Click to watch Vicente Arenas' 11 News report

HOUSTON -- You may have never heard of Tom Waits before, but the eccentric singer is about to change the way music fans buy tickets to concerts and other events.

Waits, who will come to Houston next month, asked Ticketmaster to only sell paperless tickets to his performance here and in other cities.

Waits wants to stop scalpers and give fans a chance to get tickets at a fair price.

The system works like this. You buy your ticket either online or over the phone using a credit card. When you arrive at the concert, your credit card is scanned at the turnstile and you are given a receipt that has your seat number.

The receipts cannot be resold or taken out of the concert venue.

Often times, popular concerts sell out because ticket brokers buy as many tickets as they can get their hands on, leaving the average fan out in the cold.

That was welcomed news for music lovers in Houston.

“Once a show is sold out and those tickets are taken out of circulation and people's only option is to pay an inflated price, they end up not going to the show,” said Quinn Bishop, who works at Cactus Records in River Oaks.

He wasn’t alone. 11 News found other Waits fans at Cactus records who said they are eager to see if paperless tickets make a difference.

“If it works - and something needs to happen here - because it is getting outrageous,” said concertgoer Samantha Matthews.

Ticketmaster says Waits paperless ticket tour is just the beginning of a new phenomenon in how tickets are sold.

“Over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, we're going to be installing paperless tickets at major venues across America and ultimately into non U.S. territories,” said Ticketmaster Vice-President David Marcus.

Ticketmaster isn’t' the only company going paperless. Toyota Center says its doing the same thing with the Rockets.

The advantage for fans? Shorter lines and faster service.

11 News tried contacting a few ticket resellers, who declined to talk about the new system.

So, will it really work?

Fans may have to wait and see.