Stadium security makes for a better fan experience
Mercedes-Benz Stadium strengthened stadium security with high resolution Axis cameras. The venue and its public safety partners now spot issues in real time. The situational awareness has helped to cut fan exit times in half.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium: home of world-class events
Mercedes-Benz Stadium opened its doors in 2017. In addition to being the home venue for the National Football League’s (NFL) Atlanta Falcons and Major League Soccer’s (MLS) Atlanta United, the stadium hosts national, international, collegiate, and high school sporting events year-round.
The stadium also serves as a popular concert venue for headlining artists across a range of music genres. On peak event day, more than 70,000 fans pass through its gates – a scale that makes stadium security a round-the-clock operation for the venue and its partners.
Protecting fans starts with a clear view
Mercedes-Benz Stadium sits in the heart of downtown Atlanta, welcoming tens of thousands of fans on event days and staying open to the community in between. "Welcome home’ is our cultural theme here," says Greg Overstreet, Senior Director of Security. “We would prefer to have a secure facility with strict standards for entry and access but without the appearance of a ‘locked down’ facility.”
That openness places a key responsibility on the stadium security team: to keep watch over a large, busy campus without making it feel closed off. Doing that well depends on being able to see clearly — spotting a medical emergency, a crowd bottleneck, or a developing situation early enough to send help.
“Our older cameras weren’t delivering the clarity we needed,” shares Overstreet. “We were struggling to identify specific situations with clarity– which made it difficult to conduct a thorough investigation.”
With camera capability having advanced considerably since the stadium opened, the venue decided it was time to modernize its stadium security technology.
With the new Axis cameras, we’re now around 80 pixels on target, which provides the detail we need to quickly resolve issues and sustain our high level of fan experience.
Rebuilding stadium security from the bowl up
The first phase of the project was to replace the stadium’s bowl area cameras with high-resolution fixed cameras from Axis. “Our old bowl cameras only delivered around 20 pixels on target,” explains Kevin Pope, Chief Information Officer for AMB Sports and Entertainment, parent company of Mercedes-Benz Stadium. “With the new Axis cameras, we’re now around 80 pixels on target, which provides the detail we need to quickly resolve issues and sustain our high level of fan experience."
The new NFL standard called for 50 pixels on target. After testing, the team set its own bar higher using roughly the same number of cameras, with deliberate overlapping so a single outage never creates a dead spot. This new ability helps the team to locate a fan who needs medical help or to confirm the bowl section where the fan is sitting.
Besides quadrupling image quality, the new cameras provided critical electronic image stabilization. “That’s huge for us,” says Pope. “We don’t have to worry about vibrations or wind gusting across the rooftop distorting the video. The clarity of those long-range lenses is amazing, even when the target is far away.”
Overstreet also points to the lowlight capability. “I am able to utilize the cameras during low light events. Particularity concerts, that allow for active monitoring of concert floor aisles and crowd surges that can be a dangerous situation. I am able to clearly see activity I could not see in the past.”
To further strengthen stadium security and safety, the venue augmented its new fixed cameras with Axis 4K PTZ cameras. Installed in the bowl and on the scoreboard, they enabled the security team to track and investigate situations in real time while still maintaining continuous coverage of every seat section.
Axis partner GC&E Systems Group, the project integrator, also installed long-range PTZ cameras on the rooftop, giving the team a bird’s-eye view of traffic and crowds approaching the venue.
We’re also using the cameras to help us redirect fans to less congested exit points. At one match, we were able to cut fan exit time from 16 minutes to eight.
Sharing stadium security with city partners
Event day at Mercedes-Benz Stadium is an all-hands-on-deck affair. Commanders from public safety partners – Atlanta Police Department, Fire Rescue Department, and Emergency Medical Services – gather in the operations center with Overstreet, stadium department heads, and other key players to watch camera feeds, scan social media for threats, and coordinate decisions.
“The Stadium Operations Center is the lifeblood of every major event. Every incident no matter how big or small runs through this room in order to ensure real time data collection and tracking as well as situational awareness across all departments.”
Cutting fan exit time in half
One goal of the team was to address a common fan complaint: how long it takes to get in and out of the stadium. With the visual of the new cameras, the stadium security team can spot crowds forming well before they reach the gates and redirect them to ease bottlenecks.
“We’re able to relay that information in real time to officers on scene so they can take immediate steps to ease congestion,” reports Overstreet. “We’re also using the cameras to help us redirect fans to less congested exit points. At one soccer match, we were able to cut fan exit time from 16 minutes to eight.”
Keeping the experience good for everyone
Holding disruptive fans accountable has always been a delicate issue. Overstreet frames it as a hospitality question first.
“If I want to bring my grandson to a football game and there's someone acting inappropriately around me without repercussion, I'm less likely to come back,” he says. “And because I'm less likely to come back, my grandchildren are less likely in the future to be someone who comes to the stadium as well.”
With the old cameras, acting on a report was rarely straightforward. “I want to make sure we get it right. If I do an investigation on an incident and the footage does not back up the allegation clearly and 100%, I am less likely to impose harsh consequences on an alleged offender. Our cameras allow us to positively confirm what conduct may have led to a security or police interaction,” Overstreet explains. Today with 80 pixels on target, the team has the confidence to intervene when it matters.
Aiding in the search of an abducted child
The Stadium’s rooftop cameras allow for a unique opportunity to view the city and neighboring communities from all angles extending the value of stadium security beyond the property line.
“There was a time we received an urgent call from the Atlanta Police Department that a child had been abducted from a nearby hotel,” reports Overstreet. “We checked our camera system and were able to provide officers with a very detailed description of the abductors and the victim, the van’s license plate, and the direction it was travelling.”
That information, coupled with images from Atlanta’s citywide camera system, enabled the police to locate the van and reunite the child with his family within the hour.
Tracking drone activity
Even on non-event days, stadium security remains alert to the potential threats to the stadium. “We’re constantly using the cameras to monitor the perimeter and access points to make sure they’re secure,” says Overstreet.
With drone activity increasing in the area, that vigilance extends to the sky. “We’ve integrated our drone detection system with our Axis PTZ cameras to track all the drone flights over our stadium and look for suspicious activity.”
How a single view strengthens stadium security
Mercedes-Benz Stadium relies on internal staff, public safety partners, and a range of integrated technologies such as drone detection, citywide camera feeds, and its own systems in order to strengthen stadium security.
“We’ve found that integrating all our resources into a single pane enables us and our partners to stay alert to concerns in and around the stadium and deal with them quickly,” emphasizes Kevin Pope.
For Overstreet, who has worked at venues in other cities, the difference is also cultural. "There's a lot of pride in our stadium," he says — pride shared by city leadership, public safety agencies, and ownership willing to invest when the team identifies a need.
Better stadium security, better fan experience
The team is never content to rest on its laurels. Next up: automating what is still a manual process.
"We definitely use the cameras today to monitor ingress and egress and make dynamic decisions," says Pope. "Where we want to use them more is layering in computer vision, studying line queues, and redirecting fans."
"Our data analytics team is very interested in the information our new cameras provide,” says Overstreet. “They’re looking forward to using that business intelligence to help the different departments – like our merchandising team and our food and beverage team – improve operations and speed of service, all things that make for a better fan experience.”
For Mercedes-Benz Stadium, stadium security and hospitality are the same discipline: seeing clearly, acting quickly, and giving every fan a reason to return.
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