Ticket

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For issues regarding tickets in relation to contract law, see Ticket cases.
Ticket (unseparated) of the Kurkino in Berchtesgaden
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Ticket (unseparated) of the Kurkino in Berchtesgaden
CeBIT Home 1998 student day ticket with barcode
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CeBIT Home 1998 student day ticket with barcode
A Parisian's transport ticket
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A Parisian's transport ticket

Ticket can mean one of several things:

Contents

[edit] Permission

The first known tickets were used in the Greek period, they were using tickets for events, like theaters. A ticket is a voucher to indicate that one has paid for admission to a theatre, movie theater, amusement park, zoo, museum, concert, or other attraction, or permission to travel on an airplane, public transit, boat trip, etc., typically because one has paid the fare.

A ticket may be bought at a ticket window or counter, also called box office (this term is also used for the total receipts). The ticket check may be there, or it may be separate.

Where applicable, a ticket may be for an arbitrary seat ("free seating") or for a specific one. Sometimes, e.g. for some train journeys, one can either just buy a ticket, or also a seat reservation.

A ticket to the 2003 Rugby World Cup sporting event. The black ball in the top centre is a hologram, used to prevent counterfeiting
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A ticket to the 2003 Rugby World Cup sporting event. The black ball in the top centre is a hologram, used to prevent counterfeiting

Paper is generally used, although plastic may be used instead for durability. Some have a barcode or magnetic stripe for keeping simple data stored on them, higher end ones use chips to store more data and prevent counterfeiting.

Counterfeit tickets are a problem at high-priced concerts and other events, so holograms are used on tickets for the Olympic Games, Super Bowl, World Cups and other high-profile events.

No tickets are needed in the case of voluntary contributions, e.g. after a street performance; in fact, a ticket system is often neither practical nor legal in such a case.

Free tickets are applied in virtual queueing. In a place where one has to wait one's turn, there may be the system that one takes a ticket with a number from a machine. It applies at the doctor/hospital, and at offices where many people visit, like the town hall, social security office, labor exchange, or post office.

A pass is a special ticket, representing some subscription, in particular for unlimited use of a service or collection of services, e.g.:

Sometimes the pass replaces the tickets, sometimes it entitles the holder to free tickets. In the latter case typically at the ticket check both the pass and the ticket has to be shown.

Alternatively, there is the discount pass, for services such as those above: for a fee per unit time (or as a benefit on other grounds) one gets a discount on each purchase. Alternatively, a multi-use ticket (either valid a limited time, or indefinitely) may provide a discount. For example, a pass for entering a cinema 6 times within a year may cost the price of 4 or 5 tickets. A multi-use ticket may or may not be personal. If not, there may be a limitation to the number of people who can use the same multi-use ticket at the same time.

See also:

[edit] Receipt

A ticket may be a pick-up ticket, for example when retrieving clothing from a dry cleaning shop or an automobile from a repair shop, or putting things in storage at a train station, cloakroom, etc. It is also used in places where people are required to "take a number" to queue up, such as in a waiting room or at a customer service desk. Often, this simply has a number printed on it.

[edit] Notification

In (primarily US) law, a ticket is a notification that one has committed a minor legal infraction, for which a fine must be paid, and/or an appearance in court must be made (See: summons). Typically this means a parking ticket for parking in an unlawful manner or allowing a parking meter to expire, or a traffic ticket for a moving violation such as speeding.

[edit] Elections

A ticket often refers to a single election choice which fills more than one political office or seat. For example, in the U.S., the candidates for President and Vice President run on the same "ticket", because they are elected together on a single ballot question rather than separately.

A ticket can also refer to a political party. In this case, the candidates for a given party are said to be running on the party's ticket. "Straight party voting" (most common in some U.S. states) is voting for the entire party ticket, including every office for which the party has a candidate running. Particularly in the era of mechanical voting machines, it was possible to accomplish this in many juridisctions by the use of a "party lever" which automatically cast a vote for each member of the party by the activiation of a single lever.

Political party factions may also sponsor tickets in primary elections. When this occurs, a group of candidates, usually one for each office for which the party's nomination is being contested in the primary, endorse each other and may make joint appearances and share advertising with the goal of securing the party's nomination for the office each is seeking for all ticket members. This system was frequently seen in the "Solid South" era in the Southern United States when there was no effective two party system and victory in the Democratic Party primary was considered to be "tantamount to election".

[edit] Computing & IT

[edit] IT Security

In IT Security, a ticket is a number generated by a network server for a client, which can be delivered to itself, or a different server as a means of authentication or proof of authorization, and cannot easily be forged. This usage of the word originated with MIT's Kerberos (protocol) in the 1980s. Tickets may either be transparent, meaning they can be recognized without contacting the server that generated them; or opaque, meaning the original server must be contacted to verify that it issued the ticket.

Some magic cookies provide the same functionality as a ticket.

[edit] IT Service Support

In an IT Service Support organization, in IT Service Management, a ticket (also known as an incident ticket or trouble ticket) is a file, usually contained within a issue tracking system which contains information about support interventions made by technical support staff, or third parties on behalf of an end user who has reported an incident that is preventing them from working with their computer as they would expect to be able to. Tickets are commonly created in a help desk or call center environment. Typically the ticket will have a unique reference number, also known as a case, issue or call log number which is used to allow the user or support staff to quickly locate, add to or communicate the status of the users issue or request.

These tickets are so called because of their origin as small cards within a typical wall mounted work planning system when this kind of support started, operators or staff receiving a call or query from a user would fill out a small card with the users details and a brief summary of their request and place it into a position (usually the last) in a column of pending slots for an appropriate engineer, so determining the staff member who would deal with the query and the priority of the request.

[edit] Maintenance

A ticket can also refer to a request for help with, or repair or maintenance of, an item or complicated system. In this context, a ticket is the record of the request and the follow-up actions taken to correct the problem.

[edit] See also

[edit] Slang

Something being the ticket may also refer to something being perfect or just right or something that happens which then leaves you better off than previously, for example, finding alcohol at a music festival is the ticket or the fact that your tent didn't flood is also referred as being the ticket.