Month: March 2022

Mercedes-Benz Stadium Makes Guests and Staff Feel Like They Are Walking into a Friend’s House with Fan-friendly Security Screening

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When Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia opened in 2017, fan experience was at the very center of its design. Since then, the stadium is known for its state-of-the-art look, with the world’s largest scoreboard, over 4,000 miles of fiber optics connections, and more. “Our objective is to make attending events at Mercedes-Benz Stadium feel like you’re walking into a friend’s house—to a place you belong or even own,” notes Karl Pierburg, Chief Technology Officer at AMB Sports and Entertainment, the parent company of the Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta United, and Mercedes-Benz Stadium. In 2019, the security team embarked on an initiative to enhance the Mercedes-Benz Stadium guest experience further by transforming arrival and entry and landed on Evolv Technology. Through implementing Evolv Express, Mercedes-Benz Stadium was able to achieve the following and more:  

  • 90%+ of fans express satisfaction with ingress experience, a 3x improvement.
  • Went from an average of 40% of people being flagged for secondary bags checks to 6% to 12% with Express.
  • Dramatically improved security staff experience, morale, and retention.

Case Study Video

Watch how Mercedes-Benz Stadium Makes Guests and Staff Feel Like Secure with Fan-friendly Weapons Screening

Read the case study to learn how you can start your journey to a more secure and guest-friendly security screening solution in stadiums today.

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Download the infographic to see a snapshot view of the stadium’s goals and outcomes to learn how you can do the same.

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View more of our case studies on our resources page here.

Urban Hospital Turns to Evolv Technology to Address Threats to ER Staff and Patient Safety

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Facing an uptick in workplace violence and a hospital staff fearful for their own safety, an urban hospital in a large U.S. city hired a new Director of Public Safety who was given the charter to improve safety for hospital staff, patients, and visitors. At the time, the hospital had basic security systems and processes in place. “We were very short-staffed and had a lot of open positions,” the Director of Public Safety says. The Director also went on to say that they’ve “been waiting years for someone to invent a technology where you can just freely walk through the concealed weapons detector without needing to empty out your pockets and take everything out of your bags as part of the screening process”. The hospital landed on the Evolv Express® for weapons detection, and through implementing us was able to:

  • Detect 7 handguns and 9 knives in less than 40 days
  • Achieve rapid deployment window while training all hospital security staff (30-plus officers) to manage it
  • Enable ER nurses and doctors—and hospital staff in general—to feel relieved and able to focus on patient care versus concern over their safety

Read the case study to learn how you can start your journey to a more secure and guest-friendly security screening solution in healthcare today.

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View more of our case studies on our resources page here.

Spartanburg, South Carolina School District 6 Enhances School Safety With Free-Flow Weapons Detection Powered by Evolv Express®

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The Spartanburg, South Carolina District 6 School District prides itself on being forward-thinking and progressive. Its unwavering commitment to its students and local community doesn’t stop with academics. Keeping its students and staff safe from threats is also a top priority for the district. Dr. Mark Smith who has served the district for 24 years as a teacher, principal, and administrator said “We’ve all witnessed the tragedy of school shootings over the years, and it is our worst nightmare.” Smith and other members of the team started vetting walk-through metal detectors as an option, and for many reasons landed on Evolv. Through implementing Evolv Express, Spartanburg School District Six was able to achieve the following and more:  

  • Completed average bagcheck in less than 20 seconds by pinpointing the potential area of the weapon in real-time.
  • Sustained always-on weapons detection and screening without any security queues.
  • Ensured student safety with weapons detection and screening while getting them to their classrooms on time.

Case Study Video

Watch how Spartanburg, South Carolina School District 6 Enhances School Safety With Free-Flow Weapons Detection Powered by Evolv Express®

Read the case study to learn how you can start your journey to a more secure and guest-friendly security screening solution in schools today.

Download Now

Download the infographic to see a snapshot view of the schools goals and outcomes to learn how you can do the same.

Download Now

View more of our case studies on our resources page here.

Prescribing the Evolv Express® System and Evolv Insights® for Healthcare Weapons Screening

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Summary

In response to rising violent assaults towards healthcare workers, healthcare facilities are taking steps to protect their staff, patients, and visitors by instituting additional security screening practices and systems. But metal detectors—both walkthrough and hand-held wands—come with significant drawbacks. For incoming patients, they are invasive and can increase anxiety and stress further. Hand wands, for example, only work if they are held about one inch off the body of the person.

In this whitepaper, we outline 7 ways to use weapons screening data from Evolv Insights® and to improve patient, staff, and visitor safety.

Violence and Safety in Healthcare Facilities Are a Problem

In addition to the above, both walkthrough and hand-held metal detectors generate a lot of false positives and the associated secondary checks are problematic, especially for incoming patients with serious health issues. And when there is a surge in incoming patients, staff, and visitors, metal detectors cannot scale to handle the increased volume.

Fill out the form to download this whitepaper and learn more about the current holes in traditional security and how Evolv Express® can help address those areas.

