How PAC io Entry Makes Access Easier To Manage

An hour before doors open, the questions come faster than you can answer them. Are all the scanners charged? Is the layout configured for tonight's checkpoints? Did the VIP entrance get its own rules? This is the event operator's world across Broadway houses, college stadiums, national motorsports, and concerts.

Paciolan's event management solution, PAC io Entry, brings event setup, live visibility, and the data that follows into one place.

Prep that happens faster, in one place

Setting up an event requires multiple steps. It's the scanners, the checkpoints, the device inventory, and much more. All of it takes time, and much of it requires somebody else. Take, for example, whitelisting IP addresses. Sounds like a small step, right? Miss it, and the scanners never come online, no matter how well everything else is built. With PAC io Entry, devices connect over the cloud with encrypted data in transit, identifying themselves by serial number rather than IP address. A scanner comes online without the extra work required to whitelist. The time saved from steps like whitelisting and other parts of event setup compounds when you're running multiple venues.

We see this play out at Metrotix, which serves a wide range of venues, including two landmark stages in St. Louis: the Fabulous Fox Theatre, a historic touring Broadway house, and The Muny, the oldest and largest outdoor musical theatre in the country. James Maldonado runs entry operations for both venues, mounting popular productions like The Phantom of the Opera and Shrek The Musical. Different venues, different configurations, sometimes with shows running the same night, at the same time. That is a lot to manage and keep track of. 

James shared, “Having a single pane of glass to handle all entry management tasks is a big win for us. We can now manage everything in PAC io Entry, from daily operations to monitoring scanner status and scan data, without jumping between multiple systems."

Set up checkpoints and rules

From one event to the next, scanners get reassigned, entrance changes, and rules get rewritten. Building a new layout used to mean overwriting the previous one. With PAC io Entry, operators can save each event for reuse, including the entrances, scanner assignments, rules, and scan data.

Oklahoma State started on PAC io Entry with baseball, added softball, then Boys from Oklahoma concert. Each was a different setup, and none overwrote another. "It's great that we now have the power in our hands, because you feel more in control of your events," said Assistant AD Logan Hofferber. "If a guy like me can do it, then anyone can. Ask me three months ago, and I would kick it off to the ops guys." Oklahoma State now runs every event on Entry.

Not every checkpoint sits at the main entrance. Premium spaces, clubs, and suite areas often require their own access rules. In PAC io Entry, you can define rules such as restricting access by ticket type or section, enforcing capacity limits, or validating secondary scans after the primary entrance. 

NHRA moves up to 30,000 fans through its entrances and runs the Top Eliminator Club as one of those areas. Here is how a day goes. A club guest scans at the main entrance with everyone else, then walks to the club and scans again. In a lot of setups, that second scan is where things go sideways. Beep beep. Ticket already used. The guest, who did nothing wrong, is now standing there while the staff sorts it out. In PAC io Entry, the second scan reads clean, because Entry knows. Entry staff sees a valid scan instead of a flag, and the guest keeps walking.

Every one of those scans is recorded. Event managers can see who came into the club, when they arrived, and when they left. Data that helps prepare for future events. 

Speaking of data, let’s dive into the insights you get with PAC io Entry further.

Visibility that drives smart decisions

Live events change fast, and split-second decisions require total operational visibility. PAC io Entry delivers this with dual dashboards: one for real-time event monitoring, and another for post-event data analysis.

The Live Event Monitoring dashboard shows events in real time: scans, flow, and device health, down to each scanner's battery level and internet strength. Because devices connect to the cloud, changes are shown as they happen. Move a scanner from entrance one to entrance two and the dashboard reflects it, with the rules following the device. Troubleshoot live, staff to real numbers, and catch problems early on.

Oklahoma State leaned on these insights during a nine-hour concert. A scanner dropped under 20% battery, and the team swapped it before it became an issue. Every 15 minutes, the promoter wanted to know how full the building was. At 6pm, before the headliner, were they at 70%? Oklahoma State fed them the numbers all night. The data showed a local opener pulling crowds in early, which is the kind of signal a promoter finds valuable. 

The Entry Activity dashboard turns all that scanning into a visualization where you can spot trends like peak arrival patterns and entrance-specific traffic. For Scott Porter, Director of Ticketing at the NHRA, that means knowing how many people he needs at the entrances and when he can send them home.

"Like everyone, we are very budget conscious so that we can maximize each event's overall revenue.  With that, we want to adjust our staffing levels to minimize as much expense as possible," he said. "We're using the real time data to make educated decisions on when and where we can cut."

PAC io Entry brings event setup, checkpoint configuration, and real-time insights into one place. Ready to onboard? Talk to your Client Partner to get started.