Maybe we should pivot to a single use ticket. Maybe made from something natural and biodegradable like paper? 
Jamie Pollard statement regarding ticket scanning process during home opener
- Thread starter jcordova8
- Start date
This. The idea that you just need to train the crowd to learn the technology and show up earlier is bullsh!t and unrealistic. And I am someone that sent tickets out to my group early and let everyone know they needed to load them into digital wallets and enable nfc on their phone. I did it early in the week so if there was any problem we would have plenty of time to call the ticket office and find a remedy. But do I expect everyone to be that prepared? Hell no! And frankly I don't think people should have too. It's a ******* football game. You shouldn't have to study and prepare just to get through the ******* gate in a reasonable amount of time.
The AD was caught flat footed. They should either have had way more scan points or have been better prepared to deal with people who were having problems. They dropped the ball and none of the responsibility falls on the fans.
At a minimum, next weekend people with scanner/barcode trouble need to be quickly taken aside so they can be manually verified by a staff member(s) for that purpose at each gate. If they have a valid ticket on their phone who cares if the scanner reads it or not once they are at the gate? It should still be possible to do that and not muck up the lines.
If we average one every 5 seconds and we have 17,000 to go, that’s 56 minutes with 25 ‘scanners’.
Are Iowa fans familiar with this system? No, then you’ll hear them complain about the lack of scanners and not enough PortaPots.
They would be heard over our complaining.
They would be heard over our complaining.
"I want some butt!"Full statement from JP here:
Jamie Pollard releases statement regarding new ticket scanning system
Photo Courtesy of Jon / @CycloneJonny on XAMES — In season-opener against Northern Iowa, Iowa State Athletics introduced a new ticket scanning system in order to enter Iowa State Football games. Athletic Director, Jamie Pollard, released a statement on Sunday following fan complaints about the ncyclonefanatic.com
I’m sure some, if not a good portion was user error. I had our 2 tickets on my phone. The first one scanned fine, the next one wouldn’t scan, sure, could be user error, but the attendant couldn’t get it to scan either. After 3 tries he finally got it to go.
It didn’t take that much time, but add my experience to just 10,000 of the people trying to get in and things really get backed up. Sounds like the North side had plenty of scanning lines, but the South had 6. I counted them on the way out. JP can blame fan stupidity all he wants, but ISU was just as unprepared for issues as any of the fans were.
We saw kickoff because we are always early to the gate, but i don’t care if it’s a new system or not, expecting fans to get to the gate an hour early just to see kickoff is not realistic, especially in that heat.
Being a tech guy for my whole life and an expert at quality control on tech, I can probably tell you the problem(s).
1. Tech, for the most part, is poor quality out of the gate for several reasons which if interested, I can expand upon.
2. Buyers almost always bite on the promises of technology, but they're equally at fault because they typically don't contractually obligate the seller. Which they should. For example: half up front and this much for people successfully scanned per minute. Thus, putting the burden on the seller.
3. Of course the fans who wait until the last second should have been expected due to heat, new parking, and partying. This puts the burden of expectation and calculation on the AD. That math would've had more scanners for the top of the bell curve.
4. Given how much I'd already heard and seen, I'd be surprised if there was a high percentage of people who did not know about the new system. I believe AD had done the information part of it as well as could be expected. So, no blame there.
5. And finally, and I hate to say it, but for crying out loud, how many of you out there have ever had 100% success with new technology out of the gate? Just know the most popular software company in the world is ranked among the very worst at quality. Every person should be cautious and manage their own expectations cause that's just simply how the world works now.
Yes, I'm inferring we tend to 'market' our way through issues instead of focusing more on the quality. My wish for the world is that we start to throw more engineering degrees at the problem instead of business degrees.
1. Tech, for the most part, is poor quality out of the gate for several reasons which if interested, I can expand upon.
2. Buyers almost always bite on the promises of technology, but they're equally at fault because they typically don't contractually obligate the seller. Which they should. For example: half up front and this much for people successfully scanned per minute. Thus, putting the burden on the seller.
3. Of course the fans who wait until the last second should have been expected due to heat, new parking, and partying. This puts the burden of expectation and calculation on the AD. That math would've had more scanners for the top of the bell curve.
4. Given how much I'd already heard and seen, I'd be surprised if there was a high percentage of people who did not know about the new system. I believe AD had done the information part of it as well as could be expected. So, no blame there.
5. And finally, and I hate to say it, but for crying out loud, how many of you out there have ever had 100% success with new technology out of the gate? Just know the most popular software company in the world is ranked among the very worst at quality. Every person should be cautious and manage their own expectations cause that's just simply how the world works now.
Yes, I'm inferring we tend to 'market' our way through issues instead of focusing more on the quality. My wish for the world is that we start to throw more engineering degrees at the problem instead of business degrees.
Are you still wanting to go with 25 scanners even with 20 showing in the picture in the article here that were on the north? Meaning there was one scanner at every other entrance. Someone reported there were handhelds at the west.
We spent maybe one or two minutes at the gate before getting in, but this blame the victim apology ticks me off more than if he said nothing because we saw the huge line at the north gate at kickoff.
The blame the victim apology is patronizing. My awful FIL once called me a stupid *****, then “apologized” by saying he was sorry I got upset. The sorry we didn’t train staff well enough to help you morons part of this reminds me of that.
Even though we had no problems, I was worried that they took down the tent awnings because the workers were going to be standing in the sun in that heat for over two hours. Not sure why they did that.
The blame the victim apology is patronizing. My awful FIL once called me a stupid *****, then “apologized” by saying he was sorry I got upset. The sorry we didn’t train staff well enough to help you morons part of this reminds me of that.
Even though we had no problems, I was worried that they took down the tent awnings because the workers were going to be standing in the sun in that heat for over two hours. Not sure why they did that.
Likely, as apposed to the excuse of not being able to hire students to work part-time on a Saturday.
I don't trust any of this stuff. The wallets and the NFC stuff and having my phone track where I've been.
I'm sure there's a level of safety, but I've been in too many fraud meetings where info is stolen and gone in a heartbeat.
This little spy machine is now required to see an ISU game
Welcome to the Brave New World
Got tickets to the iowa game last year and they were paper tickets. I've used the wallet (although with the bar code, so I tried to go that style first Saturday) since covid and it's better than fumbling around with the tickets.
Next week will go better since we have had a crack at this one time already.
Hate to break it to you but they've used mobile ticketing for as long as we have, since Covid in 2020. It's not clear to me that they use Ticketmaster as the underlying technology, but whatever it is looks virtually identical to our system.