Client Profile

The F1 Chinese Grand Prix is a top-tier international motorsport event. The 2024 event was held at the Shanghai International Circuit in Jiading and hosted by Juss Group. During the event, more than 120,000 spectators, along with thousands of staff members and drivers, needed to be admitted within a short period. Due to the high value of event tickets, illegal activities such as scalpers hoarding and stockpiling tickets were rampant. At the same time, large-scale short-term gatherings placed extremely high demands on security checks and entry efficiency. The organizer urgently needed an efficient, secure real-name entry solution supporting multiple types of identity documents.

Customer pain points

Rampant ticket scalping: At previous events, scalpers commonly hoarded, stockpiled, and speculated on tickets, disrupting ticketing order and harming spectators’ interests and the organizer’s revenue.

Extremely high entry efficiency requirements: More than 120,000 spectators needed to complete identity verification and entry within a short period before the race. The traditional manual person-to-ID comparison model was slow and prone to large-scale queuing, congestion, and even safety hazards.

Challenge of diverse document types: Spectators included mainland residents, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan compatriots, and a large number of foreigners. The system needed to support simultaneous verification of ID cards, travel permits, passports, and other documents. Traditional turnstiles were difficult to make compatible with all of them.

Problem of forgotten documents: Many spectators forgot or did not carry physical ID documents on site, and traditional verification methods could not handle such situations.

Chaotic staff entry: Thousands of staff members, drivers, and others also required strict real-name access control. Relying solely on manual badge recognition was inefficient and easy to counterfeit.

Cooperation Plan

SenseTime, together with ecosystem partners, deployed 185 Pass S8 panels at all entry turnstiles. Real-name ticket purchase was adopted, and spectator information was pushed to the ticketing verification system. Mainland residents could enter through 1:1 verification by swiping their ID and scanning their face. Those without ID cards could scan an on-site QR code to upload their face and then enter via 1:N facial recognition. Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and foreign individuals could record their faces at the manual service desk and then pass through via facial recognition. Staff portraits were entered through SenseLink, and they enjoyed dedicated channels for 1:N facial recognition entry. Based on the Linux Wukong SDK, ecosystem partners customized the S8 UI exclusively for F1 and connected it to the ticketing system to complete the full-process closed loop.

Implementation results

Set a high-concurrency facial recognition entry record: During the four-day event, 185 Pass S8 units stably completed real-name facial recognition entry for more than 120,000 spectators and 7,000 staff members. The daily throughput of a single device was extremely high, and the system operated with zero failures.

Completely curbed scalper chaos: Tickets were strongly bound to identity and face, technically eradicating the room for scalpers to hoard, stockpile, and resell tickets, and ensuring that all event ticketing revenue was secured.

A qualitative leap in entry speed: The average facial recognition gate passage time was less than one second. Overall entry efficiency improved several times compared with traditional manual ticket checking, avoiding long queues and congestion. Both spectators and the organizer were highly satisfied.

Full coverage of all document-holder groups: Successfully realized a full-document facial recognition entry solution for mainland ID cards, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan travel permits, and foreign passports. In particular, it solved the verification challenge for foreign spectators and set a benchmark for large international events.

Flexible emergency handling: For the large number of spectators who forgot their ID cards, the on-site QR code face upload solution fully leveraged the advantages of 1:N large-database comparison, reducing disputes and on-site chaos.

Pass S8 received high praise for its aesthetics and its recognition accuracy and speed in low-light and backlight conditions. SenseTime’s products proved stable and reliable in high-intensity real-world operations, making the project a classic demonstration in the field of real-name access for large events.