The Iowa Hawkeyes’ season opener against the University of Albany marked the debut of Iowa’s tap-to-enter ticketing system. The system replaces barcodes with mobile wallet taps to reduce fraud and speed up entry.
The Iowa Athletics Ticket Office announced the Hawkeyes’ season-opening football game against the University of Albany on Aug. 30 sold out nearly four weeks before kickoff.
However, many fans at Saturday’s game may have overlooked a subtle change to the packed stadium — the way in which they checked in. The Hawkeyes’ first game of the season featured a new ticketing system, coined the Near Field Communication ticketing system that lets fans walk in through the many gates of Kinnick with a simple tap of their phone.
Similar to Apple or Google Pay, the new system requires fans to add their ticket to their respective mobile wallets and simply tap their phone at a kiosk or a gate employee’s handheld scanner.
All tickets will need to be downloaded and screenshots will no longer be accepted.
According to KCRG, the Iowa Athletics Ticket office stated the biggest reason for the change was to cut down on ticket fraud.
Many UI students are all too familiar with ticket scams as they send buying requests on third-party social media applications, such as Snapchat and Facebook Marketplace.
UI third-year student TJ Peckosh said he hopes the new system will make buying a ticket online less risky.
“I was a victim of a scam one time, a $140 scam for an Iowa State ticket. It really hurt,” Peckosh said.
Although the ticketing office has not released official numbers on how this season opener’s scam reports compare to last year, students are mostly optimistic the tap system will make a difference.
Some fans, however, don’t see a difference.
UI fourth-year student Kaiden Knockel was largely indifferent toward the new system.
“It would probably make it harder to scam, obviously, with people selling their tickets,” he said. “But when it comes down to it, I think if you and your buddy are sharing the same ticket, it would be just as easy to share that same ticket to get in.”
Kinnick gate attendant Carson Dupuis has been working at the stadium for three years. With a faster check in process, he gets more time to gauge the incoming horde of fans for any safety hazards.
“Knowing the people who have bags, trying to make sure that they go to the bag check and being able to see the people walking in, if they have any alcohol or anything else that they shouldn’t bring in, it really helps,” he said.
Another potential benefit of the system stadium officials look forward to experiencing is a more efficient check-in process.
“It works a lot better, and it’s a lot faster once more people get adjusted to it because they’re so used to having the barcodes,” Dupuis said. “It’s a lot easier for us to get more people in, especially with bigger families.”