With a helping push from their facial-authentication ticketing program, the Cleveland Browns and their concession partners have successfully developed a concept called “Express Beer” where fans use facial authentication technology to verify age and payment information to greatly speed up food and beverage purchases.
Reaching a total of approximately 5,000 transactions for the entire 2023 season, the Express Beer program more than doubled internal expectations, leading the Browns and their partners to consider where else they might deploy facial authentication technology in the stadium concession and retail realms.
“It’s popular with the fans, and it’s good for business,” said Brandon Covert, vice president for information technology at the Cleveland Browns, who said the Express Beer operation (which this year was sponsored by Bud Light) hit more than twice its original revenue goals in 2023. “Now we’re asking, how do we get facial authentication on merchandise sales, or on other concession stands?”
A faster way to authenticate age and payment information
If you’re not familiar with the Express Beer program, here’s a quick primer. Fans who are already enrolled in the Cleveland Browns’ “Express Access” ticketing system that uses facial authentication technology from a Cambridge, Mass.-based startup called Wicket must add additional information to their profile to use the Express Beer stands. That information includes back and front photos of a state-issued I.D., a selfie photograph, and a valid credit card number.
Once enrolled, fans can simply go to any of the Express Beer stands and after a quick validation check to prove they are enrolled, they enter the one-way line, select their beverages and snacks from grab-and-go layouts, and stare at a tablet screen at the end of the line, where their age and payment information are verified. A staffer there will enter the items the customer has selected into the system, and after checking to make sure alcoholic beverage containers are opened, will send the customer on their way, with billing taking place online.
Like other new low-friction concession technology options that have emerged in the stadium space, the Express Beer setup significantly reduces the time spent in line in two ways: One, since fans have to sign up beforehand, not everyone at the game can get into an Express Beer line; Two, with age and payment verification confirmed by a simple stare into a screen, the transaction times can take seconds instead of a minute or more for payment and ID checking at other types of stands.
“Age validation, in the traditional form of checking an ID, is a major pinch point in the purchasing process across the industry,” said Alicia Woznicki, vice president of design and development for Aramark Sports + Entertainment, the Browns’ stadium concessionaire. Aramark, along with the Browns and Wicket and some other partners, have been fine-tuning the “Express Beer” concept over the past few years, going from an initial idea using mobile-device ordering to the format used this season.
In addition to the Wicket software, the components for Express Beer stands used during the 2023 season included age and ID verification services from a Boulder, Colo.-based company, IDmission; point-of-sale and menu software from a Pasadena, Calif.-based company, TapIn2; and credit card verification and fan loyalty information systems from Lava.ai, a San Francisco-based startup.
Ticketing program provides ready customers
According to Lloyd Ruch, vice president of client services and a co-founder of TapIn2, an initial version of the Express Beer concept (then called “Cleveland Cold Ones”) was based on having fans pre-order their choices via a mobile device app. During the 2022 season, the Cold Ones concept evolved to include the Wicket technology as a payment and verification option, but still with the mobile-ordering part included. For 2023, Ruch said, the partners decided to drop the mobile-ordering component and make the “Express Beer” stands an easier activity for fans.
“Mobile ordering anywhere is a challenge,” said Ruch, whose company provides mobile-ordering software for many stadiums, but mostly in premium-seating type situations. The balance of fans at most stadiums, Ruch said, gravitate toward simpler options.
“This year with Express Beer, fans can just grab what they want, and use their face to pay and for their ID,” Ruch said.
What makes Express Beer work, the partners agree, is the Browns’ emphasis on enrolling fans into the Express Access ticketing program, which the team says now has more than 35,000 registered users. Fans who are already enrolled in that program or fans who are signing up for Express Access for the first time can add the Express Beer information quickly and simply as a follow-on registration.
“It’s easier to get people who are already signed up for ticketing to add credit card and ID information and a photo,” Ruch said. “If you’re just trying to get people to sign up for mobile ordering, that’s a small funnel. With the ticket program in Cleveland, it’s a bigger funnel and a natural fit.”
Aramark’s Woznicki said the program can also work both ways, incentivizing fans to sign up for the Express Access program so they can get their beer faster.
“By creating designated beer stations throughout the venue that have no lines and an extremely short ‘transaction’ time, we not only provide a great, frictionless experience for fans but essentially create an incentive for fans to want to sign up,” Woznicki said.
Putting the partners together
Though the list of partners may seem long for a small beverage operation, all the companies involved said that the prevalance of application programming interfaces (APIs) in modern software made the integration a fairly straightforward task.
In addition to Wicket’s facial authentication software, the parts played by the partners include online verification of the state-issued IDs and linking those to a person’s photo, a service IDmission has been performing for years for banks and other financial institutions; Point-of-sale and menu software from TapIn2, which in addition to mobile device software also provides software for self-ordering kiosks; and credit-card information storage from Lava.ai, whose platform will also support links to the Browns’ fan-loyalty program, an attribute Covert said will be emphasized more directly in 2024.
Aramark, which sort of acts as a conductor in bringing all the parts together, is actively involved in using facial authentication for ID and payment at other venues, including as a front end to the Zippin checkout-free concession stands at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver. According to Woznicki, the technology is likely to find uses at other concession-related options in Cleveland and elsewhere.
“We are always looking to innovate in meaningful ways and biometric age and payment validation is top of mind for us as we strive to create the best guest experience, drive speed of service and reduce friction points,” Woznicki said. “Stay tuned for what else we have in store.”
For the Browns, Covert sees a possible future ahead where the Wicket-based verification and payment system is combined with other technologies, like the Mashgin optical-scanning terminals the Browns already have at Cleveland Browns Stadium. Like in ticketing, Covert said the Wicket systems could also help solve for staffing needs, since the automated concession stands typically require fewer attendants to operate.
And then, by making it easier to buy things, the hope is that fans buy more.
“It’s so much easier to buy stuff when you just smile to pay,” Covert said. “When it’s that super easy, there’s lots of revenue upside.”
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