Digital Ticketing
Discussion
Mk2Jag said:
Saturday was the worst I ve ever known for lack of WIFI or 4/5G. Literally could not receive or send anything on my phone for the whole day.
unlike the Festival of Speed and Revival I suspect the additional temporary mobile masts are not brought in for Members Meeting due to the lower attendance numbers. Probably not enough people to make it worth the mobile operators bothering.I thought I would add some comments about the new digital ticket system for 83MM.
In theory it was a good idea, but in practice it just didn’t work. Goodwood should really have done more with the app to ensure it ran in “offline” mode which would have stopped it hunting for wifi/4/5G, and also Goodwood well knows the signal in that area on a race day is poor, let alone when many thousands of people start trying to access an app for QR scanning at multiple times a day.
You could see all weekend that the use of the app was killing the overall mobile data bandwidth from the local masts, goodwood free WiFi clearly overwhelmed, coverage is never amazing but that’s the worst I’ve ever experienced in 11 years of doing that event.
To add further issues the old app that was retired (which was very handy) no longer works it was good for the event programme and instead they had the “event companion” which wasn’t a part of the ticketing app but a weblink to open separately which never worked at all during the peak racing of both days, this is a real shame a big loss as the old app ran nicely allowing you to set the itinerary which provided notifications for each race. We had bought a paper programme which was fine but a hassle to keep pulling out of my rucksack when the old app used to popup when the next races were about to start, it also had the site map, and other useful content about the races.
Saturday we got in relatively easy as it was early and we had tickets open in the app from leaving our cottage on wifi, the app luckily stayed open and displayed the tickets, but lots of people were already having issues behind us maybe they had lost signal or tried refreshing the app, who knows, I suspect a screen shot would work for a short while until the active ticket refreshed itself.
However like many people our tickets seemed to disappear over Saturday night and Sunday morning we were back at the circuit by 7am, app loaded but had no ticket to display, but we had time before gates open to locate emails and proof of purchase, it was clear staff were already stressing about the situation, the poor app support lady was already running for cover. Lots of people were not able to see their tickets and the app kept freezing.
A friend who had shared tickets he had bought had to go back out to the gate to help and show emails to prove purchase because the shared tickets were not available for the other couple who were being refused entry, which was all lost event time so he wasn’t happy.
I cannot imagine using this facility at the bigger events like revival and FOS.
Maybe Goodwood needs to go back to the paper ticket then collection of the swing tag with its QR and issue the paper tags for grandstands again, I’m all for tech and progress but only if it works.
They also need to bring back the old app for the event programme and race alerts, or develop the new app but something needs to change because the event companion was completely useless.
It’s still an amazing event, it won’t stop me going but I feel for the staff and anyone who isn’t as tech savvy as it was clearly causing people extra stress and hassle, from what I could see the current system isn’t fit for purpose, and access into and out the circuit gates, and access to the stands would have been smoother, less queues and better without it, that says a lot.
It will be interesting to see what feedback Goodwood gets on the survey it’s recently sent out… and what they do next!
In theory it was a good idea, but in practice it just didn’t work. Goodwood should really have done more with the app to ensure it ran in “offline” mode which would have stopped it hunting for wifi/4/5G, and also Goodwood well knows the signal in that area on a race day is poor, let alone when many thousands of people start trying to access an app for QR scanning at multiple times a day.
You could see all weekend that the use of the app was killing the overall mobile data bandwidth from the local masts, goodwood free WiFi clearly overwhelmed, coverage is never amazing but that’s the worst I’ve ever experienced in 11 years of doing that event.
To add further issues the old app that was retired (which was very handy) no longer works it was good for the event programme and instead they had the “event companion” which wasn’t a part of the ticketing app but a weblink to open separately which never worked at all during the peak racing of both days, this is a real shame a big loss as the old app ran nicely allowing you to set the itinerary which provided notifications for each race. We had bought a paper programme which was fine but a hassle to keep pulling out of my rucksack when the old app used to popup when the next races were about to start, it also had the site map, and other useful content about the races.
Saturday we got in relatively easy as it was early and we had tickets open in the app from leaving our cottage on wifi, the app luckily stayed open and displayed the tickets, but lots of people were already having issues behind us maybe they had lost signal or tried refreshing the app, who knows, I suspect a screen shot would work for a short while until the active ticket refreshed itself.
However like many people our tickets seemed to disappear over Saturday night and Sunday morning we were back at the circuit by 7am, app loaded but had no ticket to display, but we had time before gates open to locate emails and proof of purchase, it was clear staff were already stressing about the situation, the poor app support lady was already running for cover. Lots of people were not able to see their tickets and the app kept freezing.
A friend who had shared tickets he had bought had to go back out to the gate to help and show emails to prove purchase because the shared tickets were not available for the other couple who were being refused entry, which was all lost event time so he wasn’t happy.
I cannot imagine using this facility at the bigger events like revival and FOS.
Maybe Goodwood needs to go back to the paper ticket then collection of the swing tag with its QR and issue the paper tags for grandstands again, I’m all for tech and progress but only if it works.
They also need to bring back the old app for the event programme and race alerts, or develop the new app but something needs to change because the event companion was completely useless.
