NFT tickets: the 2026 reality

In 2022 NFT tickets were going to end touting, fund artists via resale royalties, and turn stubs into assets. In 2026 the honest summary: the ticket part mostly didn't survive; a small collectibles layer did. Here's what's real.

What actually worked

• Post-event collectibles: commemorative digital stubs (often free claims) as fan memorabilia — low stakes, occasionally lovely.
• Token-gated perks: holders of an artist's collection getting presale access — functioning as a fan-club membership with extra steps.
• Programmable resale royalties: genuinely demonstrated on-chain — the one structural idea with substance.

Why NFT-as-the-actual-ticket failed

1. Wallet UX: seed phrases at the door versus a QR code in Apple Wallet is not a contest.
2. The tout problem is legal-economic, not technological — named tickets and app-locking already deliver transfer control without a blockchain.
3. Royalty enforcement collapsed when major marketplaces made royalties optional in the 2023 fee wars.
4. UK consumer law questions (refunds, cooling-off, FCA perimeter for anything investment-flavoured) never got clean answers.

If you still want the good parts

Issue standard tickets on your normal platform; add an optional post-event collectible claim for superfans; run presale access through your mailing list or fan-club membership. You'll capture ~100% of the fan value at ~0% of the support burden.