For the second year in a row, SP+ Gameday selected ParkHub as its parking platform of choice for the largest sporting event of the year, Super Bowl LI on Feb. 5 at NRG Stadium in Houston.
Founder and CEO George Baker said, “We were honored and privileged to work with the SP+ Gameday team and appreciated the opportunity to showcase, again, what makes our company and product the gold standard for parking technology solutions in any situation.”
Since 1994, SP+ Gameday’s team of professionals has staffed, managed and serviced more than 90 venues and major events around the world, including the Olympic Games, NCAA Final Four Tournament and, of course, the Super Bowl.
ParkHub’s event center implemented its technology in 2015, and since then has grown to nearly 30 clients from coast to coast due to its innovative and reliable software and hardware platform setting records and raising standards for both performance and reliability.
Both companies manage the flow of people to places to minimize congestion, expedite travel times, reduce expenses and maximize event revenue — and most important, improve the guest experience, guaranteeing that Super Bowl LI fans walked into NRG Stadium with a smile.
“It’s really user friendly,” said SP+ Gameday VP Cristine Paull as one of the reasons the Dallas-based startup was included in this back-to-back effort.
Th ecompanies were able to offer football fans six different payment options, including credit card, NFC, and pre-paid passes from ParkMobile, with Prime, ParkHub’s proprietary cashier platform integrated with Verifone’s e315 mobile point of sale.
Day-of-game statistics included a recorded peak rate of 19 vehicles in per minute (one per three seconds), with the peak time starting at 11:10 a.m. after the stadium games opened at 11 a.m.
When asked how ParkHub was able to park so many vehicles that quickly, CTO Dave Livingston said, “We built our systems with an emphasis on the speed and reliability of the transaction.
“From the minute lots opened, until parking was completed 6½ hours later, our systems reliably and quickly processed vehicles, leading to near-zero wait times for fans arriving at the Big Game,” he said.
SP+ Gameday’s Transportation Team used ParkHub’s Portal, a data visualization and management platform, to see lot occupancy, revenue and employee activity from a secure login on smartphones, tablets and computers to strategically and efficiently park more vehicles in less time. The real-time data and insights that Portal provides are features that no other technology platform reliably offers, the company said.
Its platforms were built for scalability, to be effectively used for venues large and small, the company said. In Dallas alone, this technology is used at Gilley’s (less than 5,000 occupancy) and AT&T Stadium (more than 100,000 occupancy).
Our systems reliably and quickly processed vehicles, leading to near-zero wait times for fans arriving at the Big Game.
COO Jake explained that “being at the Super Bowl shows how flexible and scalable it is, not only to service the needs of our clients and adapt to other areas of their business, but also to satisfy the demands of an ever-growing and changing marketplace.”
That statement is illustrated, the company noted, by the number of clients subscribing to its service across the nation: Parking Company of America and Joe’s Auto Parks for daily parking; LiveNation for seasonal outdoor events in certain amphitheaters; American Airlines Center in Dallas for more than 220 events a year; and, of course, SP+ Gameday for less than eight hours at Super Bowl LI.
Fans there experienced a complete end-to-end parking solution comprising top-rated parking professionals using the most advanced parking tools available, the company said. While the Patriots might be this year’s champion, behind the scenes, SP+ Gameday and ParkHub worked together to take home a win and bring every fan into the winner’s circle with them.