Apparatus and Method for Seat Management in an Audience Venue
OwnerJoseph Giampapainventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A novel mass audience venue seat is disclosed, which seat can be locked and unlocked by one or more of a variety of security tokens. The seat is designed to prevent ticket holders from ‘cheating down’ into more expensive seats thereby annoying fellow customers. By being electronically connected into a seat management inventory system, moviegoers and sports fans are provided with a legitimate way to upgrade their seat (much like a seat upgrade on a commercial airline), also creating a new revenue stream for venue and stadium owners. The instant mass audience venue seat can be embodied in an item of original equipment manufacture or in a less-costly retrofit kit.
Claims20
A mass audience venue seat comprising:
- a) a back support member;
- b) a seat support member associated with said back support member having a closed position when placed relatively parallel to said back support member, and having an open position when placed relatively perpendicular to said back support member so as to allow the patron to sit thereon;
- c) a locking mechanism releasably associated with said mass audience seat, having a locked mode keeping the seat support member in the closed position and having a released mode allowing the mass audience seat to be in the open position;
- and;
- d) a controller-reader able to read a patron's payment token and activate the locking mechanism to release the seat support member from the closed position to the open position.
The mass audience venue seat of claim 13, wherein the communication is wireless.
A mass audience venue seat retrofit kit comprising:
- a) a back support member slip cover;
- b) a seat support member slip cover with said back support member having a closed position when placed relatively parallel to said back support member, and having an open position when placed relatively perpendicular to said back support member so as to allow a patron to sit thereon;
- c) a locking mechanism releasably associated with said back support member slip cover, having a locked mode keeping the mass audience seat in the closed position and a released mode allowing the mass audience seat to be in the open position;
- and
- d) a controller-reader able to read a patron's payment token activating the locking mechanism to release the mass audience seat from the closed position to the open position so as to permit the patron to sit thereon;
- wherein said back support member slip cover is securedly-affixed over said back support member and said seat support member slip cover is securedly-affixed over said seat support member.
A seating management system for an audience venue, said system comprising:
- a) a plurality of releasably locking seats;
- b) code readers associated with said plurality of releasably locking seats;
- c) and a programmable controller with said code readers, wherein said controller is programmed to release one or more seats of the plurality responsive to a patrons payment token, said token containing a release code.
A method for managing seats in a mass audience venue, the method comprising:
- a) locking one or more of a plurality of seats to prevent seating thereon;
- b) unlocking one or more of the plurality responsive to obtaining payment therefor from a patron;
- c) communicating locked and unlocked seat status information for individual seats of the plurality, and
- d) managing the communicated seat status information in a seat management database.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.