Biometric ticketing to start opening day for Phillies at all stadium entrances

The Philadelphia Phillies are promoting facial recognition ticketing to all of the main entrance gates at Citizens Bank Park following a successful debut as a pilot project last year.

Major League Baseball is introducing its Go-Ahead Entry program, a top prospect in biometric ticketing and access control, to all stadiums league-wide during the 2024 season.

Fans submit a selfie through the MLB Ballpark app and enter at gates where Go-Ahead Entry is implemented without showing a ticket or their phone. The service was first deployed to the first base gate at Citizens’ last year, and expanded to the third base gate during the season.

Phillies CTO Sean Walker told Sports Business Journal that the number of registrations and anecdotal fan response makes it clear that the program will be a success. With the service operating at all gates, the team will be able to gather data on the rate of registrations to uses by fans and the speed of the biometric lines.

An MLB spokesperson told the publication that Go-Ahead Entry got fans into the stadium 68 percent faster than the usual entry methods with physical or smartphone-based tickets.

In addition to the Phillies, the Houston Astros, the San Francisco Giants and one other team will have the biometric ticketing system in place by opening day. The Giants have deployed Go-Ahead Entry at the Lefty O’Doul and 2nd and King gates.

Article Topics

biometric ticketing  |  contactless biometrics  |  face biometrics  |  MLB Go-Ahead Entry  |  selfie biometrics