Fan zones are central to the experience of a major sports tournament, but managing them successfully requires navigating a unique set of challenges. Operating a successful fan zone means balancing very high attendance, strict security constraints, and intense food and beverage peaks.
To ensure these events remain safe, profitable and running without hiccups, organisers must maintain strict control over several operational aspects. Specifically, it is crucial to manage how payments are handled across various vendors, tightly control who enters the site, and accurately track how many people are inside at any given time.
The slightest operational friction immediately becomes apparent: queues, overcrowding at entrances, security tensions, loss of revenue.
To maintain control, there are three operational challenges to overcome:
- Securing revenue during peak periods
- Making visitor numbers predictable
- Managing capacity in real time
Summary
Handle F&B demand with cashless payments
The payment challenge in fan zones
Operating food and beverage services during major tournaments means navigating a highly pressurised environment, as fan zones concentrate thousands of transactions into very short timeframes. Organisers must be fully prepared to handle short, intense sales peaks that predictably occur before the match, during half-time, and immediately after the game.
The operational complexity is further heightened by the scale of the event, as dozens of vendors operate on-site simultaneously. Managing this workforce presents its own hurdles, given that temporary staff rotate frequently throughout the duration of the tournament. This means any deployed system must be immediately intuitive to use.
In these high-pressure scenarios, efficiency is directly tied to profitability because any delay at payment leads directly to lost revenue. It is essential to understand that long queues not only affect the experience but also reduce the number of transactions per visitor.
Implementing a unified payment system also provides an essential layer of financial control. Since vendor agreements often involve a percentage of their revenue, a centralised system prevents under-reporting of sales, ensuring organisers receive their accurate, negotiated share.
Finally, planners must look beyond a single match day. These events typically involve a multi-week operation (often 20-30 days) with integrated stock management, requiring infrastructure that can sustain high-speed operations and track inventory over a prolonged period.
Why the Weezevent cashless system is ideal for fan zones
To combat these extreme sales peaks, the Weezpay allows vendors to accept contactless cards and mobile wallets. This cashless system guarantees extremely fast transactions, which directly results in shorter queues and higher revenue per visitor. Furthermore, the system works offline, which is critical for capitalising on such short periods of intense sales. With regular payment solutions, any internet downtime could prove to be catastrophic for sales.
A major operational hurdle is that fan zones rely heavily on temporary staff, rotating vendor teams, and short training windows. If every new staff member requires extensive training, it directly impacts revenue. Because of this, our solution is built to accommodate temporary, high-turnover teams. It is a plug-and-play system that is incredibly easy to use, ensuring super-fast adoption. Standard retail solutions simply are not suitable for this environment, as they are designed for very small setups or traditional retail spaces.
With dozens of operators on site, centralised management is essential to establish unified pricing, strict payment rules, and perfect alignment across all vendors. This software is paired with event-grade mobile POS devices. These terminals feature a long battery life and are specifically designed for outdoor, high-volume environments where rain, liquids, and food spills are common. Organisers benefit from easy on-site dispatch and centralised device management for real-time tracking and monitoring of all devices across the site.
When managing large, rotating teams, the system provides advanced security and staff permissions. Managers can implement different roles and access levels, ensuring that sensitive actions, such as refunds, are strictly restricted to authorised staff to avoid any problems with temporary workers.
The platform also goes beyond basic payments to offer support for complex and hybrid scenarios. This includes built-in promotion management and the ability to process NFC payments for VIPs or sponsors using free digital vouchers. Furthermore, integrated stock management is built into the system. It allows organisers to precisely track inventory across multiple days or weeks, which is a critical necessity for fan zones running for 20 to 30 days. This capability is rarely found in standard retail solutions.
Finally, the system empowers organisers with real-time tracking and post-event analysis. Teams can monitor live sales dashboards, track vendors’ performance as the event unfolds, and generate detailed reporting after the event has concluded.
Control fan zone attendance with pre-registration
Pre-registration helps organisers
Managing large crowds safely requires proactive planning and implementing a system that helps organisers gain a crucial head start. By requiring fans to sign up in advance, event planners can successfully collect attendee information before the event even begins.
This is known as pre-registration, and the vital data you gather through this allows management teams to significantly improve their understanding of the audience, giving them a much clearer picture of who will be arriving on the day. Furthermore, having this information in advance allows organisers to effectively support security protocols when required, as they can systematically accept or refuse registrations based on specific safety and capacity criteria.
Key principles of pre-registration
To maximise sign-ups, the user journey must be completely frictionless. Implementing a fast, mobile-first registration process ensures that fans can easily secure their spot on the go. Crucially, there should be no account creation required, removing unnecessary barriers that often lead to abandoned registrations. The entire sign-up flow can be embedded on the event’s website or a simple event page, maintaining your brand’s consistency with fully white-labelled tickets, emails, and interfaces.
