Unfortunately, due to the proprietary, targeted, and costly nature of these products, I can only give out some broad information on them. For more information, or to set up a live demonstration if your needs meet Intellitix’s targeted audience, please contact Intellitix.

The goal of this project was to develop, deploy, and run the first fully automated RFID ticketing system for a concert festival of over one million tickets. This included developing both front-end scanning and back-end database software to keep track of all tickets. Most tickets were in the form of a wrist bracelet with an RFID chip embedded inside them, but some were also normal tickets with barcodes. Access control and reporting for festivals is organized into venues and zones.

The Festival International d’été de Québec was the first of many festivals to use this technology. It spanned 11 days and is one of the 10 largest festivals in North America with over a million tickets scanned. Since, the software has been deployed and is being used at most of the largest outdoor music festivals across North America, and many other festivals across the World.

Photos of the system being used can be found at the Intellitix website photo section.

Two separate primary pieces of software (which both contained a front-end client and back-end server) were developed for this project for two different platforms:

• Handheld Software

  The first piece of software was developed in C# for Windows CE for the client and Perl for the server (operating system independent). This software can (among many, many other things): Tie a ticket’s ID to a purchase transaction (received through a bar code) when sending tickets in mail or picking up at will call. Set a ticket’s ID to only be able to be tied to certain kinds of ticket purchase (i.e. VIP or only for a certain day). Scan a ticket “in” or “out” of a venue, informing the user of the success of the action. The ticket’s basic info is also displayed. Administrative and customer service modes are also available to do the following with a ticket once its ID has been scanned: Receive all information pertaining to the ticket and its transaction (or lack thereof). Quick access to information pertaining to why it may or may not be valid is also available. Update and troubleshoot ticket general information, validate, deny, or reissue ticket. All actions applied to a ticket by administrators or users are logged and tied to the user and device which performed the action. A ticket’s full history can be reviewed by anyone with permissions. Validation functions are also available to get a transaction (barcode) or ticket (RFID) ID without interacting with the server.

• Portal Software

  The second piece of software was developed in C++ for both the client and server, and both are operating system independent. This software controls the portals (gates) which check a ticket’s ID as a person enters the venue and reacts according to the ticket’s validity that the server gives. This software was written to perform tens of thousands of transactions per minute (generally over multiple portals). The basic 3 reactions to a scanned ticket are (among many other hedge cases): Valid: The ticket is valid and not marked as already in a venue. The server marks the ticket as “now” in the venue, and the portal gives a green light and a valid beep. Invalid: The ticket is not valid or is marked as already in a venue. The portal gives a red light and an invalid beep. Error: Multiple possible tickets are read at once (if 2 tickets try to come through at once), in which case a red light and error beep is given. There are dozens of failsafes in place in this software to handle any problem, and allow people to continue entering the venue if such a problem occurs. This even includes lost network connection to the master server(s). A debugging client is also available to test the hardware without connecting to a server.

There are also multiple other supporting pieces of software for the system that do many other things including cashless and social media integration.

This is a festival accreditation management system used to print laminates. It is completely driven by web interfaces, and has the following features:

• The entire interface is done through a single page load. All server requests are done through AJAX with a progress indicator. The interface is done in a “Windowed” approach, with each newly opened window dimming and disabling the windows behind it until it has been closed. This allows for easily updating separate parts of the interface after a modification has occurred without having to query the server again for new data.
• The primary badge list window:
  • Has an option to create new badges
  • If a badge row is clicked on, a window pops up to allow editing of the badge
  • Allows the user to search through specified badge columns for search strings real time, without having to requery the database
  • Multiple badges can easily be checked at a time and grouped for easy viewing. All checked badges (that are ready) can be sent to a badge printer.
  • Badges that are not ready for printing are highlighted in red. Badges are considered not ready to print if their template requires a badge picture and one is not provided.
• The badge creation window:
  • Allows the user to create/edit badge information, including the dates a badge is valid for, and the badge Access Type (which defines the badge template).
  • Has a special Flash applet that allows the user to create a “badge picture” for the badge. The badge picture can either be uploaded from a file already on the computer, or can be taken realtime with a webcam. Since badge pictures’ sizes are predefined, after the badge picture is received, an intuitive cropping/resizing interface is displayed to allow finalizing of the badge picture.
• The template creation window allows an administrator to compile a badge template from separate pieces of information including:
  • Static images
  • The badge picture (different per badge)
  • Static and dynamic text (i.e. the badge person’s name)
  • Static and dynamic barcodes
  Each template has a specified width, height, and an option specifying if it requires a badge picture.
• The festival creation window allows an administrator to create/edit a festival with the following options:
  • Festival name, subname (year/season), and general information
  • Badge Access Types (VIP, Security, Vendor, etc). Each access type is tied to a specific badge template.
  • The date ranges the festival occurs on
  • Festival special options (each badge can select multiple of these)
  • Import data from other festivals or spreadsheets/files
• All actions are checked against proper user credentials. If a user does not have access to perform an action, a login window pops up allowing the user to change to a different user with the proper credentials. Users are assigned credentials per festival, but super administrators have access to everything by default.
• All actions performed on the system are logged and viewable by administrators.
• The entire system is fully Unicode compatible.
• An “options” button is always available in the upper left corner of the screen with user information and options that can be accessed from any point in the system.
• The JavaScript system is secure in that all local information pertaining to a window is erased when that window is closed. If a user properly logs out, all local information pertaining to their session is wiped out.

There are more products that I unfortunately cannot talk about yet, but will provide more information as soon as I am able.

The second project for Intellitix “ID Badge Management”, which was very recently created, has been added.

In June of this year I was flown into Montreal, Canada within 24 hours of being contacted about a very important project. I was contracted to create a range of products in 6 weeks by myself that was originally slated for 9 months of development. It was literally the most grueling, stressful, and difficult undertaking I have ever attempted, but in the end, probably the most rewarding experience of my life.

The goal was to develop, deploy, and run the first fully automated RFID ticketing system for a concert festival of over one million tickets. I can thankfully say that we met and surpassed all expectations :-). See the project description for further information.