Face masks: The ticket of the future?

A French designer has come up with a novel dual-purpose for face coverings, creating the ‘Madge’, a face mask acting as a ticket for live shows and a name tag, or badge, for those running events and exhibitions.

“Given that we will all have to adapt our future events to fit new health and safety rules, let’s transform our masks and use them in useful and creative ways,” reads a post on designer Nicolas Olive’s blog.

Recent event reopening guides published by industry organisations in the US and Germany have advised the use of face coverings for all those working at and attending live events when they reopen.

“Let’s transform our masks and use them in useful and creative ways”

Each mask would be printed with a scannable bar code for contactless entry and would be colour coded to easily identify the function of the wearer, or the kind of ticket they possess.

Olive states that certain “technical and sanitary constraints” such as the printing method and re-sterilisation after printing, are still being worked out.

The designer is not the only one to explore the integration of face masks with live. Universal Music Group’s merchandising company Bravado recently released a range of charitable face coverings for acts including Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish and Black Sabbath, with artists such as My Chemical Romance, Korn and Megadeth also adding face masks to their merch offerings.

Photo: Nicolas Olive (CC BY 4.0) (cropped)

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