3 companies preparing for the Return of Spectators

So much of the sports-event industry’s return to action from the COVID-19 pandemic has been focused, as a first step, on making sure the competitors are able to carry out without the risk of catching the coronavirus.

But just as essential is how crowds will be able to become part of the scenery again — first in restricted numbers and then eventually in larger concentrations. The ability to have crowds is important for any team’s financial revenue. but they should also make sure that health and hygiene are foremost in their plan to host spectators again in their venues.

Here are three companies working with sports organizations to visualize a return of spectators to sports events.

Tracking fans at Their Wrists

TraceSAFE is one company that is trying to come up with a way to take the knowledge it has gained overseas and bring it to North American sports teams. The Laguna Hills, California-based company has recently been offering contact tracing wristbands to the Hong Kong government to make sure foreign visitors do not spread coronavirus in that metropolitan area. but its founders see a sports application as well.

The company’s disposable wristbands register a user through a wrist label that can log the user’s particular location for a period of time through a single application used by both the user and administrators. among other things, the wristband allows users to declare if they have entered quarantine and prompts periodic check-in acknowledgements for those who have been in contact with a person who has entered quarantine.

In sports, the company sees a number of potential uses for the technology.

“During the course of a game, it keeps tabs on who you were close to and for how long, all in a very privacy-minded way,” said Wayne Lloyd, president of the company. If you have been in contact with somebody who reports after the event that they have COVID, you would then be notified of that contact.

Lloyd said TraceSAFE is getting “huge interest” from teams and leagues in all professional sports. It recently signed a partnership deal with the Toronto Wolfpack, a very league rugby team, to use the wristbands for fans when they are eventually allowed to attend games again. While the most significant issue over use would be privacy issues for users, Lloyd said the wristbands are “totally secure” with modern encryption in each device.

He compared the use to similar bands used on site at Disney theme parks, which use a band system for rides and food and beverages. “(The Disney band) is a commercial Camiseta Gamba Osaka device,” Lloyd said. “Ours is a medical device that we’re bringing into a commercial environment. From the data sensitivity side, the Disney bands are not able to access any data about a person’s whereabouts (outside the venue). That’s all completely secure. It’s the same thing with our app.”

The partnership between TraceSAFE and the Wolfpack was generated by Toronto’s owner, David Argyle, who is a former company partner of TraceSAFE co-chair James Passin.

“Whatever Camiseta Copa Mundial de Fútbol the government allows the (capacity) protocols to be — 30 percent, 35 percent, 50 percent, whatever that number is — our relationship will give our fans a higher comfort level, which we believe will bring them back,” said Wolfpack Chairman and CEO Bob Hunter. “I don’t think anybody is comfortable in mass gatherings, but at the end of the day this is sort of a bubble around you that will give you, your family and your pals a higher level of comfort.”

The Wolfpack are in a distinct situation being the only team in Canada playing in The very League, which is the top tier of rugby in the United Kingdom. having won promotion to the league last year, the team may not be able to host home games the rest of the calendar year because of travel restrictions and quarantine policies in Canada and the UK — “it’s devastating to put it mildly,” said hunter of potentially missing on home games for several much more months. “We gained so much momentum last fall.”

In a way, that determination to make sure fans have greater peace of mind when they are allowed back is one of the elements that spurred the partnership between the team and company.

“The most significant learning experience is making sure we work with the venues and owners involved to make sure there’s an optimal fan experience,” Lloyd said. “Optimizing the fan experience and making sure it’s minimally invasive and completely seamless has been a big priority.”

Taking the contact out of Concessions

Spectators at events typically need refreshments — and venues will always need the income that comes with food and beverage purchases. To be able to do that in a post-COVID world, the need for concession purchases to be as contact-less Camiseta UNAM Pumas as possible will be imperative.

Sam Zietz is the founder and CEO of GRUBBRR, which makes contact-less kiosks for attendees to enter food and concession orders. The company, he said, has spent the summer having conversnull