Details matter. Be more useful.
I went to the O2 in London recently (well, pre Xmas now – this has been in my drafts a while) to see Paul McCartney. It’s the first time I’ve ever used my American Express priority tickets. I queued diligently and then bought two tickets. Easy. (If not eye-wateringly expensive).
Fast forward a few months and my son and I arrived at the O2. We got there nice and early. We didn’t quite know where our seats were despite having diligently downloaded all the app stuff and looked at venue info. All it had was A2 and the row and seat numbers. We could work out where in the venue the seats were – blimey – quite near the front. This is even better!
But, erm, where do we get in? One would assume entrance A?
We walked to entrance A.
No, sir, you need Entrance B.
Which line in B?
Doesn’t matter.
We queued up in B.
We were then moved to another queue in B. And then the queue we were in inevitably went quicker than us.
All this time the only announcement was that they had a new fanged AI security system. You just need to walk through. No need to empty your pockets.
Yeah fine, but where do I go next?
Eventually we get through the door and the AI security. It picked up my glasses case in my pocket.
Where next? Nothing remotely related to section A2. Only entrances up the stairs with various numbers. No letters. At all.
Excuse me, where do we go for these seats?
Up the stairs, entrance 101 to 102 (I forget the actual numbers but none if it made any sense or related to anything on our tickets).
Up the stairs we went and then there was a tape blocking the way to the numbers we’d been told.
Sir Paul was still doing sound check. Which was pretty cool to listen to.
So we asked the nice security person where we should go.
She pointed to another set of numbers further down.
Are you sure, we got told 101?
Yes, 112 is better as you can then just walk straight down.
During the 20-30 minutes waiting, the crowd got bigger. More and more people asking where they should go. More answers. Most people said “that’s not what I got told earlier”.
A flurry of walkie talkie exchanges as the crowd got bigger. Eventually they opened the barrier but still held at the doors.
We walked into the drinks area. Swipe your card, pick up your drink, walk out. Unnervingly easy. Why could that be easier than finding where your seat is?
Annoyingly having to take the cap off the bottle though. For health and safety reasons. This always bugs me. Why? The amount of drinks spilled during the evening as people kicked over their bottle was surely more a health and safety risk than bottle tops? Maybe I’m missing the point.
We eventually found our seats.
I sat there thinking why isn’t it easier? Why did I have to ask people? Why can’t the app have provided step by step instructions? Gate B, through security, up the stairs, entrance X. None of which remotely related to any logic related to the seat information on our tickets
The staff were helpful enough but they must be completely annoyed by the amount of people asking them.
It created a bit of anxiety. Not much but enough. I wanted to enjoy every moment but until we were actually in our seats I had no confidence we were in the right place at all and would be asked to go to another entrance at any point.
In a world where the whole world is mapped into 3×3 squares on What3Words, why couldn’t my ticket tell me exactly where to go? Why did I have to keep asking people?
In direct contrast, the Southampton FC ticket app did exactly that. Here’s your seat numbers, here’s the stand you need, here’s the entrance you use. Simples.
It’s the details that matter. All the fancy announcements about AI security became annoying and irrelevant. All I wanted was my ticket to tell me how to get to my seats.
Be more useful. Details matter.
PS. The concert was amazing. Small reel here.
