Eventbrite Promises Shorter Wait Times, Better Experience With RFID Wristbands

One of the biggest drags of going to shows has and always will be waiting in line to get in. It’s all too common that you will wait in line at the bare minimum of a few minutes all the way up to a few hours. Enabling a streamlined entry into an event is the gold standard of ticketing companies. Eventbrite, a self-service ticketing platform, has upped their game compared to most others. They have recently acquired Scintilla Technologies, which is an entry management RFID (radio-frequency identification) hardware and software company.

You’re probably familiar with this type of tech if you have ever been to EDC, Coachella or one of the larger festivals. Small RFID chips are placed into cloth wristbands so people can literally wave themselves into the show. No pulling out the ticket, having it scanned and fumbling around while others behind you wait. (Side note: Seriously people, have your ticket ready when you get to the entrance.)

Eventbrite plans to take this technology out of the music festival industry and use in other places such as sporting events, conventions, marathons, etc. The ultimate goal is to make the user experience in both buying the tickets and going to the show better and more streamlined.

But that’s not the only benefit of having this RFID wristband technology. According to Eventbrite’s website, these are the additional accommodations it would create:

• Access control that is fully operational when offline; encrypted data is written to each individual wristband and entry portal so RFID chips can be read and updated with access changes at any time, even during network outages.
• Ability to rapidly assign wristbands to attendees with Eventbrite Neon, using a single RFID-enabled handheld; the same technology that cut wait times from hours to 30 minutes at Anime Expo and is currently being used at Tough Mudder endurance events.
• Lightweight, flexible portals that allow for rapid, real-time addition, removal and re-configuration of entry gates.
• Self-service fulfillment tracking and order management tools for attendees on Eventbrite.com to reduce the customer support load on organizer staff, both pre-event and on-site.
• Wristband activity dashboard available on web and mobile (via Eventbrite Neon); includes real-time insights to inform onsite operational changes and customized post-event reporting for analysis of all access points and cashless transactions.
• Best-in-class partners for fulfillment, credentials, and cashless capabilities.

It seems like this will definitely benefit both the end user and the promotion companies themselves. However, the one concern for us is the cloning of RFID tags. It is not stated whether the new wristbands will have cryptography standards in the devices that are up to the EMV security standards that are common in the new Credit Card RFID technology. But then again, we are not sure how much of your encrypted information will actually be in the wristband RFID. This is something that we will be paying close attention to as the technology becomes more prevalent.

Laurent Sellier, Eventbrite VP of Product, had this to say about the new direction for entry services provided by Eventbrite:

We’re excited to be building a complete end-to-end solution that will reduce the complexity and risk currently preventing large events and festivals from realizing the benefits of RFID technology.

We hope this milestone at Eventbrite will set a precedent for the ticketing industry and we begin to see this technology at more festivals as it evolves and becomes more mainstream. What do you think of this cool product? Have you ever had any issues with it before? Tell us in the comments below.