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A Magic Welcome for VenueNext at the Amway Center

Dan Savage
Director of Digital News

By Alex Martins, CEO of Orlando Magic

Sept. 28, 2015

ORLANDO – Today is an exciting day for the Orlando Magic as we share the news with the world that VenueNext is now the singular platform to power Amway Center fan experiences for the 2015-2106 season, and beyond. We’re proud to be the first and only NBA team to date to embrace this entirely new architecture for fan engagement on a mobile device.

For the better part of the past year, our teams worked collaboratively to develop what we’re calling “the remote control to your Orlando Magic Amway Center experience”. Our partnership with VenueNext is outstanding and we’re really confident this is going to be a groundbreaking milestone in our history as a team and venue.

During the upcoming season, our fans will be able to interact in so many more ways than in the more static fashion they’ve experienced in the past. Overall, most sports team apps are focused on content, which is one dimensional. Now, through this brand new experience, NBA fans for the first time will have a more dynamic and comprehensive experience.

Because VenueNext’s platform integrates all the amenities and isolated systems in a venue, we can provide so much more experiences to our fans in one singular interface, including easy entry into the building, loyalty to the industry’s most fan friendly loyalty marketplace, finding your way around, easy ways to order food and beverages from your mobile device to your seat, as well as ordering seat tickets, upgrades and parking tickets. Everything about it is seamless, easier and more convenient for our fans. For instance, users will be able to verify one credit card in the app and use it to pay for multiple purchases throughout the venue (e.g. merchandise, vs ticketing, vs parking).

Apple Pay and Google Wallet will also be fully interactive through the app at the beginning of regular season, and in another innovative move, and a first for the NBA, our fans will be able to use loyalty points, which we’re calling “Magic Money”, in exchange for upgrades and food and beverages and a whole catalog of different experiences and items in this Magic Marketplace.

The real benefit is that this partnership allows us to provide one access point to all features for our fans instead of them having to hop around on different websites or apps. Our goal was to develop a really user friendly experience that’s a one stop shop for interacting with the teams and Amway center through a mobile device.

We’re going to soft launch during the pre-season, and launch fully for the beginning of the regular season. But we won’t stop there.

We’ll continue to integrate additional services and layers of interactivity as we move through the season. One feature that we’re really looking forward to rolling out is our gamification piece, where VenueNext will work with our partners at FanDuel to integrate a gaming feature right inside the app.

Fans will be able to play along with the game based on the stats and plays that are happening in front of them and earn points into their Magic Money marketplace account. Anyone in the arena will be able to play. This truly is the heart of the reason why we chose to partner with VenueNext. From our perspective, they are the sole provider of a platform that has the ability for any other third party to plug-in to give this seamless, and well-designed experience to fans.

The VenueNext platform has this ability to take in third party apps, virtually, to create this all-encompassing experience inside the building. There are a lot of individual apps out there that can’t be integrated into one platform location. VenueNext is the only platform that we could integrate all of these benefits and services into one app.

We’re excited about continuing to innovate together with VenueNext and our partners this coming season, and we hope our fans enjoy the experience.