Universal lets Web users jump park queue (http://news.com.com/2110-1026-5064997.html?part=dtx&tag=nhl) - C|Net News.com, 08/18/03
Universal Studios Hollywood is giving visitors to its theme park an extra perk for using the Web. Universal Studios is letting people purchase and print admission tickets for its theme park at its Web site (http://www.universalstudioshollywood.com/). People who show up with home-printed tickets can skip lines at the park's ticket booths and go directly to the entrance. Printed tickets have barcodes that are scanned by machines at the entrance.

Note: When I posted this, the link to the article worked. A moment later, though, it died. This may be a site-wide problem on C|Net or it may be a local network issue for me. There isn't really much more to the article in any case.

This is nothing new, USH has offered this since the beginning of the year... Knott's last year offered it during Halloween Haunt, and SeaWorld also allows you to print tickets at home.

Also TicketMaster is switching over to the bar code situation... heck, when I went to the Home Depot Center to see the Galaxy play, they don't even have turnstyles any more, just folks with hand held scanners, that scan your ticket, or your printout....

I thought people were going to be able to skip lines inside the park when I read the subject line. But skipping the ticket line isn't that big a deal, imo. Every year when we visit Magic Mountain, I buy discount tickets at work, so we skip the ticket lines. When we went to Knott's about a month ago, some people bought discount tickets at Ralph's and skipped the ticket lines also.

Printing tickets on a computer at home isn't exactly a big revelation either. The El Capitan Theater has offered this via their website for a couple years now and I'm pretty sure there are a number of other venues that have similar setups. It may be relatively new for theme parks, though.

-Jeff