It’s still an amazing event, it won’t stop me going but I feel for the staff and anyone who isn’t as tech savvy as it was clearly causing people extra stress and hassle, from what I could see the current system isn’t fit for purpose, and access into and out the circuit gates, and access to the stands would have been smoother, less queues and better without it, that says a lot.
It will be interesting to see what feedback Goodwood gets on the survey it’s recently sent out… and what they do next!
Stuff like is done only to save money, no other reason, it is what drives ticketless.
Only reason it will be pulled is if considerable numbers of people stop buying tickets, or complain in enough numbers.
Otherwise any firm doing this will take the hit and enjoy the immense savings from not printing and mailing tickets, it must be huge.
Only reason it will be pulled is if considerable numbers of people stop buying tickets, or complain in enough numbers.
Otherwise any firm doing this will take the hit and enjoy the immense savings from not printing and mailing tickets, it must be huge.
I found the app worked fine on Saturday, but had a hiccup on Sunday, cured in seconds. I'd recovered from my trauma before I'd finished my bacon sandwich. And the only reason I missed phone coverage was that TSL or similar wasn't accessible. In other respects it was actually a relief not to be looking at the damn thing every 5 minutes. There were much better things to see...
Who cares ? Business wants to increase, or maintain profits - so what ? At worst , it was a minor inconvenience whose occurence did nothing to spoil my enjoyment of my motor sport year's favourite event. Those who were having issues only had to ask one of the ever helpful Goodwood staff to sort it out.
bergclimber34 said:
I doubt that is a big issue with motorsport events, some, may be, but not stuff like Goodwood, profit is the main reason.
Goodwood were very active in closing down secondary sales, having listings on Stubhub and eBay removed and invalidating any tickets they knew to be resales. They even had the Pistonhead thread closed. They cared a lot about anyone other than them profiteering.The postage cost of physical tickets was added at checkout and paid by the buyer. I doubt the savings in printing will add a lot to Goodwood's bottom line.
WhyOne said:
bergclimber34 said:
Stuff like is done only to save money, no other reason, it is what drives ticketless.
...
I dont believe this is the case at all. If it was about cost, why do the still give (far more expensive) metal swing badges and 'house' tags to everyone?...
WhyOne said:
bergclimber34 said:
Stuff like is done only to save money, no other reason, it is what drives ticketless.
...
I dont believe this is the case at all. If it was about cost, why do the still give (far more expensive) metal swing badges and 'house' tags to everyone?...
And all of the admin that comes with printing thousands of QR codes.
I really don't understand the issues with the etickets. Every major event uses them now, I found it far easier to share tickets among our group, and the only small issue one member of our group had was fixed in <30 seconds by a member of staff by the gate.
Monsterwunsch said:
How much do you think it cost them to make up 10s of thousands of individual ticket packs and post them to everyone?
And all of the admin that comes with printing thousands of QR codes.
As far as I am aware, it is all outsourced to Fine Print Services - they look to be highly automated.And all of the admin that comes with printing thousands of QR codes.
Serial numbering each badge with a QR code is pretty trivial. They still need paying for what they do of course.
There is no saving on the swing badges as they have made them anyway - as it happens, I think that was in response to complaints that attendees considered that a part of the event, and still wanted a badge.
What happens to this mysterious 'booking fee' of £5 that gets added at the checkout? We also used to get charged carriage for the tickets.. and that was way more than the postage element.
Countered by the event having to buy and staff four sheds for two days where you could queue up to collect your unserialised swing badge.
Anybody else's ticket app never open further than this, my mrs bought my tickets which has already been an issue as have needed to pinch her email address to login, havent been able to get on the app once to view my tickets, would happily pay extra to receive paper tickets in the post, as concerned ill have issues on the days (doing all 4)
alexabsolute said:
Anybody else's ticket app never open further than this, my mrs bought my tickets which has already been an issue as have needed to pinch her email address to login, havent been able to get on the app once to view my tickets, would happily pay extra to receive paper tickets in the post, as concerned ill have issues on the days (doing all 4)
Just checked mine, and it opens fine.. even shows my tickets for next year's Members' Meeting!Did the app ask you to log in or did it not even get that far?
alexabsolute said:
It asks for a login, however just proceeds to the attached screen eternally and doesnt allow me to provide login details etc
Whoever they're outsourcing to are awful at updating the app, they do a breaking change each time, and I'm sure don't make it backward compatible with any cached or stored data on the phone. Remove and re-install is the only way to solve it. I really REALLY object to having to furnish them with my home address, my date of birth and other personal data. I want a ticket to an event, not to marry them!
I've used a false date of birth (obviously) an have tried using a 'different' address (Goodwood House, to be specific, and then one close to home) but it comes up with
EMAIL ADDRESS IS ALREADY REGISTERED WITH YOUR LOGINRADIUS SITE
Any way around this? It's the last event I'll ever go to at Goodwood for this reason alone.
I've used a false date of birth (obviously) an have tried using a 'different' address (Goodwood House, to be specific, and then one close to home) but it comes up with
EMAIL ADDRESS IS ALREADY REGISTERED WITH YOUR LOGINRADIUS SITE
Any way around this? It's the last event I'll ever go to at Goodwood for this reason alone.
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