“I don't think anyone ever is like, I'm gonna become an accreditation manager. Nobody dreams of that,” chuckles Jill Gerrity, who just happens to be the Director of Accreditation at WRSTBND, a technology platform designed specifically for event access control, ticketing, credentials and cashless payments. “But I have always loved events, since I was very small. I think most girls want to be the prom queen, and I wanted to be the prom coordinator.”
Blessed with a “propensity for spreadsheets and handling stress”, Gerrity’s entry into the world of credentialing came when she worked at a publishing house that put on events and retreats featuring spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle.
“People would do anything to get close to him,” she recalls. “And so we had to implement a lot of security measures in an environment where people were doing yoga and meditating, yet were jumping over fences, trying to see Eckhart. So that was my first foray into credentials, and it's been madness ever since.”
Here, Gerrity outlines some key learnings from her years in accreditation, from the benefits of RFID technology and the importance of sticking to policies and procedures to the future of access control and accreditation…
What are the accreditation issues that keep you up at night?
I think that anybody who's ever heard me talk about credentials has heard me question the sustainability of credentials. We're producing thousands and thousands of big plastic cards with our faces on them.
And we have to order so many more than we even use, and they're branded for the event, and they're typically branded for the year.
So they go in the garbage, and they can't necessarily be recycled because of what goes into producing them. And I think that for event producers that are looking to become more sustainable and put their events out there in the world to say, “Hey, we're a sustainable event”, [having] everybody standing up on stage with a big piece of plastic around their neck that can be used for one day or three days kind of defeats the purpose.
And I think that very often you get to an event on site and realize that everyone's going wherever they want anyway, because we haven't designed a system that's easy enough for the security guards to enforce.
And so I think that it's important for all event producers to really look at their access plan and go, “What are we trying to achieve here? Are we using our budget in the most appropriate way? Are we creating access plans that match that?”
It’s not necessarily to say you should have no cards and everything should be on your phone, but you're going to spend all that money and time on giant plastic cards? Is it achieving what you want anyway? And I think the answer to that is no.
What technologies can replace those lanyards? Are you using anything, or are you seeing anything in the pipeline that is a viable alternative?
Absolutely. There's so much. And it’s not even an alternative, it's better.
I think a lot of event producers are starting their access plans based on the credentials, and I am a very big proponent of starting with your access plan. Like, what's going to happen in that two-second interaction that a security guard is going to have with your credential holder, where it's dark, and the lights might be going and it's raining. And he's been there for 11 hours already. And he didn't want to show up that day anyway, and he's hungry.
Don't make him solve a puzzle, right? Don't make him look for this tiny little yellow ‘c’. And then if there's a star on it, this means that, and you’ve also got to have a red lanyard or whatever. We at WRSTBND are putting these devices in the hands of security guards that are saying red or green light. That's all you need to know.
You just need to say, yes, you're allowed, or no, you're not, based on the light. And it makes so much difference.
Are you using RFID technology for that?
It's RFID very often – RFID chips can go in just about anything these days.
Of course, we're putting them in wristbands and laminates like you'd see more typically, but there's RFID technology in your phone. We have NFC passes [where] everything just goes right in my phone and I could scan my pass on the same device that in theory I could scan my wristband or my badge on.
It's also totally achievable with something like a QR code. And we do that a lot because it is a bit of a cost saving. I could put a QR code on anything – I could have a QR code on my phone, and I could scan that QR code, and it's going to achieve the exact same effect.
Of course, the downside there is that a QR code is a bit easier to screenshot and copy. But depending on the event, it really could be anything.
What proportion of events are actually using this technology versus those that are still using lanyards?
It's moving in the right direction. We're starting to put RFID chips for most large-scale events at least, in this access control, whether it's a badge and a lanyard or a wristband or whatever. But what I haven't seen happen yet, and I hope starts to happen more, is that we start to say, great, RFID really works.
The security guards love it, and we get the data of who's coming in and when. And we're saving money by scratching a bunch of bar frontage on one side of the festival that we didn't realize no one was using, or nobody entered through the west gate. Why do we need that? Well, let's just make that an emergency exit and not make that a box office and entry point or whatever it is.
