Optimizing You Stadium Technology and Event POS Solutions For The Fall Season
Immediately following the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine restrictions, event sales took a nosedive. Now, as we reach the end of 2022, stadiums and event centers have finally started to see sales return to normal, or even surpass pre-pandemic levels. Many event-goers are showing more enthusiasm than ever to get back to live events, and leaders in the event industry agree that demand is at an all-time high for concerts, festivals, and sporting events alike. The remainder of 2022 and the years following are expected to be a “landmark period” for events industries, with event-goers spending up to three times more on their events trips than pre-COVID levels. These trends prove that stadiums and event centers need to ensure that they have event POS and stadium technology with the capability to handle the large amounts of crowds headed your way. Just in time for the fall season, with ticket sales promising to rise, here are 4 vital ways your event POS should be benefiting your business.
1. Increasing Customer Experiences
You’ve probably experienced the difficulties that the pandemic brought to customer experience- especially in the event industry. Staffing shortages and the state of public health restrictions have undoubtedly made it hard to manage customer satisfaction. Customer expectations have been challenging to meet, following a time of economic changes and supply chain issues. Now is the time to gain back some points with your customers once they are at your stadium or event with fast interactions at checkout, thanks to user-friendly interfaces that allow staff to move through inventory and payment options quickly. Speed is of the essence, whether it’s so that customers can get back to the event, or simply to keep lines moving. With scanning age verification for alcohol or over 18 passes, you can reduce wait times and keep your patrons happy.
The right event POS will make sure you never lose the ability to make a sale. With a state-of-the-art solution built to keep your business safe and embedded OS, you’ll have the peace of mind that your technology is free of spyware or viruses. Choose an event POS or stadium technology with one-hundred percent terminal redundancy, a self-healing network, and no single point of failure. All of these features ensure that you can still run at full capacity, even if you experience a temporary internet outage.
Another way you can take advantage of the massive upshift in event sales and keep your customers smiling- and returning to your venue- is to offer different promotions. Multiple price points for individual items, especially fall-related concessions such as pumpkin-flavored items and pretzels, will send your concession sales skyrocketing. Additionally, mix and match pricing and member or quantity pricing will send your stadium or event sales upward- and the right event POS will make it simple and easy to implement.
2. Using Stadium Technology to Line Bust
With an abundance of customers at an event or show and only a few staff to man concession stands and memorabilia booths, thanks to labor shortages, lines can back up. Keep lines moving by offering line-busting solutions, such as self-service kiosks dispersed throughout the stadium or staff deployed with mobile tablet POS solutions. Customers do not like waiting, so keep them moving with stadium technology solutions. The right event POS will have the capability to let them put in an order and return to the event, only returning once their order is ready for pick up. This streamlines the entire concession experience for both patrons and staff. Additionally, automated order entry will reduce stress on your concession staff by keeping orders organized and allowing them to focus more on order fulfillment instead of order entry. Another bonus? Automated ordering increases health and safety precautions by minimizing cashier-to-customer contact and cash exchange. These solutions are now easy to implement with your standard checkout counters and POS systems with scalable, flexible setups, able to handle up to sixty-four terminals.
Another great way to line bust is to offer mobile ordering. More and more event centers are implementing mobile ordering, so that their event goers can order food and merchandise from their phone, allowing them to absorb the event instead of missing it while standing in line. This in turn reduces crowding and long lines at concessions and boosts customer satisfaction with prompted order pick-up times. More happy customers mean more returning customers, and keeping lines moving is a vital part of increasing customer satisfaction. Another bonus for event center and stadium owners is that you will increase your bottom line with built-in adaptive upselling technology, easy to implement with the right event POS.
3. Make Purchasing Options Readily Available with eCommerce
You have a lot to think about when deciding what event POS or stadium technology to implement. An essential feature you can’t miss out on is automated upselling and promotions on your ticket and merchandise, which will let you take advantage of the sales spike you’ll naturally see this season. Not only will these solutions assist the line busting at the front gate and within your facility, but it can increase your bottom line as well.
4. Take Advantage of Back End Insights on Your Event POS System
The best way your event POS system can assist you is by giving you insights and reports into your latest operations. With advanced reporting features, you’ll be able to manage your inventory, employee time clocks, and get alerts delivered straight to your phone or tablet. Start by mastering inventory, and ensure that you never run out of the merchandise or snacks your customers love. Built-in inventory control allows managers to track usage and cost for individual inventory items, receive inventory reports remotely via tablet, and access “on the spot” inventory with real-time tracking.
You also need to take control of your staff and labor management. With Labor Management reports, managers can track clock-ins and clock-outs, work with staff to schedule grace periods, and view detailed timekeeping and payroll reports. You’ll know exactly who is working at what time, and be able to make sure your venue is adequately staffed.
Your POS system should work for you, not against you with a mobile system. Streamline your operations with email or text alerts sent to your smartphone or tablet, dashboards to review snapshot data, and off-site backup of POS data. Additionally, the right event POS or stadium technology will allow you to access archived reports for historical viewing, making it easy to pull up past reports so you can make your future operations run more smoothly. Finally, POS programming that can be deployed to a single store, group of stores, or all stores makes managing an event center enterprise easier than ever. With advanced reporting, you’ll be able to evaluate the summer season and see where you can improve as the fall approaches.
NCC’s event POS and stadium technology are completely customizable to fit your specifications, and will ensure that you’re ready to face the crowds this fall. In the events industry, your customers are your number one priority. Deliver the best customer experience possible and streamline your operations with the Reflection POS® during this busy season.
