REAL faces challenging weeks to get ready for Rider game vaccine passports

Saskatchewan Roughriders fans will need to prove that they’re fully vaccinated or provide a negative COVID test to get into Mosaic Stadium as of Sept. 17, when the Green and White take on the Toronto Argonauts at home.

The team’s decision is supported by Tim Reid, CEO of the Regina Exhibition Associated Limited (REAL), which runs everything on the grounds of Evraz Place.

However, while he’s ready and willing to work with the team, it’s going to be quite the scramble to get every detail figured out in time.

When Reid spoke to reporters, he said fans may need some patience at first.

“I think it’s a transformational piece for our business. Gate entrance is a challenge in any large venue when you’re moving 30 or 40 thousand people through it. And so, as we’ve seen in the past, just scanning a ticket in a digital form has created some challenges this year,” Reid said.

“When you add the complexity of now having a ticket plus potentially a QR code or another validation that your health credentials are what they need to be, I think that’s a massive challenge for us to overcome.

“The challenges between now and that game on (Sept. 17) are quite significant, I think.”

Not only will it be tough, it will require a lot of money, though Reid doesn’t have an exact dollar figure.

“I couldn’t fathom a guess right now. I think it’s probably hundreds of thousands of dollars, not tens or thousands,” he said.

“I don’t want to minimize that we are going to need support from all levels of government. We are going to need to make considerable investments in people as well as technology to allow this to work.”

He said it’s possible that ticket prices will go up as a result.

However, Reid is thankful that other places, like IG Field in Winnipeg, have already picked up vaccination rules.

“One of the things that we have taken from other jurisdictions that have administered this process successfully is you really separate the health validation from the ticketing process,” he explained.

“You almost have two checkpoints. One where it’s, ‘Hey, do I have my proof of vaccination or do I have my proof of a negative COVID test?’ You deal with that issue at one checkpoint and then you deal with the ticketing issue at a separate one. What you try to do is create enough space between those two checkpoints.”

The last thing Reid wants is for people to be confused as to what they need to do.

“I think simplicity is essential,” he said. “So we’ll have a digital form that we can get a QR code that we can scan that says you have your vaccinations in place, and have a separate one that allows you to work with Ticketmaster.

“If there’s an ability to integrate those two services, that’s even better, but right now I would say simplicity of use and decoupling the ticket-scanning process from the vaccination-proof process is important.”

The Roughriders joined the Edmonton Elks on Monday in announcing vaccine passports to get into games. They were the last two teams in the CFL without such a system.