Los Angeles Dodgers partner with WaitTime to better understand crowds & create the best experience

Los Angeles Dodgers have announced a partnership with WaitTime – an artificial intelligence solution that provides real-time insights about fans’ experiences – to help the Dodgers understand crowds and create the best ballpark experiences in and around Dodger Stadium.

WaitTime is a patented technology that has been used by entertainment venues around the world for crowd intelligence and crowd management. The Los Angeles Dodgers are using WaitTime to further understand various points of fan interest at the Dodger Stadium, including the new centerfield plaza, Gold Glove Bar and various seating locations. 

Ralph Esquibel, Vice President of Information Technology at the Los Angeles Dodgers, said:

We’ve made assumptions and different attempts, including the use of Wi-Fi datasets, access control, and other transactions, to understand where fans are at any given time, but to have WaitTime’s technology, which is incredibly accurate, is very powerful. We’re using this information to understand the impact of various points of interest, and this information will allow us to not only think about long-term revenue strategies but also understand how to better engage with fans and what is most impactful to them.

Los Angeles Dodgers will use WaitTime data, along with game data to gain insights into the atmosphere of the stadium at any given moment of time. This information will help the Dodgers glean intelligence about how fans are interacting, what they are enjoying about different locations, and how they can best activate various locations throughout the stadium.

Zachary Klima, CEO of WaitTime, said:

The Dodgers are known as one of the most forward-thinking teams in baseball, so it’s fitting the team is turning to WaitTime to provide a cutting-edge solution that’s going to give them an accurate view of fan behaviour. WaitTime will allow the Dodgers to make data-informed decisions like never before.

WaitTime uses highly sophisticated artificial intelligence to precisely count the number of people in a given area and determine whether they are passing through or waiting in line. With the Cisco Meraki cloud-first platform, WaitTime leverages video data from Meraki MV smart cameras to better understand and accommodate fan preferences and create smarter spaces. WaitTime also provides detailed analytics stadium operators can use to create efficiencies and provide better fan experiences.

WaitTime was integrated at Dodger Stadium by preferred systems integrator KLA Labs, and is enabled and optimised by Cisco UCS servers optimised for Intel technologies and powered by Cisco Meraki. 

Rose Schooler, Corporate Vice President, Global Data Center Sales at Intel Corporation, said:

WaitTime’s crowd management solution, fueled by Intel Xeon Scalable processors and Intel SSDs in combination with the Cisco Meraki smart camera video solution, offers the Dodgers real-time insights about crowd dynamics to better understand how fans are spending their time at the game, resulting in decisions based on business intelligence rather than assumptions. Intel Xeon Scalable processors with built-in AI acceleration maintain the real-time bandwidth requirements of the WaitTime’s AI algorithm, reducing costs and complexities.

Main image (top): WaitTime data report provided to Dodgers leadership after every event: our patented Artificial intelligence software Massing Algorithm in action over a concession line. (This is one location but they get this for every monitored location).

Courtesy: WaitTime

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