One of the most interesting new technologies on the stadium scene is facial authentication, which is basically using a person’s face to verify identity, as well as transactions from ticketing to concessions. One of the leaders in the market for what is generally called biometrics is a Cambridge, Mass.-based company called Wicket.
After starting with some facial authentication systems for teams like the Cleveland Browns and the Atlanta Falcons, Wicket is gaining rapid acceptance for its software, including from the NFL itself as the league tapped Wicket this past season for its back of house credentialing system that was deployed in all 30 NFL stadiums. Our guest today is Jeff Boehm, chief operating officer of Wicket, here to discuss how the company brought facial authentication to sports stadiums and where it might go in the future. Listen in — only on the Stadium Tech Report podcast!
A Covid response technology goes mainstream
According to Boehm, the Wicket ‘genesis story’ involved Wicket trying to help the Cleveland Browns (whose owners invested in Wicket) find ways to get fans back in the stadium safely after the Covid shutdowns. What happened was, Wicket developed a facial ticketing solution where fans could take a selfie at home, link it to their Ticketmaster account, and then be able to show up at the stadium, only having to smile at an iPad to get in.
“They didn’t even have to take their Covid mask off — the iPad would recognize them and they could get into the game safely at a distance without touching phones or anything like that,” Boehm said. “So it really was around sort of the the simplicity and public safety of that use case.”
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The difference between facial authentication and facial recognition
A few years down the road now, Wicket is making a name for itself at some of the biggest venues in the country, with the Cleveland Browns’ Huntington Bank Field, the New York Mets’ Citi Field and Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta all currently using Wicket software for ticket verification.
If there is one thing about Wicket’s ticketing technology that usually needs to be cleared up, it’s that the system is about facial authentication, NOT facial recognition. The latter technology, which is used in systems mainly by government and law enforcement, is a method of surveillance where the entity tries to match photos or videos to a known database of facial photos. According to Boehm, what Wicket does is much different, from process to technology.
“We call it facial authentication,” Boehm said. “One of the very important things is first and foremost, it’s opt-in. It’s only being used on people who consent to use it and who want to use it.”
Unlike the public-safety systems that store actual facial images for comparison and verification, Wicket says its system doesn’t actually store any facial information but instead uses artificial intelligence to map a photo of a face digitally, and uses that digital code to authenticate people by matching the code to a live face. At the stadium, fans who are pre-enrolled in the program use a special entry lane where they face up to a tablet computer, which quickly recognizes them and authorizes all the tickets that person has purchased.
Addressing venue friction points with facial authentication
While biometric verification systems are growing in use worldwide, we asked Boehm why the technology is a good fit for the stadium game-day experience.
“In sports venues, there’s a number of friction points where somebody is trying to prove something in order to proceed,” Boehm said. “I need to prove I have a ticket in order to get into the venue. Or I need to prove I’m 21 in order to buy a beer, or I need to prove I have a payment method in order to buy that beer, or I need to prove I have a press pass in order to get into the press box. There’s all these places where I need to prove something, and the act of proving that is often cumbersome and time consuming.”
Many times in venues, Boehm said, providing that needed proof involves a physical act, like pulling up a QR code from a phone, or showing an ID from a wallet. With facial authentication technology, Boehm said such transaction times could be reduced to milliseconds.
“It happens so fast that it it just speeds up that entire process,” Boehm said. “Sports venues are rife with these sort of friction points that facial authentication can eliminate.”
Buying a beer with your face
One of the friction points beyond ticketing that Wicket is addressing is the concession-stand line. At Cleveland, Wicket, caterer Aramark and the Browns are several years into a program where fans can add additional information to their Wicket profile, including a photo of a state ID and bank card information, so they can use facial authentication technology to speed up concession purchases.
Once they are enrolled, fans can simply to go facial-authentication enabled stands and smile at a screen to verify both age and payment information. While the idea of sharing photos of your driver’s license and your credit card number may give some pause, Boehm said that seeing it in action explains the program’s worth.
“Think of people in the concourse at an NFL game scrambling to say, ‘can I just get a beer and a hot dog to get back to the game? That line over there is 80 people long. I’m going to miss the next three plays if I stand here.’ And then you see people walking straight through another line where all they’re doing is picking up a beer, looking at an iPad and walking away. And you think, ‘of course I’m going to go do that. What do I have to do?’ “
With almost 7,000 fans enrolled for the concessions program in Cleveland through last fall, Boehm said there’s nothing like watching something happen to convince someone.
“Seeing is believing and and that’s very much the case with this technology,” Boehm said. “That really helps with the adoption curve for us.”
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