By managing this process directly, organisers maintain complete database ownership, ensuring they retain all valuable fan data for future marketing and communications. Furthermore, a robust system is flexible enough to address different types of crowds, handling general fan admissions alongside complex accreditations. For specific edge cases with extreme security demands, planners can deploy a rigorous ID control system, similar to the one used for the Paris Olympics, to verify every single attendee.
Beyond simply collecting names, pre-registration acts as a powerful capacity management tool. Planners can securely set a maximum attendance per day or per match, allowing the software to automatically close registrations when capacity is reached. For longer tournaments, it is easy to use time slots and manage multi-day sessions or events to distribute crowds evenly and prevent bottlenecks.
Ultimately, this comprehensive approach guarantees predictable attendance and significantly safer entry flows, laying the groundwork for a secure and enjoyable event.
Monitor occupancy with real-time access control
Why manual counting is not enough
Relying on traditional methods for crowd management is a significant risk during major sports tournaments. Organisers quickly find that manual counting is entirely inaccurate under pressure, especially when thousands of eager fans arrive simultaneously just before kick-off. Without integrated digital systems in place, management teams have no live visibility of capacity, making it impossible to make informed, split-second decisions. Ultimately, this lack of real-time data leads to a dangerously slow reaction when the site is full, which can jeopardise both security and the overall fan experience.
Access control in in/out mode
To solve these critical safety challenges, modern fan zones must deploy access control in in/out mode. By scanning tickets or QR codes at entrances and exits, operators can precisely monitor the flow of attendees. This is achieved by equipping security staff with professional mobile or fixed devices. Unlike standard consumer smartphones, these scanners are lightweight, feature a long battery capacity, and are specifically built for events, making them incredibly easy for temporary staff to operate in fast-paced environments. Our scanners can scan up to 600 tickets per hour, whereas smartphones can scan only 350.
Because the system meticulously tracks entries and exits in real time, security managers can maintain a live occupancy count at all times. This technology gives command centres instant visibility on exactly how many people are inside the fan zone, allowing them to confidently manage crowd density and halt entries the moment the maximum threshold is reached.
Fan zones in action
Club France
During the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Club France faced an immense logistical challenge, welcoming up to 50,000 visitors every single day. To maintain a fluid and secure environment, they deployed a comprehensive suite of tools.
The venue successfully issued 700,000 tickets using a white-label ticketing system for both paid and free entries. To manage the high demand securely, they relied on built-in queue systems. To combat the high “no-show” rates typically associated with free events, they used WeezTarget to automatically email registered attendees the day before, reminding them of the programme and securing their attendance.
The 20,000 accreditations required for media, athletes, and security were streamlined using accreditation through WeezCrew. Partners were given the autonomy to manage their own quotas, while high-speed on-site printers produced up to 300 badges per hour.
Around 30 control points were equipped with NFC terminals to manage three distinct entrances. For F&B and merchandise, 380 lightweight, wireless mobile terminals were deployed to guarantee fast transactions. Crucially, the NFC chips embedded in the accreditation badges functioned for both secure access control and direct cashless payments at the points of sale.
Rugby Top 14 Finale 2025
The fan zone for the Rugby Top 14 finale in Bordeaux serves as a perfect example of how to implement strict capacity rules.
Organisers used pre-registration to set a strict maximum attendance limit per day or per match. Once these capacity thresholds were reached, the system was configured to automatically close registrations.
To ensure the site never exceeded safe limits, they operated their access control in an “in/out mode”. By scanning attendees at both the entrances and the exits, management maintained a live occupancy count at all times. This real-time tracking provided instant visibility of the exact number of people inside the fan zone, enabling rapid responses if the venue approached full capacity.
Ultimately, a modern fan zone must conquer the dual challenges of high-volume sales peaks and strict crowd capacity limits in a data-driven environment. To deliver a safe, enjoyable, and highly profitable experience during major tournaments, event planners must equip themselves with the right digital infrastructure.
By combining the three core pillars of centralised cashless payments, pre-registration, and real-time access control, planners gain complete mastery over their event operations.
With these integrated systems in place, organisers can monitor entry and exit flows to maintain strict site security whilst seeing real-time occupancy at a single glance. Furthermore, this data-led approach allows management teams to improve and track sales across all food and beverage vendors. Finally, having access to live metrics empowers organisers to adjust staffing instantly based on actual crowd movement and demand. By adopting this integrated digital infrastructure, you ensure your fan zone remains secure and successful from the first match all the way to the grand finale.