So I think that's the future.
What hurdles do you have to overcome to convince event organizers that this is the way forward?
We see a few things. Very often we sit with new clients or I sit with events and they say, “Oh, I went to an event in 2004 and the RFID system didn't work.”
And they used something a really long time ago when this was fresh, new, questionable technology. And it sets the stage for everything they do in the future. When let's be real, we're in 2023, this stuff works.
And what I'll say there is, start with a hybrid. Create your backup system, have your blue lanyard, and your red lanyard, and your 15 different letters and whatever, and see how that works. But pop an RFID chip in there and just see if maybe it makes a difference for you.
And the second piece that we see, to be very frank, is ego. Ego is a big part of event credentials. And I have not found a huge way around it at this point.
Credentials really play into our caveman emotions of being invited, having as much access as the next person. Do I have as many letters as the guy next to me? Or did they give me a staff badge?
And it's very much building a hierarchy of people within an event. And of course, everybody wants to be on the top. And so there's a bit of credentialing that is navigating those things.
"Ego is a big part of event credentials. And I have not found a huge way around it at this point."
How have you used the data you've got from RFID to change access control or accreditation for future events?
It just puts so much power in your hands to know how people are using these credentials or these tickets that you've got.
We spend all of this time selling tickets, getting credentials into the hands of people, and then we have no idea what happens with them after that. If we have the technology that says, this person scanned in at this time and then they went and bought a beer, and then they scanned into the VIP pit at XYZ stage, we can start to follow these journeys and understand where attendees are going.
And then on the flip side for credentials, we can understand, hey, we credentialed 50 people from this company, because they said they were bringing 50 people, and guess what, 22 scanned in.
So then you can start to audit and go, “Hey, do we need this many staff? Should we be paying them for all 50 people they said they were gonna bring?” There’s just so much insight.
There's a million different ways that you can use this information to make sure that your event attendees are having a good experience, that you're not paying for things that you thought you were paying for. It's really cool.
And do you see any emerging technologies that may even do that job better than RFID?
I think the next step is to take – and we're doing this with ticketing, and we have been for a long time – but the next step is to take all of this and put it in our phones. Everybody's got a phone in their pocket.
And that NFC technology, which is RFID technology, is there in your phone, you already have it, we don't have to bother to open a box office and make you stand in line and go and get this thing that cost us two bucks and a buck to ship or whatever.
You have it! All you have to do is press a couple buttons, and it goes into your wallet, and you're done. That's really, I think, the next step.
And then of course you get into things like facial recognition, and then iris scanning and biometrics that I definitely think in five years we're gonna be talking so much more about.
What’s the key to overcoming people’s privacy concerns around biometrics?
That I think just comes with time.
Of course, we're always going to have to give people the option to opt out of that. And then, what are the implications of that? And how do you still get them in [the venue]?
But think about all the things in the past that people were afraid of and now use day to day. So it'll happen as people realize how much more convenient it is.
If you're advising an event organizer on an accreditation plan, what are the two or three basics they must get right?
Top of the list is, before you build your access plan, it all comes down to that two-second interaction with the security guard. And so everything you do needs to be based on how is that guard going to know in a split second whether you should be in a certain space or not.
And if you don't start there, you're going in the wrong direction. So start there and move out based on what your objectives are for your event and how you're going to make that two-second interaction better.
The second thing that I will say – and I find very often is that it can be really hard due to some of those ego things that I mentioned previously, or just the fact that events are fast and furious and you're collecting a lot of data really quickly – it can be really easy to set up a set of policies and procedures, and then throw them out the window.
And I always say that credentials work best when they run like the DMV, which is that I've set up my policies, I've set up exactly what you need to do to get an accreditation. And if you show up and you haven't done that, I'm going to help you go and find the resources to get it done and come back when you do.
And I think what happens very often is a lot of exceptions to the rules: “Oh, they don't have to fill that form out, they can just send me an email, this person could just talk to so and so and say the code word”, and then you end up with 30 credentials in your pocket.
I would just say to anybody who is tasked with putting on a credentials program for any event, don't be afraid to stick to your policies and procedures. Even if people are gonna give you a bit of pushback, that's just how it works. And that's what's best for your event.
