It’s showtime for Irvine smartcard maker CardLogix: under deals with North American Cinemas and AOL’s Moviefone service the companies hope make phone and online ticket sales easier.
Under separate agreements, AOL and North American Cinemas will support CardLogix’s Movie Gold standard, which uses stored-value smartcards to allow customers to buy tickets and snacks online, over the phone or through self-serve kiosks at the theater. In addition to providing a cash-free payment option, the cards help parents limit what kinds of movies their children can see.
North American will debut the cards at its flagship Roxy 14 theater in Santa Rosa this month as part of a program to increase tourism in the area. Area merchants will offer discounts to moviegoers who use the cards.
Those deals come on the heels of a system from Costa Mesa-based ETM Entertainment Network that produces bar-coded tickets customers can print from home. Theater owners check the validity of the tickets by scanning the bar code with handheld computers at the theater.
The company also makes ticketless systems for movies and live events that identify the buyer through an ATM or credit card, or manually by using a photo ID.
