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Wayfinding SDK - Indoor Mapping for Stadiums

Feb 24, 2022

7 min read

By: Cara Hueston

Digital stadium maps allow fans to intuitively navigate from the parking lot to their seat, while exploring shops and services along the way. Wayfinding SDKs provide developers with the ultimate flexibility when it comes to customization and integrations. 

Wayfinding SDK - Indoor Mapping for Stadiums

Indoor Mapping & Wayfinding SDK for Stadiums

Stadiums can use digital indoor maps as the foundation for a highly engaging, state-of-the-art, branded experience. Powerful map editing software helps to ensure that location information and events are always up-to-date and accessible for visitors and wayfinding SDKs provide intuitive indoor navigation of your venue. As stadiums welcome back fans, it is a great time to invest in indoor mapping technology. 

How Does Wayfinding SDK for Stadiums Work?

Mappedin’s SDKs allow you to build completely custom mapping experiences, regardless of industry or use case. Our SDKs encompass a wide variety of components and features required to easily integrate mapping into any application - anything from an interactive campus map, to a mobile app for shoppers, or indoor outdoor navigation at an airport

Wayfinding SDKs provide developers with a flexible solution to create a unique digital experience and Mappedin’s indoor mapping platform allows stadiums to maintain accurate floor plans and event maps over time. Within the Map Editor, you can apply the same core and structural elements of your venue across all maps, while having the flexibility to change seating charts, retailers, concession stands, and activities for each of your event types.

Advantages for Developers

Working with Mappedin’s SDKs and APIs brings with it several benefits for developers. Mappedin provides 24/7 support, how-to guides, sample applications, comprehensive API documentation, and access to Release Roadmap and Version Migration Guides, all of which help to ensure you have the tools required to build a powerful and 3D mapping experience. 

Mappedin's SDKs are highly integrable with other datasets and integrations, and we offer developers the flexibility to use React Native for Android and iOS devices through the same flexible platform. This makes SDKs easily accessible to all, and can be a more cost efficient option with fast development incentives. Mappedin's dedication to the customer experience ensures a continual improvement of our developer tools and an expansion of SDK capabilities. 

Benefits of Wayfinding SDK for Stadiums

Rather than implement a static venue map that only serves one purpose, a digital map can act as one part of an entire tech ecosystem. Because of their flexibility, mapping SDKs unlock and enhance a variety of services in addition to traditional navigation.   

Parking & Arrival

For fans and event attendees, the wayfinding journey actually begins outside of the venue. Finding parking can be a challenging and time-consuming task and once the car is parked, arena visitors still need to find the closest entrance or recommended gate for their seat. 

Digital maps provide a seamless experience for fans by allowing them to plot this journey ahead of time or once they arrive on-site. Along with providing turn-by-turn directions, stadiums can integrate digital wayfinding with up-to-date parking information such as pricing, occupancy, rideshare lots, and more. In addition to offering a great customer engagement experience with accurate data and directions to parking, stadiums can also benefit from streamlining fans and reducing overcrowding with clear, personalized directions. 

Powerful Navigation

Once inside the building, wayfinding SDKs continue to make navigation easy for stadium guests. Through the venue map, fans can locate their seats, washrooms, merchandise stands, food and beverage locations, and additional services. By incorporating indoor positioning technology at your stadium or arena, you can enable step-by-step navigation from a user’s precise location. For multi-story venues, a powerful mapping solution such as Mappedin’s can also account for elevation levels and accessibility mode to prioritize routes that use elevators and ramps over stairs and escalators. 

Line Management

Wayfinding SDKs can be used to deploy maps across any device, including web, applications for mobile devices, and touchscreen directories. The search functionality on a digital map allows fans to locate general amenities (e.g. washroom, merchandise) or specific products (e.g. pizza slice, baseball hat) so that precious time during the game or event isn’t wasted in a long distance search. 

To further enhance the user experience, when digital maps have been built for customization using Mappedin’s SDKs, they can be integrated with line management software to show fans real-time line lengths at different locations. This integration allows stadiums to reduce long lines and overcrowding in common spaces by directing visitors to nearby, less busy locations. 

In-Seat Experiences

Stadiums can use the combination of a digital venue map and indoor positioning systems to offer elevated experiences to fans. Through a venue mobile application, users can pre-order food for pick-up or have it delivered right to their seat. Arena wayfinding apps with a focus on fan engagement might also include discussion boards, live stats, game alerts, and personalized deals and discounts that fans at home don’t have access to. These in-seat experiences can encourage future ticket purchases or increase sales at retailers across your stadium. 

Events Advertising

With a digital map as the foundation, indoor spaces can advertise deals and events and allow visitors to quickly populate directions to their locations. By integrating your venue mobile app with indoor positioning systems, stadiums can send push notifications and personalized offers to fans based on their current location for events or food and merchandise promotions.

Insights & Analytics

Venue owners can gain a better understanding of the locations and services that visitors are searching for, selecting, and navigating to. Equipped with venue data and location analytics, stadium administrators and employees can make more informed business decisions.  

Seamless Indoor and Outdoor Wayfinding

Indoor and outdoor stadium maps provide fans with context as they navigate from parking or drop-off, through to ticketing and their entrance gate, all the way to their seat section as the end destination. By creating this blue dot experience using Mappedin’s SDKs, stadiums can create the ultimate fan experience and visitors can easily search and discover additional services along their route.  

Use Your Map in Your Mobile, Web, and Kiosk Apps

By creating an indoor mapping experience through Mappedin’s SDKs, you are not limited to specific devices when building your indoor navigation application. Mapping SDKs can be used to deploy custom indoor mapping solutions across mobile, web, and digital directories. 

Web SDK

Mappedin’s Web SDK can be leveraged to build applications across the platform of your choosing. Whether you want to create custom wayfinding kiosks, add mapping to your venue’s website, or integrate it as part of a larger mobile app, the Web SDK provides you with the foundation of a powerful and accurate navigation experience. St. Louis CITY SC utilizes Mappedin’s Web SDK to provide a unique stadium experience to its many fans and visitors. 

iOS & Android SDKs

Mappedin’s mobile SDKs can be used to create mobile wayfinding experiences for iOS and Android devices. Stadiums can integrate digital maps into existing mobile applications or choose to build your own tailored app experiences using Mappedin's iOS SDK and Android SDK. Mappedin’s React Native SDK can also be used to build once and deploy across both device types, saving developer time and effort. 

How to Make the Most of our Wayfinding SDK for Stadiums

Mappedin’s Integrations team is dedicated to the evolution of our SDKs and their successful implementations. With robust documentation, migration guides, and developer support, you can launch this solution and enable streamlined indoor navigation and accurate mapping experiences for visitors. 

More About Wayfinding SDK for Stadiums

Stadiums can use wayfinding SDKs to build a custom and integrated experience for fans, providing them with up-to-date event information and context about their surroundings, all of which can be extremely valuable before starting a journey along an unfamiliar route.

For further documentation on our SDKs, visit our Developer Portal. To start creating an interactive wayfinding experience for your stadium, contact us today