The RISA nightclub, of Birmingham, UK will next Monday become the first known establishment to use a chip in place of a paper ticket for entry to its premises. The club, which holds 2400 guests, and is full without fail every night, put the 'chip tickets' on sale at its various city outlets this morning.

Entrants will then hand in the chips to gain entry and they will be subsequently recirculated to the outlets and re-used the following week.

Chipco say its the first time they can recall producing a chip for an establishment other than a casino that has an effective cash value. The initial design had a value on it, but the club considered they would get up to 3 years use out of these chips and the entry price would be likely to change during that time.

RISA's PR agents 'MooMoo' first contacted me about the possibility of using chips in this manner 2 months ago after encountering too many fake tickets. They hope the chips will stop this problem, reduce printing outlays and make ticket counting much more efficient. If the system works they will look to extending it to other nights of the week and other venues, adopting a different color chip for each. The PR agents also act for Jongleurs, which owns the 'Comedy Club' with 27 clubs in the UK. They have suffered similar problems and are watching with interest.

MooMoo hired me to discuss logistics, help with the design and subsequently arrange for production of the chips. It was accepted that some will get lost, damaged beyond use, or simply kept by people. As the chips have to go on sale for the following week before they can be 'recycled', 2400 x 2 would be needed at any time. An initial quantity of 6000 were ordered.

Thanks go to Chipco for meeting the impossible deadline set for production. The artwork was signed off on September 1 and the chips were delivered 5,000 miles away on September 13.

Sorry, but NO TRADERS.