The Australian Open is one of the largest tennis events of the year, and is the most attended Grand Slam event. Due to the scale of the event, Tennis Australia set out to put a solution in place to help reduce wait times and long lines. After a pilot in 2024 and increased usage in 2025, Tennis Australia made the decision to double down and broadly expand the express entry program in 2026.
Like other events that are at the same size and scale as the Australian Open, long lines are an unfortunate reality for fans – especially at peak times. In an effort to reduce wait times at entrances, Tennis Australia turned to innovative new technologies such as Wicket to enhance the fan experience and speed up the entry process.
Traditional ticketing systems require physical scans of ticket barcodes, which slows down entry and requires guests to have tickets ready.
Express Entry allows guests to opt-in to use dedicated express lanes to redeem their tickets, which are paired with their face, in seconds.
Thanks to an existing integration with Ticketmaster, the chosen ticketing platform of the Australian Open, Wicket worked with Tennis Australia to deploy “Express Entry” lanes. These lanes allow fans who have opted-in to walk up to a Wicket ticketing device and instantly see any tickets available to scan. These express lanes are easy to set up and scale to meet increased demand and usage.
Wicket has spent years deploying and learning from over 8 million guest entries into sports facilities and live events and is an industry leader
Express lanes were set up at three key entry locations at the City Entrance, Garden Square Entrance, and Grand Slam Entrance. Enrollment signage was displayed so fans could easily scan a QR code to enroll in less than 1 minute, and signage directed them to the express lane where they could redeem all of their tickets in seconds.
Fans simply need to log in to their Ticketmaster account, take a selfie, and link tickets to enroll.
Over 22,000 fans enrolled in Express Entry and redeemed 20,000 tickets in 2026 alone, with an average of 5 seconds from identification to ticket scan. There was also a 7x increase in usage year-over-year.
Tennis Australia continues to prioritize the fan experience with innovative solutions like Wicket that streamline entry into Melbourne Park. We look forward to continued expansion of this technology in 2027.
Gary Iakovidis
Director of Ticketing & Product Sales, Tennis Australia
