With thrill seekers returning to theme parks in droves, organizations such as Walt Disney World and Six Flags are gearing up for an influx of visitors during the summer months.  One of the most pressing problems these and other theme parks are facing is how to maintain the customer experience while providing an even tighter level of security – and that’s where big data can now play a significant role.

Securing public events and entertainment venues took on an even more pressing urgency after explosions rocked this year’s Boston Marathon.  It came as a surprise to some just how much data was available and could be gleaned from attendees’ cell phones and facial recognition software, to name a few sources.

Big data, or the massive amount of unstructured information, can be sifted and leveraged to unobtrusively protect the public despite a venue’s size.   (As a typical example, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay is 335 acres.)  Designing a platform that can provide the best analytics for security purposes comes with challenges, however, that include the question of how to unify the myriad sources used to collect the data.  These range from video camera surveillance to monitoring social media chatter on sites such as FourSquare and Twitter.

As an example, one of the ways big data analytics is being used within the theme park setting is to track a person of interest.  Once identified, real-time video, audio and social network feeds can be used to monitor any visitor; that person is then scored within an analytics program to determine the probability of the threat he or she poses so that security personnel can be more effectively deployed.  This helps the theme park better focus its staff resources on those posing the greatest threat potential.

Walt Disney Co., always a step ahead, recently announced that it would take the collection of data for security purposes to the next level.  It plans to evolve data collection into a continuous stream of information on every visitor received via an RFID bracelet that tracks each purchase, monitors every ride and can be used to suggest activities of interest.  The Mouse says this will help maximize customer satisfaction (by minimizing wait times and suggesting next rides and food choices).

It could be a game-changing move for the entertainment organization, bringing everything from guaranteed ride times to cartoon characters that greet children by name.  But it also delivers the next phase of security: the ability to pinpoint the location of any visitor within the park at any given time, thanks to the RFID chip.  And with this innovation comes more unstructured data than an entertainment venue has ever generated, collected and analyzed.