CAPTCHA Tips: Get the Tickets You Want

Your tickets are being attacked by bots. No, not science fiction robots. We’re talking automated programs that some nefarious brokers use to tie up our system, buy up big blocks of tickets, and prevent you from getting any. These bots typically aim to grab all of the tickets so nefarious brokers can resell them at a higher price to fans later. Thankfully, we have weapons to help stop that from happening–warped words. Read on to learn how these little words help save the day for real fans like you.

The fancy name for this form of security is CAPTCHA, and you’ve probably encountered it on many different sites, not just ours. We use it to help stop bots that are good at buying tickets fast, but terrible at one simple thing: reading distorted text. That’s why we have a CAPTCHA security checkpoint. Bots oftentimes get stuck at the security checkpoint, while fans get past and complete their purchases. While we understand the checkpoint can be less than ideal at times, it helps ensure tickets are going to fans first.

The warped words are doing a lot of good, but we understand that it’s still no fun to decipher and type them. You may have noticed that the words are easier to read lately. We’re continually improving our security checkpoint and making it more effortless for people to read the security phrase while still keeping out the bots. Expect things to only get easier for real, live fans.

Our security checkpoint is usually pretty straightforward, but here are some tips if you ever have trouble:

• Don’t worry about capitalization or punctuation when typing.
• Type words with or without spaces between them – either way is fine.
•  If you can’t read the security phrase, click “New Phrase” to get different words.
• BONUS: Download the NEW iOS7 Ticketmaster App, enable Push Notifications to knock out CAPTCHA on your iPhone.

Thanks for doing your part to stop the bots!