Major Fair

Mobility, wireless and big data solution tracks attendee opportunities in real-time.

CLIENT CASE STUDY

THE CHALLENGE

Running a Major Fair Grounds may seem old-fashioned with its midway rides, stage shows, live stock and food. But behind the scenes, it’s 100% serious business when it comes to making the 2+ week event a fun and financial success.

With more than 500,000 visitors, this Major Fair recognized its growth had outrun its ability to efficiently operate critical aspects of its annual fair. Millions of dollars were at stake on both sides of the financial ledger. The issues at hand:

• Paper-based ticketing system didn’t accurately reflect the actual number of visitors on the grounds at any one time.
• Visitor tracking to monitor attendee flow and minimize bottlenecks was obsolete and potentially restricting revenue at concessions, shows, rides, food.
• Bandwidth management for vendors operating their concessions required high-speed and high-availability access to ensure transaction turn-around.
• Revenue and expense management opportunities across multiple sources could benefit from big data analytics.

Solving these issues would enable the fair to dramatically improve the visitor experience, improve vendor and overall fair operations, and generate a significant ROI.

Here’s how this Major Fair worked with Greyson Technologies and their Florida-based team of certified, trusted professionals on a way to uniquely enhance their wireless infrastructure and significantly improve its overall operations.

THE SOLUTION

In the course of working on a high-availability firewall, response time, wireless LAN project with Greyson, the client also engaged the Greyson engineers on-site about the feasibility of using wireless tracking as a way to improve vendor and fair operations, and the overall visitor experience. What began as an ad hoc dialogue quickly resulted in a fast-tracked project that would provide:

1. Accurate count of visitors on the grounds
2. Specific location of visitors for flow management
3. High-speed access and availability for vendor transactions
4. Transaction hooks into a big data model for revenue enhancement and expense control

To address these requirements, Greyson developed a technology adoption plan for the client that added the following components to its existing wireless infrastructure:

• Cisco® Mobility Services Engine
• Cisco® Connected Mobile Experiences
• Greyson Professional Services

Utilizing the Cisco wireless infrastructure already in place (Cisco® Prime, LAN Controller and 75 Access Points), the Greyson solution was designed, implemented, tested and activated within two weeks. It effectively enables wireless tracking of all visitors to the fair via their mobile phones, and in turn provides the client with accurate data required for real-time operations management of visitors, vendors and staff. The solution also feeds the client’s big data model for continuous improvement of fair operations.

THE RESULTS

The wireless tracking solution delivered by Greyson significantly improved:

• Visitor attendance accuracy
  • Pre-solution only about one-third of visitors were actually counted
• Vendor bandwidth management
  • Accurate visitor tallies to ensure access and availability during peak periods based on historic data
• Revenue and expense improvements
  • Revenue subsidies from local jurisdictions
  • Revenue opportunities via wireless incentives to concessions, shows, rides, food based on location
  • Revenue opportunities based on flow management to minimize bottlenecks and maximize attendance at concessions, shows, rides, food, etc.
  • Revenue opportunities through faster vendor transaction processing times, plus fewer lost and/or re-run transactions
  • Expense control with visibility into staffing requirements for grounds, security, parking, transportation, management and other personnel