HID for the third consecutive time is the smart ticket producer for the FIFA World Cup and this year, the company also provided a fully customised solution for outer-perimeter access control and all exit gates to ensure a smooth exit and facilitate emergency evacuations, featuring eight stadiums spread across five Qatari cities.
Counterfeiting is a concern of event organizers, so FIFA relied on HID to deliver approximately 2 million paper tickets manufactured with unique security features, including a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) inlay.
Unlike barcoded tickets, which can be counterfeited more easily, RFID transmits the unique identity of a ticket and ticket holder via radio waves. And because RFID scanners do not need a direct line of sight like traditional barcode scanners, ticket validation is frictionless, dramatically speeding up admissions in high-volume events such as World Cup matches.
“It is exciting to see our smart ticket solutions help fuel the fan experience for one of the world’s largest and most-watched events,” says Björn Lidefelt, EVP and Head of HID. “Helping bring the world together for an event like the World Cup is what our technology is all about.”
As part of the project, HID provided personalization solution for the secure tickets, including self-service kiosks for media seat assignment tickets, cabinets for tickets instant issuing with special printers for on-the-go ticket personalization, thousands of handheld scanners and on-site support during each match. An accompanying Event Management Platform (EMP) from HID will provide real-time data and reporting through several user-friendly dashboards, which will help security officials and event organizers to remotely monitor and manage everything from the number of attendees at each entry and exit point to media credentialing and crowd control.
The company also implemented an outer-perimeter access control layer of security checks in each stadium and training fields across the country. To support this, hundreds of gates embed a new, patent-pending, UHF booster technology developed by HID, which serves as a companion device for common UHF readers to enhance the RFID tag reading capacity in challenging use cases. Units are integrated within the HID EMP for real-time events tracking and monitoring of the system health. Most importantly, this all happens automatically to maintain a seamless flow in and out of the gates and ensure optimum user experience for the fans.
“Having real-time data of when ticket holders are going in and out of the perimeter is crucial for event organizers to ensure the best possible experience for fans to accredited people, as well as obtain intelligence as to where a particular gate needs more attention in terms of crowd control and emergency evacuation,” explains Cesare Paciello, HID’s Vice President of Events and Mobility Solutions for Identification Technologies and head of the project.