Our weekly tech round-up from the stadium and arena sector…
The Houston Astros Major League Baseball (MLB) team has collaborated with Amazon to equip two food and beverage stores at Minute Maid Park with Amazon’s Just Walk Out self-service technology.
Fans visiting the two Just Walk Out technology-enabled stores can insert their credit card at the entry gates to shop. Once they’re inside, anything they take off the shelf is automatically added to their virtual cart, and anything they put back on the shelf comes out of their virtual cart. When fans have completed their shopping experience, they will be able to just leave the store and the credit card they inserted will be charged for the items they took.
Amazon’s Just Walk Out Shopping experience is made possible by the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars, such as computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning.
“The Astros are proud to collaborate with Amazon to bring their Just Walk Out Shopping experience to Minute Maid Park in 2022,” said Marcel Braithwaite, senior vice-president of business operations for the Astros. “We wanted to provide this state-of-the-art technology to our fans, giving them a more streamlined and convenient shopping experience so they can spend more time enjoying baseball.”
American Airlines Center, the home of the National Basketball Association’s Dallas Mavericks and National Hockey League’s Dallas Stars, has also introduced two new frictionless food and beverage experiences in collaboration with hospitality partner Levy and its DBK Studio subsidiary.
The stores are powered by autonomous retail technology from Standard AI and mobile payment technology from SpotOn.
Dave Brown, chief operating officer and general manager of American Airlines Center, said: “We are proud to be home to one of the first autonomous retail experiences at a major events venue. The fan experience at American Airlines Center is world-class, and with Standard we’re making it even better.
“Whether at a Mavericks or Stars game, or attending a world-class concert, our community expects and deserves the very best, so we continually strive to provide a cutting-edge experience for all fans in attendance. We know they’re going to love the new autonomous checkout experience.”
LaLiga team Granada CF has inaugurated the first interactive stadium tour in Spain.
The tour of Estadio Nuevo los Cármenes offers visitors interactive activities through augmented and virtual reality. The twice-weekly tour, which has been developed by Bstadium, visits the changing room tunnel, press room, playing field and presidential box.
Sports and entertainment consulting agency, Elevate Sports Ventures, has partnered with technology business Recentive Analytics to help sports teams, leagues and venues with predictive software solutions.
The Precast software solution is already used by more than 30 sporting clients including National Football League (NFL)’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Thrill one Sports and Entertainment, the National Basketball (NBA)’s Oklahoma City Thunder, National Hockey League (NHL)’s Dallas Stars, Seattle Kraken and Major League Soccer (MLS) side St. Louis City FC.
The software is used for revenue-driving and predictive solutions, and is powered by data resources and 98%-accurate proprietary machine-learning models. The partnership between Elevate and Recentive will look to develop a new software solution powered by artificial intelligence (AI) for ticketing. Read the full story on TheTicketingBusiness.
The Los Angeles Rams has launched a year-round virtual venue to provide innovative opportunities for fans, corporate partners and other stakeholders to engage with the team.
The Virtual Rams House, built by 6Connex, allows fans of this year’s Super Bowl winners to connect with each other via community chats on gamedays and beyond, and debate on discussion boards. Rams Season Ticket Members will be able to connect specifically with other members in their seating section, creating communities within the community.
The virtual environment will be the setting for the Rams’ first end-of-season summit, an event which will feature Rams executives recapping the previous season and discussing offseason plans and expectations for the upcoming 2022 season.
“We are pleased to team up with 6Connex to develop this first-of-a-kind platform for our fans,” said Kathryn Kai-ling Frederick, the Rams’ chief marketing officer. “With innovative features and functionality, 6Connex’s platform provides unique opportunities for fans to connect with our team and to each other through a one-of-a kind digital environment.”
