Women’s Asian Cup: Optus Stadium chief executive Mike McKenna confident ticketing issues will not be a problem

Optus Stadium chief executive Mike McKenna is confident the ticket problems with plagued entry to this month’s AFL Origin clash will not be replicated at the Matildas’ Women’s Asian Cup opener on Sunday. But McKenna urged fans to arrive early and familiarise themselves with the new ticketing process for Sunday’s first match of the tournament and accompanying opening ceremony. All eyes will be on the Burswood peninsula on Sunday as Australia begin the tournament against The Philippines — a rematch of the Olympic qualifier the two sides played at the same venue in 2023 when the Matildas stormed to an 8-0 win. The marquee match-up, which will be proceeded by a performance by KPop Demon Hunters star Audrey Nuna, is the stadium’s first event since the AFL Origin clash, which saw hundreds of fans locked out for the start of the game due to ticketing issues. Earlier this year, Optus Stadium rolled out out a new enhanced digital ticketing system that involves near-field communication (NFC) technology and barcodes refreshing every 15 seconds. Because of this, fans at Origin who had received screenshots of their ticket from the friends or family who had purchased them, found out too late the screenshots were not scanning at the gate, preventing them from gaining entry. McKenna told The West Australian while getting people across the new system would be an ongoing issue ahead of the start of AFL season, he was confident Sunday’s punters would not face the same problems as Origin fans. “What we’ll find with this game, this weekend with a smaller crowd and a different arrival pattern, there won’t be any real issues at the gate,” he said. “It’s an educational process for everyone who comes to the venue, and then when they get here. “A lot of the work we’re putting in now is going into how we communicate to the regular guests who come for the footy season and ensure they’re ready when we get big crowds who traditionally arrive later than they might do for an event like this one-off Asian Cup opening game.” The stadium is working with Ticketmaster to have additional staff at gates to assist fans in navigating the new system, as well as with the Asian Football Confederation and Ticketmaster to reinforce the new system via pre-event communications and social media. Fans can access their tickets via the Ticketmaster app and either use the app to scan the tickets at the gate or transfer them to their Google or Apple wallet, which will also allow them to scan at the turnstiles. McKenna advised fans to get to the ground early, familiarise themselves with the new process and the best course of action was to download tickets to a mobile wallet ahead of arrival. “What I’d suggest they do is they get their ticket from their (mobile) ticket wallet, make sure they read the instructions, how to download it, to place it in their wallet, but also to make sure they understand which part of the gate to scan when they arrive,” he said. “If you put in your wallets, there’s a different point you scan it at than if it’s displayed in the Ticketmaster application with a barcode. “That’s something to read about long before you get here — ideally, the day before, certainly on the train or the bus on the way here. Don’t get to the turnstile and then work it out, because you’ll find yourself creating a queue or being part of one.” McKenna also said the turf was in good shape following Origin and the recent Ed Sheeran concerts and said the change in colour between different sections of the grass was nothing to worry about. “It takes a bit of time, when you’re watching from the stands, for those areas of turf to knit back into the rest of the field and look like they’re the same colour and people will probably see a bit of that on this these games this weekend,” he said. “The turf is a different colour because of different maturity of the grass in the turf and there’s different stages, so some areas will be lighter than others, and that’s that’s not an issue with the turf itself, with the way it plays, with its stability, but it’s just a matter of the colour of the grass in the turf.”