Cork Summer Show 2024 was another great success with the dedicated show supporters coming out in force across trade, competitors and the general public.
Although early adopters of the SuperShow platform, this was the first year Munster Agricultural Society entrusted the Ard team to take full responsibility for access control which included the selling of tickets online and issuing passes for trade and competitors alike. For this initial year it was decided to adopt a mixed digital and printed ticket policy but following its overwhelming success it is expected to go fully digital in 2025.
Ard has been fine-tuning their ticketing platform offering for a number of years with smaller events, concerts and gigs - under going usability and speed metric testing - and were delighted to be given the opportunity to use their 'Ard Tickets' technology to manage access control for the Cork Summer Show 2024.
Ard Tickets is a next generation ticketing platform which has been carefully developed to encompass the best elements from the leading platforms currently on the market - and also add the Ard innovative twist to ensure Ard Tickets is still leading the way in access control technology in the years ahead. The Ard Tickets platform offers events secure, affordable and scalable ticketing software that is simple to setup and easy to manage.
With Ard's experience in providing software as a service solutions to hundreds of clients around the world and excelling in providing software to leading events, it made sense for Ard to develop their own in-house ticketing platform to continue their ethos of one central and integrated platform.
The beauty of the Ard Tickets platform is that it can be reliably managed through a bog standard smartphone radically bringing down the total cost of ownership. Gone are the days of fancy scanners and relatively slow processing of people through the gates. Gate staff can quickly validate tickets using our web software - quickly scanning a QR code using the phones camera which is updated in real time.
The Cork Summer Show is a 2 day event and this year we processed nearly 15,000 people each day through 4 different gates. The gates were manned by volunteers who were provided with basic Samsung smartphones with a shortcut to the ticket validation link - and they were up and running immediately - Simply hold the phone camera close to the ticket QR code on their phone or printout and the software quickly presents a big green screen for success or red if the ticket was previously validated. If customers have any difficulty with their tickets the Ard platform can quickly lookup ticket purchases and troubleshoot any issues ensuring everybody has a frictionless and positive experience.
'The Ard team were truly delighted with the feedback from the event goers - from the ticket purchasing and checkout experiences, to receiving their digital tickets and the quick entry at the entrance gates', said Loughnan Hooper, CTO, Ard Software. 'There will always be the odd chancer who want to test the system and thankfully we have the right processes in place to ensure all valid ticket holders gained fast entry. We were concerned that at peak entry times queues would form, especially when using inexperienced volunteer staff - but testament to how simple and fast the Ard Ticket platform is even at peak times queues were minimal and the team have all the relevant data reports to review and fine tune operations for the next event.'
Ard are actively seeking event partners to avail of the Ard Tickets platform which brings together their proven SuperShow technology delivering a comprehensive event management tools in one central secure platform.
If you are organising an event and would like to discuss ticketing options please contact the Ard sales team - sales@ardsoftware.com or call 0579323262 ext 1 or visit the website https://www.ardsoftware.com
