Movie theaters and cinemas use the Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) system to scan tickets. You can see it working by looking at a check or using an ATM to withdraw cash. Every time you swipe your credit card, you’re also running it through a MICR reader located inside the machine that looks for bank information such as routing numbers and your account number.
Everyone knows that movie ticket scanners are widely used in cinema theaters everywhere which are reading barcodes on movie passes or printed tickets to let the visitor get in smoothly and avoid any unwanted bad situation during screening times of movies. But how does the process work? How do these devices work and manage the heavy crowd coming every day?
Movie Ticket Barcode System: The barcode on your movie ticket is the same type of code that you find on grocery store products, but instead of having a set of numbers, it has an alphanumeric string. These codes are used by theaters to track all of the tickets they sell. The unique code on each ticket tracks who purchased it, when they purchased it, what time of day they purchased it, and the theater complex they entered. Once inside the theater itself, if you decide to leave, then reenter with another ticket or an older ticket with a different date/time; this will also be detected by the system thanks to the barcode tracking.
This data collection helps ensure there are enough employees available at any given time to manage the screenings and security officers to monitor guests. It also helps track down lost children and lost parents since every ticket has information tied directly to an individual’s name, phone number, and email address which can be quickly obtained via exhibitor management software after scanning your barcode. In addition, people who forget their tickets or other items at theaters can retrieve them using this database, thus saving everyone time and hassle.
Scanners use a light source (LED) inside the head of the device to bounce off the bars in the barcode. When you scan your ticket at the kiosk before entering into the theater complex, the scanner reads each line of black along with white spaces that make up the code on your ticket. Once any barcode is read successfully by the scanner, the next step is MICR code reading and later confirmation with the ticket seller.
These kiosks also sometimes have payment options so you can buy food and drinks before seeing a movie, as well as charge your phone or other mobile devices. Every location is different, so there may be some variations from what you see, but this gives an idea of how most movie ticket scanners work.
Other Technologies with Movie Ticket Barcode System: In the future, these barcodes may have a QR code printed on them as well. The QR would allow scanner operators to quickly read the information without having to type it all in manually during busy times when lines are long, and employees are scarce. This will save time for everyone involved by reducing the number of mistakes made at the theater (missing letters, numbers, or spaces). This can also help reduce fraud since it’s harder to create fake barcodes than scanners.
