24/7 Software custodians of venue safety



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Michael Karp at Coliseum Europe 2023 Image: Coliseum GSVA

Lot of venues are facing an increase in poor spectator behavior like getting into drunken brawls and damage to property which causes security issues of almost gigantic proportions. Such kind of behavior causes sleepless nights to the venue operators and also reflects poorly on the venue image.

Michael Karp who is the Senior Product Manager for 24/7 Software asserted that to prevent such unruly incidents from occurring in stadia, the communication and task management software company 24/7 Software use their systems to promote security and increase efficiency and effectiveness of operations in venues. The company’s software platform also helps in organizing maintenance tasks efficiently for smooth venue operations.

Michael Karp, who is from South Florida (US) is a Senior Product Manager leading 24/7 Software’s product strategy for Integrations and Analytics. He has got the zeal to work with customers and industry leaders and to help create connected venues with advanced sports technology integrations.

Michael Karp, Senior Product Manager, 24/7 Software, US, reveals in a lengthy exchange with ‘Coliseum’ as to how the 24/7 Software works with over 85 percent of North American major sports teams and how their software helps to make venue operations an easy ride. Since the American football fans like to have a lot of fun around the stadia – even if they actually don’t have tickets to the event – this leads to major security, medical and guest experiences issues which the software development company helps tackle in a streamlined manner.
 

24/7 Software

Florida (US)-based 24/7 Software is the global leading provider of operations and safety management software for the world’s greatest venues across Sports, Leisure and Entertainment. The software solutions include incident and emergency management, realtime communications for venue guests and staff, computerized maintenance management, lost and found, and advanced analytics for gathering and analyzing key data across venues and events.

24/7 Software is a global company with operations and offices across North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia, India, and Latin America.
 

Mission

Maintained Michael Karp, “We love events, stadia and venues and it is our mission to empower world-class operations and exceptional experiences and as our name implies, we at 24/7 with our partners across the globe to do just that.”
 

Modus Operandi

Added Karp, “Our Software as a Service Solution (SaaS) effectively acts as the centralized operating system for events and empowers our customers to deliver these exceptional experiences across leisure, sports and entertainment or as we have coined-it the LSE industry.”

24/7 Software works with over 85 percent of North American major sports teams as well as directly with the National Football League (NFL). Globally, they work with several Olympic Parks across Australia, New Zealand and Canada and in the United Kingdom they work with the Premier League team Manchester United F.C., the 31,180-capacity Lord’s Cricket Ground and the 20,000-capacity The O2 Arena.
 

Software as a Service (SaaS)

The Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which a cloud provider hosts applications and makes them available to end users over the Internet. In this model, an independent software vendor (ISV) may contract a third-party cloud provider to host the application.
 

Beginnings

He informed that the 24/7 Software started as a text messaging service – “We were the first company to offer text messaging to dispatch in a stadium. Fans utilizing our service could report medical incidents and security incidents, people smoking or fighting or breaking chairs or any questions they might have about the event that was running. So, as we learned we shape our tools and then our tools shape us.”

Once the company rolled out the text messaging services “we saw a decrease in the large risk networks going on in the stadium, but we saw an increase in the number of incidents actually from increased reporting. After our initial success with the texting service we worked with our other customers to understand what else they need from an operations platform while running events to have 24/7 security within their stadiums and venues. So, the platform that we delivered ultimately included the initial texting service but also incident management systems for dispatch, computer-aided facility management, task management, and lost and found. So, effectively all of these different departments in a venue or stadium are either utilizing, working with our software or understanding the data that is being generated out of it. This led to our acronym ACDA -awareness, communication, documentation, and analytics. And this is how we benchmark our projects.”

To drive home his above observations, Karp narrated how a senior personnel of the Major League Baseball (MLB) team San Diego Padres got stabbed and the 24/7 Software facility management software which has been deployed at the Padres’ venue – the 42,445-capacity Petco Park in San Diego, California – helped generate a report resulting in a meeting with the Mayor and the Police Department and “based on the data that they were able to generate out of our software led to increased police presence directly from the City at the arena without any increased cost and this even helped them to keep their fans doubly safe. Thus, our software has been utilized to provide additional value to these communities and facilities. All of these functions make 24/7 Software the natural aggregation point for different data systems that are used to run event operations.”

The 24/7 Software ticketing integrations systems also helps to track down rowdy fans allowing the venue to decide whether they want to allow these unruly guests in next time to an event in the stadium or show them the door.

To improve the guest experience, the 24/7 Software boasts the Internet of Things (IoT) sensor integrations on the automation side which trigger off work orders into their system and helps in replenishing paper towels in restrooms and also helps to keep the facilities squeaky clean and all this without manual intervention – “One does not need to send people around the facility to do checks. Some other ways that the IoT sensors have been leveraged are video cameras picking up overflowing trash cans, facial recognition services as well as surveys to push data into our system and that really helps from both a fan identity as well as an automation perspective. With our survey system integrations, fans can give feedback if they had a poor experience at the food and beverage station. To compensate for this poor experience, they can be offered a discount the next time they visit the facility. These are some ways our software is leveraged to bolster the guest experience at the venue.”
 

Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communications networks. The IoT encompasses electronics, communication and computer science engineering.
 

Case Study – Kansas City Chiefs

 

Kansas City Chiefs

The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league’s American Football Conference West division.
 

Arrowhead Stadium

The 76,416-capacity Arrowhead Stadium is an American football stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. It primarily serves as the home venue of the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League (NFL).

Exulted Karp, “I am excited to reveal that how a few key integrations of 24/7 Software have been leveraged by one of our premier customers – the Kansas City Chiefs – one from automation and one from identity.”

He further revealed that the Chiefs have seen “a great uptick in attendance at their facility – 73,500 spectators for game on an average per game in 2022 and our company is also to attribute for this because multiple departments within the Arrowhead Stadium utilize the 24/7 Software.”
 

Challenges

Talking about challenges, he said that deploying the integrations across the facility was “a huge challenge for facility operators to collate data siloed on multiple systems into a single-pane-of-glass”.

Continued Karp, “Our Customers also faced challenges while preparing for an event. We have an analytics engine to show the operators running events where lies the hotspots and the risk areas where fights and squabbles take place. Providing a safe and enthralling experience to fans is indeed very challenging and also to ensure troublemakers are stopped, identified and ejected or arrested if necessary.”

“On the video management side, when we were working with the Kansas City Chiefs we learnt that they were spending a lot of time on linking video to specific incidents that had occurred like a fan saying that he or she has slipped and fell down, which may lead to potential litigation. But the camera-video exercise to verify whether the fan is telling the truth is very time-consuming at scale. With all of these challenges, they provide a lack of ability to respond in the best way in realtime. But, with our software the task has become much easier as we have access to technology, systems, partners, and resources that they just might not have. Our workflow helps automate the connection in those videos that are captured, and the evidence is recorded and linked. Ultimately, the result that we achieved here with this integration project for the Kansas City Chiefs was a reduction in 99 percent of the time that they were spending on linking videos to the incidents. That’s a savings of 300 hours a month effectively – two more full-time employees – which means saving money too.”
 

Sum-up

Michael Karp summed up by stating, “It has been statistically shown that people are more likely to behave morally and ethically when they know they are being watched and 24/7 Software is helping venues to keep a tab on the activities and trends of the disorderly patrons to increase the safety and security quotient of stadia and provide guests meaningful and exhilarating moments while they are in the arena.”

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