With the return of live events, health screenings have complicated the check-in process as organizers who decide to implement entry requirements — or are mandated to based on local regulations — now need to check attendees’ vaccination status and/or proof of a recent negative test.
In order to streamline this process for both organizers and attendees, Aventri has partnered with CLEAR, whose Health Pass has been used across the country as people get back to normal activities like traveling and attending events. The CLEAR Health Pass allows users to verify their identity and connect their COVID-related health information so that they can easily and quickly prove compliance upon arrival at the event.
Organizers can access CLEAR directly through Aventri’s platform if they choose to use the service, and they can customize the access requirements based on their event and local regulations. Once attendees submit their proof of vaccination or negative test to CLEAR, they will receive a QR code that onsite event staff will be able to scan with Aventri’s tool check-in tool with QR scanning to verify that attendees are cleared to enter. The CLEAR app also has an animation showing that the attendee is vaccinated. Organizers who do not have the Aventri check-in tool can use the visual confirmation against the name on the badge.
Event tech has been essential to keeping us connected when we weren’t able to physically meet, and it is continuing to play a key role when it comes to health and safety at in-person events. “It’s essential to make people feel safe from the moment they arrive at the venue – not only from Covid-19 and its variants, but also from colds and flu,” says Kurt Chessman, Vice President of Corporate Development & Strategy at Aventri. “Fortunately, tech providers are creating easy solutions to help keep attendees and stakeholders safe.”
Aventri’s partnership with CLEAR follows various other COVID-safety solutions that the company has deployed in the midst of the pandemic, including digital passes that enable touchless check-in, lead retrieval, and session access. These passes also promote social distancing as attendees can download badges in advance as they help speed up entry and prevent crowds and lines.
In addition, offerings such as NFC badges and wristbands provide similar capabilities, “all with the goal of reducing shared surfaces as well as improving the attendee and exhibitor experience,” explains Chessman. Exhibitors who leverage digital lead retrieval tools, for example, can capture attendee information in a contactless way and get the added benefit of more robust engagement data.
Over the next few months, “Covid safety technology will evolve rapidly and remain crucial, given the priority of health and safety,” says Chessman. Facial recognition, in particular, is an important evolving technology that will increasingly help ensure safety and security at events, but it requires high-quality cameras and lighting, processing power, and a facial recognition engine.
“Modern facial recognition systems can greet the attendee by name and verify registration in seconds,” he says. “The technology works successfully with perimeter access control systems at large-scale events, as we saw before the pandemic at large-scale events, such as Mobile World Congress 2019. Top-of-the-line facial recognition software works even in crowded, fast-changing environments — which is why many Major League Baseball stadiums are using it at the main gate.”
Facial recognition still faces some obstacles as many people feel uncomfortable with the technology, and Chessman notes that data privacy is of the utmost importance. “Enterprises must make sure their platform does not store images, but rather uses them to create a digital signature for just one event,” he says. Companies like CLEAR, for example, create unique encrypted codes based on users’ biometrics to enable access to events, airports, etc.
Health and safety will continue to be a big topic around events in the coming year and beyond, and fortunately event tech providers have rapidly adapted — and will continue to innovate — to not only help the industry get back to business as usual, but do it better and more safely than it was before.