This week, we wanted to take a look at some significant return to live activity happening in the US with the first round of the NFL. The Kansas City Chiefs hosted the Houston Texans and welcomed nearly 16,000 football fans to gather for the first time since February to officially kick off the NFL 2020 season. The Chiefs and Ticketmaster partnered to design and deploy a return to live plan that provided fans with greater confidence and convenience to attend the game.
Here are a few key ways Ticketmaster’s technology came into play:
- New social-distanced seat mapping allowed the venue to seat fans in small pods of two, four, five and six seats, with ample space in between each group
- 100% of fans entered the game with digital tickets accessible on their mobile device. For the first time at a major live event, not a single paper ticket was scanned
- In addition to a smooth and quick entry into Arrowhead Stadium, digital ticketing also enabled a completely contact-less entry experience minimizing contact between fans and staff
- This was also the first event of scale to employ Google Pay Wallet add-in for digital ticket access
Fans are eager to return to live entertainment safely, and the adoption of digital tickets will become a critical part of that. As the US slowly starts to reopen, Ticketmaster will continue to work alongside each of their partners to streamline the ticketing entry process.
