Of all the industries impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic over the past year, live-event venues were among the hardest hit. Facilities that were filled on a near weekly basis with fans, athletes, and entertainers saw their doors shuttered virtually overnight.
Even as professional sports leagues gradually got underway following the initial shutdowns that were enacted in March 2020, many of these games were played in front of sparse crowds or even empty stadiums. However, following the emergency authorization of Pfizer’s vaccine by the U.S. Food and Drug administration late last year and the subsequent authorizations given for vaccines brought to the market by Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, the country, along with many event venues, has begun to open back up.
And though pandemic protocols, such as mask wearing and social distancing vary by location, many stadiums have started welcoming back full capacity crowds and with it, some sense of a return to normalcy for the American populace. One person who has been on the frontlines of getting events up and running again is Lee Zeidman, President of the L.A. Live entertainment complex in downtown Los Angeles, which includes STAPLES Center – home to the NBA’s Lakers and Clippers franchises, the WNBA’s Sparks, and the NHL’s Kings – and the Microsoft Theater.
According to Zeidman, one of the biggest challenges in bringing live events back to the arenas and the L.A. Live complex as a whole, which also includes 17 restaurants and two hotels, was accelerating the shift to digitization of various operations, which meant that nearly every guest interaction moving forward would be completely touchless.
“Early on we did a top to bottom audit of the venue, including the entire campus really, where we looked at everything with a touchable surface and how we could go more contactless. Because in the beginning, as you recall, nobody really knew much about this virus and a lot of people thought that you can get it by touching a doorknob that somebody who is infected touched or a surface,” Zeidman explains. “So, we've changed flush valves, faucets, soap dispensers, and paper towel dispensers. We've done all of that. We've done now also digital ticketing, as well as food and beverage mobile and kiosk ordering.”
Along with the move to digital ticketing and mobile food and beverage order, Zeidman says STAPLES Center is now a cashless venue and has installed “reverse ATMs” throughout the building to support the move.
“If you come to STAPLES Center and you do not have a credit card to pay for your food and beverage or merch, we will instruct you and direct you to one of those cashless kiosks reverse ATMs and you will get a card,” he explains. “If you drop $100 on that card and you only spend $60 of it at STAPLES Center, that $40 would remain on that card and you can use it anywhere that accepts an American Express gift card.”
Aside from creating a more contactless experience for guests, Zeidman says they have also worked hand-in-glove with local and state health authorities along with the sports leagues themselves to help develop the guidelines and policies needed to bring people back to games. However, according to Zeidman, many of the changes that have been made to accommodate this increased focus on health and safety will be invisible to the fans.
“You're not going to see a lot of physical changes to STAPLES Center. If you were here March 12th, 2020, for a Kings game to tonight where you're coming into a sold-out Clippers game, you'll see just a lot of educated staff that will help you go to the various areas, how you would deal with wearing your masks, how you self-attest as it relates to your vaccine or your negative tests, those types of things, and how we can speed up the process of getting you in and around the venue,” he adds.
Fans Behaving Badly
As an ever-increasing number of people have made their way back to arenas and games, there has been a noticeable uptick of fans behaving badly, especially during the NBA playoffs. Last month, for example, a fan was caught throwing popcorn on Washington Wizards star Russell Westbrook. In another highly-publicized incident, the New York Knicks banned a fan from Madison Square Garden after he spit on Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young.
While at first glance it may appear that there has been a sharp increase in these types of incidents, Zeidman says poor fan behavior was an issue even before Covid, which is why we believes it is paramount that stadiums communicate with their security staffs and provide additional training on how to deal with unruly conduct as attendance levels return to pre-pandemic levels. He also advises that facilities make use of the security and communications systems they have in place to spot illicit activity as it occurs and prevent it from escalating.
Addressing Traditional Security Concerns
Although Covid-19 mitigation has been the most prominent security concern for venues like STAPLES Center over these past 16 months, the potential for acts of terrorism and active shooter incidents remain a major threat to venues both large and small across the country. Zeidman, though, is quick to point out that their approach to mitigating these threats has not changed and they have even taken steps to update several of their security systems during the pandemic.
“If you asked me what keeps me up at night pre-Covid, during Covid and post-Covid, it's still domestic terrorism, international terrorism or an active shooter. That doesn't change based on a virus that's circulating throughout our population, so we are still on our toes, and we continually train our security team members, our guest services team members on all of the latest, greatest active shooter protocols and the latest, greatest terrorism issues,” he says. “We are working with some of our partners now on the latest and greatest technology, i.e., facial recognition, and some of those things that will assist us as we move forward and as they continue to develop, but Covid hasn't changed how we react or adapt to that changing environment as it relates to those type of terrorist acts.”
Of course, operating a venue in an area that is prone to earthquakes like Los Angeles also means that natural disaster preparation is top of mind for Zeidman and his team. “We live in earthquake country, and so we continually train on that, and we have done tremendous amounts of tabletop exercises with the L.A. Convention Center, our hotels, L.A. Live security and STAPLES Center security to increase the overall visibility and the communication on the entire campus,” he adds.
The Pandemic’s Impact on Tech
Covid-19 has obviously had a large influence on how organizations leveraged existing security systems and even gave rise to some new technologies. But Zeidman admits that the inherent flaws in some of these solutions were quickly exposed as the pandemic evolved.
“In the beginning, you heard from everybody and anyone out there with thermometers because you had to take the temperature of everybody, because that was going to tell you that they had Covid, or they were feeling ill. That didn't last very long, because the temperature, as we all know, was not a way that's going to really tell you that somebody has Covid. They could have run over here, and their temperature could be high. We never adapted that technology,” Zeidman adds. “Then you have walkthrough metal detectors with thermal imaging on them that would tell you if somebody was hot or could potentially have a fever and those types of things that went by the wayside. Then you had the people who wanted to sell you the drones that would spray and clean your venues and clean the seats or the walkthrough metal detectors that would mist you and kill Covid as you walked into the building, or continue to spray in your building, that would kill the virus. That went by the wayside too.
“At the end of the day, it is all about needles in arms and getting people vaccinated,” he continues. “We've worked very closely with the state and the county to increase the visibility of the vaccination program and encouraging people to vaccinate. By getting a vaccination, we're moving closer toward more herd immunity. I believe that at some point, this becomes, hopefully, the next flu and we'll deal with the next pandemic as we come to it. And that we also will be more prepared, from a federal standpoint or a state standpoint, than we were for this one.”
About the Author:
Joel Griffin is the Editor of SecurityInfoWatch.com and a veteran security journalist. You can reach him at [email protected].