Engaging the Evolv Express® System and Evolv Insights® for Ticketing Venue Security Screening

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Summary

Ingress security screening remains a significant pain point for most ticketing venues. Fans and patrons want touchless, frictionless experiences, and ticketing venues want to give that to them. At the same time, ticketing venues must ensure the safety and security of fans and patrons by instituting appropriate security measuring— which includes security screening. But these legacy approaches to weapons screening are simply not a good fit for several reasons.

In this whitepaper, we outline 11 ways to use security screening data from Evolv Insights® and improve fan and guest experience – and better security

Legacy Security Screening Fails at Fan and Patron Experience

Legacy walkthrough and hand-wand metal detectors are a significant hurdle. They cannot scale to meet the volumes of fans and patrons who need to be screened. A large percentage of security alarms are false positives, prompting fans and patrons to pass through secondary security screening. Lengthy lines form in front of event entrances, which frustrate fans and patrons and create additional security risks. At the same time, unable to get fans and patrons into the venue, organizations lose opportunities for additional revenue from concessions and
different retail stores.

Fill out the form to download this whitepaper and learn more about the current holes in traditional security and how Evolv Express® can help address those areas.

Columbus Crew’s State-of-the-Art Stadium Relies on Evolv Technology

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One of the most rewarding aspects of my role with Evolv is partnering with sports teams and venues to understand their priorities and offer specific solutions that not only exceed expectations, but also transform their guest experience. As a sports fan myself, helping to make sports games and the venues where they are played an even better experience for fans is, quite simply, a dream job.   

Just this past weekend, the MLS’ Columbus Crew kicked off their 2022 season with a 4-0 shutout victory in front of nearly 20,000 fans cheering them on. All of these fans benefitted from an easy ingress experience thanks to Evolv Express and an innovative frictionless ticketing technology.  We appreciate the work we did with them to ensure the safety component – our systems – of their new facility met the goals of the state-of-the-art stadium before the Crew’s 2021 season.  

The result was an unparalleled fan ingress experience that Brandon Covert, the vice president of IT at the Haslam Sports Group, which manages various operational and administrative functions for Lower.com Field, called “The best ingress experience in professional sports.” 

Integration with future technologies 

Because of its open API system, Evolv can integrate with other technology, whether that is something that can be applied immediately, or a technology that has yet to be implemented. 

At Lower.com Field, this means facial recognition technology. To go from having to stop and be wanded by a security personnel’s handheld device and then wait to have a ticket barcode read, to an entirely frictionless experience, is a huge leap forward for fans attending a game. Fans don’t have to slow down for security, they can just walk right through, and they don’t even need to take out their phone to show a ticket because of the facial recognition. 

Breakthrough technology 

That integration is, of course, in addition to the cutting-edge technology that Evolv offers by itself. 

Setting up Evolv’s systems was as seamless a process as the entry of fans into the facility: 

  • Four dual-lane systems, along with one single-lane system at the ADA entrance ramp, were set up at the southeast gate where most fans enter the stadium. 
  • Evolv allowed as many as 16,000 fans, or 80% of capacity, to enter through that gate in a 20-minute window before the game started.  
  • A total of six dual-lane and two single-lane systems are used at the stadium. 

Evolv’s innovative security screening is not just faster, but safer. It uses advanced sensors and artificial intelligence to recognize even the weapons that are hardest to detect, like ‘ghost’ weapons made with 3D printers. 

The accuracy of the Express systems allowed the staff at Crew games to reverse ticketing and security, so that security checks came after attendees had already entered, further improving the fan experience. 

Using data to make improvements 

That’s the kind of information organizations like the Crew can take advantage of with Evolv Insights analytics. Once they inverted security and ticketing, security staff looked at Evolv data to figure out how to spread out the systems to make sure fans were using all of the Evolv lanes at that particular gate. 

An Evolv Solutions Engineer also worked with the security team to decide where to locate a secondary check-in table, so that fans flagged for double security screenings didn’t create a bottleneck going through Evolv’s systems. 

And Evolv’s Cortex AI capabilities access data insights from all of Evolv’s customers to learn and get better at detecting all kinds of weapons – and what’s not a weapon. At Lower.com Field, that means more accurate recognition of what could possibly be a threatening weapon versus a suspicious but permitted item, like an umbrella. The fewer nuisance alerts, the more seamless the ingress experience.  

As much as the data is able to help maximize the Crew’s Evolv deployment, there’s really only one metric that matters to fans, and that’s how much they enjoy their experience at a game. Crew fans can’t believe how easy the entry process is at Lower.com Field, and that’s going to keep them coming back. 

It starts with an organization’s specific solution, in this case, the Crew ownership’s desire for an unparalleled fan experience. Working with Evolv will deliver those results every time. 

New Standards in Physical Security

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Many of the security screening standards in use today were put in place decades ago. They addressed the threats at the time and employed the security screening equipment that was available. The threat landscape has changed, and the breadth of vulnerable venues has expanded, yet the predominant security screening technologies in use today are still the ones developed decades ago. Evolv Technology co-founders Mike Ellenbogen and Anil Chitkara virtually sit down with our guest speaker Chuck Marino, CEO of National Security Export and Consultant Sentinel Security Solutions, LLC to discuss this new landscape, and ultimately what new security technology is needed to address this shift.