Jan. 12, 2013
By Matt Winkeljohn
Sting Daily
Who hasn’t walked into an arena or stadium and thought, “I’m sure glad I’m here, but I’d really like to be down there, closer to the action?”
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If you have tickets to Georgia Tech’s game today against Virginia Tech and a smartphone, you can do something about your, uh, predicament as soon as you walk into McCamish Pavilion.
This afternoon will be the first time that ticket-holding Tech fans can upgrade their with new technology provided by Experience, an Atlanta-based company with Georgia Tech graduates behind the scenes.
“When our patrons come into McCamish, they are able to use their smartphone and go to the dedicated website, and then they can see which types of inventory we have for that game,” said Rick Thorpe, Tech associate athletic director for sales and fan experience.
“The ticket information appears on your smart phone … and you and your party go to that section, show the usher your phone, and they’ll see that it’s valid and allow you to go to your seats.”
All of this depends upon availability, which will fluctuate on a game-by-game basis. Georgia Tech Athletic Association officials tried this on a limited basis last Saturday for the ACC opener against Miami, and they envision using a similar process next football season.
Transactions are completed with a credit card number. Going to the website does not mandate a transaction; that will be the choice of a customer upon viewing available seats.
“It’s a very easy process,” Thorpe said. “We rolled out a soft [limited] launch for the Miami game. We had little to no issues. We had a lot of good feedback. Once you’ve done it once, you will receive an e-mail on when windows will open each game.
“With Georgia Tech being at the forefront in engineering and technology . . . we’re always taking a look at new technologies. We have the vision of taking this forward into next football season. We also rolled out complimentary wi-fi for patrons in the club seats. We may do it for different seats in future. We’re excited about all of this.”
