Croke Park, the third-largest stadium in Europe and home of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), Ireland’s largest sporting organisation, wanted to explore how AI could improve the user experience for the thousands of people attending events at the venue. Working with Fexco and Croke Park management, All human helped design and launch an AI-powered Stadium Assistant, accessed via a QR code on the back of 5,000 seats. We delivered the full project: from UX research and landing page design through to security architecture, load testing, accessibility compliance, and live on-the-day support.
crokepark.ie
Croke Park hosts some of Ireland's largest sporting events, with crowds regularly exceeding 80,000 people. Across a matchday, attendees have a huge range of questions: where are the nearest facilities? What food and drink options are available? How do I get to my seat? Where is the first aid point? The volume and variety of these queries put significant pressure on stadium staff, and many go unanswered at the moment a visitor needs help most.
They approached All human with a clear objective: help design and build a digital pilot to test whether an AI-powered assistant could handle these queries at scale, improve the experience for attendees, and lay the groundwork for a full stadium deployment. The pilot needed to be fast, intuitive, accessible, and, given the expected user volume, highly resilient.
The challenge wasn't just building something that worked in a demo. It had to work for over a thousand people simultaneously, on mobile, in a stadium, on a matchday or at a music event.
We began by researching the context in which users would engage with the assistant: standing in a stadium, on a mobile device, often under time pressure, with limited patience for friction. That context shaped every design decision. We designed a dedicated landing page, accessed via a QR code on the back of each seat, that clearly explained what the assistant, an AI-powered service developed by our partner Fexco, could help with, provided direct access to the AI chat widget, and surfaced the most commonly needed links upfront. The design had to communicate trust and utility within the first few seconds of a user scanning the code, with no room for ambiguity about what to do next.
Given the public-facing nature of the product and the sensitivity of deploying a live AI assistant at a major national venue, geo-restriction measures were implemented to ensure the page was accessible only from Ireland, mitigating the risk of misuse from outside the intended geography and reducing exposure to bad actors.
A stadium environment creates a specific technical challenge: a sudden, concentrated spike in traffic at the moment a match or concert begins, or an announcement is made. We conducted extensive load testing to validate that the product could absorb this demand without degradation, testing well beyond the expected peak load of the pilot deployment. Performance under pressure was a primary engineering criterion, not a secondary one.
The assistant was designed and built to meet WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards from the outset, ensuring it could be used by all attendees, including those using assistive technology.
The product was designed and built in compliance with GDPR requirements, ensuring that user interactions with the AI assistant were handled lawfully and transparently, with appropriate data minimisation principles in place.
All human provided on-the-day technical support for the pilot launch, monitoring live performance, standing ready to respond to any issues, and ensuring the experience worked as intended from the first scan to the final whistle.
The AI Stadium Assistant was developed by our partner Fexco. All human integrated the chat widget into the landing page experience, ensuring seamless access from QR code scan to conversation. All human implemented geo-restriction to Ireland to mitigate misuse risk. Access was verified and quality assurance (QA) conducted across multiple device types and network configurations Extensive load testing was carried out to ensure the platform could handle concentrated matchday traffic spikes. Multiple rounds of QA across devices, browsers, and network conditions.
- 1,314 users on launch day
Over 1,300 attendees accessed the AI assistant on the day of the pilot, validating the concept and demonstrating a strong appetite for AI-assisted stadium experiences.
- No-friction access
Users simply scan the QR code, and arrive at the assistant. No app, no sign-up, no barrier between a user's question and an answer. We designed for the reality of matchday behaviour.
- Full stadium rollout planned
On the strength of the pilot, Croke Park is now planning to roll out the AI Stadium Assistant across all 80,000+ seats — a significant expansion of Ireland's most ambitious sports venue AI deployment.
“Working with All human on the launch of the Croke Park AI Stadium Assistant couldn't have been easier! From the initial call to the final deployment for the launch pilot, All human led us through every stage of the process without delay. Ensuring a high-quality, secure and accessible AI Stadium Assistant that we can soon roll out to a full stadium here at Croke Park.”