Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium, also known as Texas Memorial Stadium, is the home field of the University of Texas at Austin's football team. With a capacity of over 100,000, it is one of the largest stadiums in the country. The stadium was originally built in 1924 and has undergone several renovations and expansions over the years. The fans of the Texas Longhorns, as the football team is known, are known for their loyalty and passion and fill the stadium to capacity for every home game.
At the start of 2022, Chris Reynolds and the team at Texas Memorial Stadium were excited to tackle some challenges that the group had identified to improve the overall fan experience. With many sold-out UT games (breaking ticket sales records for the season in 2022), Reynolds was determined to implement technology and infrastructure improvements to enhance the game day experience for fans.
One of the main areas of focus was reducing line times for concessions. To tackle this challenge, UT decided to tap into Mashgin’s AI Self-Checkout System to speed up transactions and reduce lines. UT Austin implemented a solution by installing 14 Mashgin kiosks - converting four stands to use Mashgin for checkout and constructing two entirely new stands to increase overall concessions capacity. The kiosks were deployed in various configurations, including countertop-based stations and mobile stands on carts, to ensure accessibility for fans in all seating areas of the stadium. With Mashgin kiosks up and running, both sets of stands offered more efficient service and dramatically reduced wait times.
Over the course of seven home games, Mashgin stands saw a huge increase in performance. Median transaction times across all stands were 12.5 seconds, which is 450% faster than the industry average for sports concessions. The retrofitted stands also saw an increase in revenue, with 80% more revenue generated compared to the previous year. Over the entire seven-game season, 14 Mashgin kiosks generated an additional $357,000 in revenue. Notably, four of those kiosks were only in place for the final three games, indicating the potential for even greater revenue generation. Even the lowest-performing stand with Mashgin outperformed the best-performing stand of the prior year, demonstrating the effectiveness of the Mashgin kiosks in improving overall performance.
The Longhorns plan to install over 20 additional kiosks for the coming 2023 season.
We couldn't be happier with the decision to implement Mashgin kiosks at UT Austin's stadium. The results have been astounding. We have seen a significant reduction in line times, increased revenue and most importantly, an overall improvement in customer satisfaction. The fans are happy and that makes us happy.
