Enhance Guest Experience and Operations in Sports and Entertainment Venues

Stadiums support thousands of guests who come and go all at once, and throughout their stay they expect to enjoy every minute of the event. When guests need a restroom or concessions, they want to do it quickly and get back without missing the big play or their favorite song. Unfortunately, guests often find crowded facilities, long waits for concessions and can wind up wandering a large venue to find what they need.

The massive crowd control and demand for services present numerous operational, security, and guest experience challenges:

• Crowded restrooms and long concession lines in a large venue delay guests from getting back to their seat.
• Operational improvements are evaluated based on qualitative feedback and assumptions rather than measurable analytics.
• Valuating sponsorships has little quantitative data to support investment.
• Crowd massing and stanchion needs are occasionally missed by security team due to absence of real-time occupancy analytics.

WaitTime Overview

WaitTime is a patented, real-time, and historical artificial intelligence software that uses state-of-the-art imaging techniques to monitor crowd behavior in large scale venues.

The data generated from WaitTime software leverages operations and guest engagement platforms to enable real-time smart decision making, inform operations management, and engage guests in movement and distribution solutions.

Sports and Entertainment Venue Implements WaitTime to Optimize Gate Operations

Challenge

Crowd massing and chokepoints at gates were making it difficult for the venue provide proper security. There were also concerns that similar issues might be impacting other areas of the facility, such as merchant locations.

The lack of analytics and real-time occupancy information prevented the venue from testing operational changes, identifying opportunities for improvement and alerting for added security in crowded areas.

Solution

WaitTime was installed at the venue to monitor crowd behavior at gates. Guests tail gate in the parking lot and head into the stadium at the last moment creating operations and security issues.

WaitTime helped to identify opportunities for improvement and prove out use cases for guest engagement. It was also established that merchandise queues have a similar crowd profile as gates, as they get busiest prior to the game. This observation helped to identify additional opportunities to boost merchandise sales.