Metricon Faces the Future

HUAWEI CASE STUDY METRICON Metricon faces the future KEY FEATURES First high density Wi-Fi Stadium in Australia Enhanced fan experience Greater features and products offered to customers BACKGROUND implementing a state-of-the-art Wi-Fi system. “Customer expectations nowadays are very high. People Metricon Stadium is the largest sports stadium in the Gold expect connectivity everywhere they go, and especially at Coast, Australia’s sixth largest city. It is home to the Gold sporting events. They want the same level of information Coast SUNS Football Club in the Australian Football League that they are now used to seeing at home on TV. Live (AFL), and will also be used as the main stadium for the sporting events have to work harder to compete. 2018 Commonwealth Games, hosting the opening and closing ceremonies and all track and field events. “But with tens of thousands of people in a relatively small space, bandwidth is a major issue. Providing a Located in the Carrara Sporting Complex on the banks good connectivity experience to everyone means that of the Nerang River, Metricon Stadium is also a popular only the best and most reliable equipment can be used. venue for concerts and festivals, and is likely to have cricket added, post Commonwealth Games. It is jointly “We also wanted to be able to offer a range of added funded by the Queensland and Australian Government, value services to our patrons, such as the ability to Gold Coast City Council, and the AFL. sell merchandise and make special offers like ticket upgrades and discounts,” said Mr Pamenter. “It’s Metricon Stadium chose Huawei equipment for its about improving the user experience, and at the same in-stadium Wi-Fi network, enabling an enhanced time telling us more about our customers so we can user experience for patrons and greatly improved continue to enhance that experience.” information on their behaviour and preferences. There were also challenges arising from the ownership KEY CHALLENGES structure of the stadium and the football club’s management of it, said Mr Pamenter. “We have multiple Metricon Stadium is unique in Australia in that it is stakeholders in the three levels of government and run by a sporting club – the Gold Coast SUNS Football the club. Good attendance numbers are important, so Club. Paul Pamenter is Chief Operating Officer for the finding new ways to enhance our patrons’ experience is club. He describes the challenges facing the stadium in vital to filling seats.” 1 “ CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS NOWADAYS ARE VERY HIGH. PEOPLE EXPECT CONNECTIVITY EVERYWHERE THEY GO, AND ESPECIALLY AT SPORTING EVENTS.” CUSTOMER BENEFITS There are three key benefits of Metricon Stadium’s Wi-Fi system. It provides an enhanced experience for those attending events at the stadium, it enables a new channel of communication with those attendees, and it gives the Gold Coast SUNS Football Club a vast amount of data about its patrons, enabling increased merchandising opportunities and detailed analysis for planning and promotional purposes. “This in turn ensures the stadium and the experiences it offers are A GAME CHANGING SOLUTION more relevant to fans, explained Mr Pamenter. “We now understand Metricon Stadium selected Huawei Australia as its technology who our fans are and we have a much better understanding of their partner with Huawei recommending Fujitsu Australia as the chief behaviour and what they want. It deepens our relationship. systems integrator and project manager for the implementation. “And Huawei has been a great technology partner. We chose them Fujitsu designed a network with over 300 Huawei wireless access because they had the best commercial and technical offering, but points installed throughout the stadium, connected by 15 km of the most important thing has been that Huawei genuinely wanted to CAT5 fibre optic cabling. understand our business and it was that collaborative work that meant The solution allows for 80 Gigabytes of connectivity, which means better outcomes for our fans and patrons. They share our philosophy, that nearly half the stadium’s attendees can be simultaneously and really worked with us to help us achieve what we wanted. It’s been online, with access speeds much higher than that achievable with a great experience working with them, and with Fujitsu.” conventional 3G and 4G mobile access. The speeds are high enough for streaming, so patrons can enjoy replays and other video content. ABOUT METRICON STADIUM AND THE GOLD COAST SUNS Corporate boxes and media areas are served at high capacity. The Metricon Stadium at Carrara will be the main venue for the Patrons can download a custom Metricon Stadium mobile device 2018 Commonwealth Games, which will be held in Australia for app, for Apple iOS or Android, which enables a range of features, the first time since Melbourne in 2006. The stadium’s capacity of such as barcoded on-phone ticketing and ‘push’ messaging. The 25,000 will be expanded to 40,000 for the games. app and the underlying software platform were provided by US stadium specialists FanThreeSixty, which has also worked with a Gold Coast SUNS Football Club was formed in 2008 and entered number of other Australian stadiums. the AFL in 2011 as the second Queensland team in the AFL. It is the only AFL team to manage its own stadium. The platform’s features include the ability to launch and manage sales campaigns giving fans more relevant offers The Gold Coast SUNS marketing team can also now send messages to mobile devices, and capture customer information such as demographics and seating and ticket preferences. It also allows for detailed analysis of this information. The system was turned on for the last few matches of the 2015 AFL season, but not heavily promoted. “But even without marketing, about 10 percent of attendees used the network,” said Mr Pamenter. “Usage numbers have been steadily increasing in the 2016 season, and are now reaching the planned system capacity.” 2.

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