AFFA official: New booking system will make process more convenient for fans

Earlier this week, AFFA introduced a new system o booking tickets for football matches. What this system imply and what are its advantages for the fans?

First I would like to note the project of automation of booking system was launched in 2009. To date, about 10 automated sales point were deployed in Baku. The sales point is a small stand equipped with a computer. The new booking system makes it even more convenient for fans. The main idea of creating such sales points in Baku is to create an opportunity to choose the seat, which a fan wants to buy. The employee of the sales point will demonstrate the chosen seat in a display. The system is already running in test mode and now fans can register tickets for the upcoming Azerbaijan-Kuwait match to be held on Aug. 11.

In future, in addition to booking, the federation plans to provide opportunity of acquiring football apparels (scarves, shirts, hats and trinkets) to a fan to come to the stadium fully "equipped", as well as possibility of reserving a parking place.

The focus of this project is also to address the problems existing in selling tickets for  matches. Thanks to new technology booking becomes much easier. The system allows us to receive real-time statistical information about demand for the sector, the number of sales, amount of the sold tickets, etc., which is useful for conducting accounting.

Is there primary statistics on booking?

Booking was launched onh July 19 and about 500 tickets are already sold. But it can not be called the final result, as ticket sales may increase a day or two before the game, as it often happens.

Before the introduction of the automated booking system, the process was monitored in a different way, which was less convenient for our procedures. That is, one had had to call all the sales points to get information about the number of the sold tickets and the statistics were often unreliable. Given this, we decided to completely automate this process. Automation Project is not limited to the achieved result, but provided for further development. Smart Systems Technology Company provided a great assistance in the project. The company headed by Islam Abushev successfully carried out all the work.

How do you think can innovations introduced by the Company impact tickets prices?

Ticket price is fixed and determined depending on the sector. Tickets can vary from one to 10 manat. The status of the match also affects the ticket price.

If you compare with other countries ticket prices are acceptable. Of course, there are also VIP-tickets, which cost 20-25 manat. Their cost is estimated according to the visibility of the football field, as well as comfortable seats.

We expect arrival of about 20,000 fans at the upcoming Azerbaijan-Kuwait match. Such a small number is mainly due to the summer period and season holiday. Usually the matches are attended by 30,000 fans.

Do you consider implementing electronic payments within this project?

AUndoubtedly, this option is also considered and we intend to develop technical component of the project by increasing its functionality. In the future, we plan a full automation of retail booking that allow customers to make payments independently.

We consider all sorts of convenient options for remote booking, and we have ideas to introduce in the coming year a system of remote payments via the Internet, the banking system and through the mobile network.

Regarding the last, I would like to note that we closely cooperate with one of the mobile operators of Azerbaijan, and today the talks are underway on the possibility of introducing tools for mobile payment to purchase tickets for matches by sending short messages. In turn it's an additional service for the operator. I believe that this project can also be implemented as early as next year. The project again will be implemented jointly with Smart Systems Technology Company.


/Trend/