going on — that seems to have a ton of value."