Imagine someone bringing a prohibited item into your venue…whether it be a concert, a sporting event or a festival…what kind of havoc could that wreak for you and your attending fans? Hence, we have the bag policies we do today. The security screening process is a necessity and a part of our fans’ attendance at events; it’s there for a reason just as the ticketing process or the alcohol purchase processes exist…..everything is a process; they have a purpose, often a bit of inconvenience, and hopefully some benefits to the fans….so why not try to reduce the inconveniences? 

Part of the reason we started Lock It Or Lose It was because we saw a flaw in a process that sometimes caught people off guard and forced people with a touch decision: Do I 1) Surrender this item security is confiscating or 2) Do I make the trek all the way back to my car to leave the item. We saw this happen a number of times, the process worked but potentially created a sometimes costly inconvenience for the traveler/attendee. 

As a venue you don’t really have a choice but to consistently and fairly enforce the policies…but why not try to find a way to lessen to blow by finding a happy medium? If you’re here because you found the post on our site, I don’t need to tell you that our lockers help with that. Shameless plug aside, look at your customer-facing processes and look at their faces….stand by in the shadows and listen to their gripes or comments during their experience and ask yourself “is their comment a common theme or a one-off”. Fix those common theme complaints of your customers. Some examples are: 

1. Do you constantly hear fans complain about how long they wait in line for merch?  Ask yourself why that is.

2. Have you measured how long it takes for someone getting to a show 1 hour early to make it through security?  Analyze why it can’t be less than that.

3. How often does your security staff have to turn away fans due to prohibited items? Ask yourself why is that number what it is?

4. How long does it take for someone who has placed a food order to receive it? Why does it take as long as it does (good or bad)?

Look at those smaller processes individually and try to improve them. You may be surprised that they are not working as designed. From my days as a Lean Six Sigma-certified professional in my day job a simple “spaghetti diagram” (I’ll let you Google that one….but you can do those easily with zero training) can reveal a crazy inefficiency in food order preparation or delivery.  

A one or two show close observation on the merch purchase process may reveal that simply adding one more person to the merch booth can increase alcohol sales by 10% or even merch sales by 30% because they look at the line and turn away….I’ve personally done that. 

The big message here is just because a process is working….it may not be working as well as it can be; and you may be losing revenue because of it. [Here comes my shameless plug again…haha] It may be as simple as adding a couple of personal storage lockers in front of security and by the merch stands may enhance your fans’ experience enough for them to tolerate some other inefficiencies you can work on to make it even better. 

It has been a minute since I have analyzed processes daily, but I’d be happy to study anyone’s processes for a show or two and give you my thoughts (and I may even have some suggestions). The crazy part about Lean Six Sigma as it pertains to Lock It Or Lose It is both founders are Lean Six Sigma certified.