Here are 3 key insights in 3 minutes on the 3rd day of the 3rd week at 3:33 PM that will hopefully make you want to do one of 3 things: Think more about it, share it with others, or do something with it.
Kickoff for the varsity opener is 7:30, and the stands are already filling up fast. The table has a cash box, a roll of tickets, and about 75 ones for the whole crowd. The line is already stretched past the concession stand.
I've stood at that table more Fridays than I can count. Here are three things that would've saved me a sprint back to the office for more singles.
For years our home opener ran on the same setup. A metal box, a roll of tickets, and whoever the front office could grab that afternoon to sit at the table. Nobody trained for it. Nobody knew if we had change. The first line of the season always moved slower than every other Friday of the year, because the whole system got rebuilt from scratch every August.
Parents don't care that it's opening night. They just want in before kickoff. When the line backs up to the parking lot because two people are making change out of the same box, that's on us, not them.
The fix isn't complicated. It's deciding who works the gate before the week of, not the morning of.
Pick your gate staff for the opener this week. Names written down, not "whoever's free."
Every other Friday of the fall, our parking lot handles the crowd fine. A varsity opener with a full house is not every other Friday. Everybody who's been waiting all summer shows up at once, plus grandparents who haven't been to a game since last November, plus the visiting team's buses trying to unload right where the overflow parking usually goes.
The first year I didn't think about it ahead of time, cars backed up onto the road before the sun went down. An officer showed up to help direct traffic, but only because it was already bad, not because anyone called ahead.
A real plan, worked out before game week, fixes this. Dedicated bus flow so drivers know exactly where to pull in and unload. A parking layout that's actually mapped out instead of whatever's open. And a clear answer for where overflow goes once the main lot fills, decided ahead of time, not while cars are already backed up onto the road.
Put a traffic plan in writing this week. Bus flow, parking layout, and where overflow goes once the lot's full.
Here's what actually fixed the cash box problem for me: selling the opener online instead of at the table. Parents buy ahead on their phone, show a ticket at the gate, and whoever's working the table is checking people in instead of counting change in the dark with a flashlight.
That's part of why digital ticketing is built into Bound. One home game sold online is one less line, one less cash box to reconcile at ten that night, one less person who has to get trained on making correct change under pressure.
You don't have to move every game online by Friday. Start with the one that has the biggest crowd. That's usually the opener.
Set up online ticketing for just this Friday's game. See how much shorter the line looks by kickoff.
Pick one of these, not all three. And if you're the one holding the cash box this week, go find out right now if you actually have change.
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