What does the future of the stadium fan experience look like? Listen in as we talk to Christian Lau, Chief Technology Officer for Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Football Club, about his views for the next generation of the event-day experience.
What does the future of the stadium fan experience look like? Listen in as we talk to Christian Lau, Chief Technology Officer for Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Football Club, about his views for the next generation of the event-day experience. In our talk you’ll hear how his team at BMO Stadium has been pushing the envelope on technology deployments in order to find out what works and what doesn’t. Next, on the Stadium Tech Report podcast!
If you want to figure out what’s needed for the future of the fan experience, it helps to track what’s still not good about game or event day for attendees. For Lau, the pain points seem to gravitate toward unnecessary lines, especially those sometimes found at stadium entry or at purchase points. While those issues still need to be conquered, Lau does see improvements happening already.
“There’s way more positive than negative going on right now,” Lau said.
Not afraid to try new things
At BMO Stadium, the LAFC team has become known for its propensity to try new things on the technology front. Since opening the venue in 2018, Lau said some early commitments to technologies including NFC (near-field communication) ticketing and Apple Pay for transactions have paid off. Lau estimates that at any given LAFC game the ticket scans will be between 70 and 80 percent done using NFC and that “77 percent-ish” of venue transactions are done using Apple Pay.
“It all makes for faster lines,” Lau said.
At an industry trade show this summer Lau told an audience that one of the tenets of operations at BMO Stadium is to try different technologies, “and not be afraid to fail.” One technology Lau said the stadium initially thought would be a winner was mobile concession ordering, but it didn’t take off with fans. Another trial of making NFTs for fans was not embraced.
“Nobody cared,” Lau said of the digital fan tokens. “Not everything hits.”
Facial authentication and cashierless concessions next
Two areas where Lau said BMO Stadium is already moving to test involve facial authentication systems for ticketing, and cashierless concessions technology. On the former, the stadium set up a trial this fall using Wicket software for facial ticket authentication and paired it with walk-through security scanners from Xtract One to see just how fast stadium entry could be. For the fan experience of the future, Lau sees a lot of potential for facial authentication systems, which he noted are becoming commonplace in situations like airports.
“You could see a complete customer journey just based on your face, without having to pull out a wallet or a phone,” Lau said. “The tech is there. What I don’t know from the consumer point is if they’re ready yet.”
On the concessions side, Lau said BMO Stadium is already finding that the self-checkout terminals from Mashgin which use optical scanners to ring up products are an early winner.
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“We started with two [Mashgin devices] and now we have 12,” Lau said. When you are able to “remove the cashier from the equation,” Lau said it’s possible to reduce friction in concession transactions.
On the checkout-free side, Lau said the stadium is working with Amazon to deploy a Just Walk Out store later this year. An earlier trial of using biometric authentication from Clear (“buy a beer with Clear”) for alcohol purchases didn’t work out and is not being offered — for now.
“We’re not afraid to shut things down and re-imagine them, and then bring them back,” Lau said.
Process is more important than technology
While many of the new endeavors in the stadium revolve around forward-thinking technology, Lau said that planning operations and business functions is the key to any success.
“The technology is maybe about 10 percent of the equation,” Lau said. “By the time the technology gets to us, we know it’s going to work. Operationally, my main focus is always about things like… why are the cups here, and the ice there? What is the operational flow?”
And while there is still work to be done to improve things, Lau feels like BMO Stadium and many other venues are in a much better place after the innovations of the past few years.
“A lot of venues are like us in the same boat, in a good place, with events and concerts more crowded,” Lau said. “And it’s always fun to see people interacting with technology the way you hoped.”
MORE STR PODCASTS
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STR Podcast: Aramark’s Alicia Woznicki talks about the tech revolution in concessions
STR Podcast: Zippin CEO Krishna Motukuri touts the power of checkout-free technology
Technical production for the Stadium Tech Report podcast is led by Creative Director Dan Grimsley, and Digital Designer Jackie Nguyen. Web and design work is by David Fares and John David. All contents of the Stadium Tech Report podcast are copyright, Stadium Tech Report. Audio, video and print content may not be re-used without the express written consent of Stadium Tech Report.
