Fans at the Colorado Rockies’ Coors Field can use their palm to verify their age as well as pay for drinks at a couple stadium bars, thanks to a new program from Amazon and stadium caterer Aramark.
Amazon’s Amazon One program, which allows customers to tie payment information to their palm, has been used before at Whole Foods stores as well as at Amazon Just Walk Out stores, including some in stadiums. But according to Amazon and Aramark the Coors Field deployment is the first where the system can also be used to also verify a customer’s age, a process that involves having customers upload a selfie as well as photos of the front and back of their government ID to the Amazon One site.
According to a press announcement, the service will be available at two stadium locations, the SandLot Brewery and the Coors Light Silver Bullet Bar. At either one of those locations, fans who are not yet enrolled in Amazon One can do so at a kiosk. Then, according to Amazon and Aramark, the process to buy a beer with your palm goes like this:
— Once enrolled, customers take a photo on their mobile device of the front and back of their valid, government-issued identification (ID) – such as a driver’s license – and then take a selfie to verify their ID, sending all this information to Amazon.
— Once completed, customers will be prompted to hover their palm over the Amazon One device at the bar for all future alcoholic beverage purchases. If they are of drinking age, the bartender will see a “21+” message along with the customer-uploaded selfie displayed on screen on their side of the counter. After doing a visual match of the photo with the customer in front of them, the bartender will complete the alcohol sale.
— When the customer is ready to pay, they hover their palm over the Amazon One device once more and be charged for their purchase.
Using pre-loaded biometric information for purchases and age verification is starting to appear in several stadium situations as teams, venues and concessionaires attempt to use more technology to speed up lines. Last year, the Cleveland Browns and Aramark debuted a system where fans use facial authentication systems for the same purposes. What will be interesting to watch is to see how many fans are willing to provide such information to get speeded-up access, along with whether or not the systems actually provide measurably faster service since fans will still need to interact with a bartender at the Coors Field deployments.
Aramark, which also deployed an Amazon Just Walk Out store at Coors Field earlier this year, seems to be continually pushing the envelope on technology deployments at stadiums (listen to our podcast with Aramark’s Alicia Woznicki, who talks about the strategies behind concession technology). Another Denver venue to watch is Empower Field at Mile High, where Aramark is rumored to be significantly expanding the concession-technology footprint it has established there for the upcoming football season.