"Everything you do needs to be based on how is that guard going to know in a split second whether you should be in a certain space or not."
I imagine one of the difficulties with accreditation and access control is when there are last minute changes. How do you best navigate those waters?
I think that a few things are important. One is over communication. Very often, we send a couple of emails to a couple of managers and hope that information gets disseminated to the right people.
And if you've got 5, 10, 20,000 people coming to get creds, and only 100 got the email, that can be kind of tricky. So I think that more communication around credentials is really important. Make sure you're communicating very, very heavily and probably too heavily.
You have to tell people a lot of times to think about it and make sure that their teams are going to have thought about it.
And then the second piece, again, what are your policies and procedures? If your policy was that you fill out a form two weeks in advance of the event to get your creds, you don't get to skirt around all those policies. Go back, find your form, fill it out, come back when you do.
So that can deter people very much from, “Hey, that was kind of a tough experience, because I didn't think about it until I came to site.” Make it hard for them so that they don't do it the next time.
Presumably biometrics and RFID will go some way to negating counterfeit credentials, but for organizers who aren't using either, are there certain things they can do to avoid counterfeit accreditations?
Yeah, it's tough. There are certain security features that you can add, you can have all kinds of metallics and foils, and lanyards have silver threading in them.
But my answer would be, well, if you're gonna spend the money on that, put an RFID chip in it [instead] because it's not going to be that different cost wise.
If you're trying to go and add a bunch of fancy security features to your credentials, it's gonna be about the same amount of money to put in that RFID chip instead.
And of course there's the investment in the hardware to actually scan those credentials. But that tends to be negligible and can very often be accounted for in the security side of things – maybe you need less security guards at this entrance, so you can shift those things around and find that budget for it.
With access control, are there certain key basics that you regularly see organizers fail to get right, but for which there are simple fixes?
You know what I see all the time is somebody like a creds manager or ticketing manager, who spent all of this time creating this access control plan, and then on site there's really nobody around to make sure it's happening.
And when the security guard has a question about, “What does that ‘c’ mean?”, or, “What's the blue lanyard mean?”, there's nobody around for them to ask.
And I think a really easy, simple fix is you need to have people on site who know what's going on that aren't just the security team. And very often event organizers get caught up in whatever's happening on the stage, or whatever's happening backstage or whatever.
And nobody actually went out and looked at the entrance to see how it was going. So I think that with access control or credentials and ticketing, it doesn't stop when your event starts.
That's when the big show is. Make sure you have people there that are paying attention and can answer those questions for your security guards and can help to troubleshoot certain things. Because very often, event day comes around, and there are no event producers to be found in places like that.
"And I think a really easy, simple fix is you need to have people on site who know what's going on that aren't just the security team."
In the past you've worked with running events such as the TCS New York City Marathon. Is there a different approach to accreditation for those sorts of events, as opposed to a music festival?
There is nothing more logistically complex than a marathon. I love working on marathons, they are some of my favorite events. Because not only are you trying to get 50,000 runners into a space, but you have spaces that are 26.2 miles away, and very often in different cities and different jurisdictions.
And you know, very often it's hard to get from one place to the other, because you've got thousands of runners, and all the roads are closed. So access control becomes totally different.
But one thing that I found coming into marathoning is that we were spending a lot of time differentiating whether you have access to the start, or whether you have access to the finish, or whether you have access to the course. When ultimately, if you want to get from start to finish on race day, you're probably running, or you have a helicopter.
So the first thing that I did coming into marathons was slash it all down and say, let's simplify this. If you have access to one place, you have access to the other. And if you made it from the start to watch the finish line after your shift, power to you, because that was hard.
And it's probably only going to happen to a handful of people. And so my philosophy very often is just slightly over access – give people a little more access if it's going to save you thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours. Give them a little more access and deal with those one-offs on site.
If somebody's in a tent they shouldn't have been in eating the cookies, get them out. It’s more about that than it is about trying to nail down every single little space that any person should be in.
Visit WRSTBND here. Follow Jill on LinkedIn here.
