Venues NSW

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Bringing an elevated, convenient and holistic experience to Sporting Club of Sydney members, all within the palm of their hands.

Role:

Lead Product Designer

Industry:

Entertainment, sports & leisure

Delivered:

React Native App

Time:

12 Weeks + ongoing development

Overview
Venues NSW briefed our design team to create a bespoke application that would provide their Sporting Club of Sydney (SCOS) members holistic access to their membership expereince. The goals of the brief was to discover various features and capabilities that could elevate the current membership experience whilst providing digital access to all the facilities enatiled in their membership. This included events & bookings, food, gym access and parking.
Task
Discover and build a SCOS app that provides membership access to all their facilities and access points whilst also exploring new features and capabilities for an MVP build as well as future developments.
Problem
The SCOS membership structure is a convoluted offering providing x7 tiers of access to their facilities and events. This is also spread out between x2 stadiums and a gym, each with varied bespoke access points. The issue was providing a streamlined and simplified UX experience that could expand and develop the value proposition of their current membership whilst also adapting to their pre-existing tecnhical requirements (ie. CRM).

Approach

Discovery & Comp Analysis

We conducted a thorough competitive and comparative analysis of fan and member-based applications to assess existing market offerings. This helped identify key functionalities to include, while uncovering opportunities to differentiate and position the SCOS app as a unique offering in the space.

Fan Experience
Sports and venues apps harnessed a ‘fan-centric’ approach to some components of their features and capabilities, which in turn reflected a greater need to relate to their audience and continue the game experience in-app.
Booking & Purchases
Venues, sports, and fitness apps mobilised booking and e-commerce capabilities to help streamline accessibility and efficiency for users.
Maps & Stadium Navigation
All apps showed a necessity for transparency and ease of movement through the mobilisation of maps, locales, and location prompts. This was no doubt required in stadium technology but was nonetheless a universal feature.
My Membership
For products that provided a membership offering, access to user memberships was available in-app, which in turn showed a need to elevate the experience for their dedicated audience.

Approach

Our Core HMW

How might we provide a simplified and convenient product that brings transparency and empowerment to SCOS Members whilst also elavating the value proposition within their membership?

Approach

Value Proposition

SCOS membership is highly sought after, with long waitlists and slow turnover, meaning most members are seasoned and well-versed in the benefits it brings them.

However, member guests (those with guest cards) were overlooked from both an experience and data perspective. This presented a clear opportunity to build a broader data network and strategically expand SCOS’s reach. The true value proposition lay in enabling digital guest card sharing, but due to design and technical constraints and the immediate need to focus on MVP delivery: Design, Test, Build & Launch, this feature was slated for a future phase.

*Top end view of the membership guest flow that needed optimising across physical and digital networks, to provide the core value proposition.

Approach

Proposition Rollout

Ideation prioritised near-term feasibility. While full digitisation of membership cards required significant backend effort, the immediate focus shifted to delivering a unified membership view that made benefits easy to access.
This included core membership visibility alongside event discovery and booking, gym access and scheduling, and food and beverage discovery. Following MVP release, technical discovery was planned to define the requirements for digital card mobilisation, including system revisions and mapping, physical card constraints, API amends and briefings and in-house scanner dependencies and functionality.
MVP 1
Access your membership all within the palm of your hand.
MVP 2
Share your membership with ease, with anyone, at anytime.

Approach

System Architecture & Access Logic

As membership complexity expanded across seven tiers, shared access and physical gate validation, UX flows alone weren’t enough.

We needed a deterministic system logic to govern authentication, entitlement resolution and tier precedence across a live physical–digital ecosystem. This section outlines the architectural approach behind the platform.

Backend-Authoritative Tier Framing

Rather than building seven versions of the app, we designed a single experience surface governed by entitlement flags retrieved from Avenade CRM.

Authentication and access validation were backend-authoritative. The UI responded to access flags, it never defined them.

This allowed us to:

Maintain one scalable app surface
Dynamically frame experience by tier
Expand tiers without UI forks
Keep access control deterministic

Tiers didn’t change the app. Tiers changed the capability envelope.

Asynchronous Share State Architecture

The share-card feature required modelling two independent actors, Member and Guest experiences, across asynchronous states.

We defined a backend-driven state machine that:

Deactivated permanent barcodes on share
Generated time-bound guest tokens
Prevented concurrent gate execution
Treated gate systems as the source of truth
Ensured all state transitions were event-driven

The UI never assumed access. Gate validation determined it.

This reduced operational risk, prevented dual entry and maintained audit integrity across systems.

Tier Precedence & Multi-Membership Logic

After releasing the share card v1, we introduced member-to-member and guest sharing and multiple card ownership via sharing.

To avoid entitlement conflict, we implemented a deterministic tier precedence model.

The highest active tier defined the capability envelope (tier experience)
Card objects remained independent (Multiple card ownership)
Barcode logic stayed card-specific
Tier resolution recalculated on state change (Highest reflected)
Guest tier could not override owned memberships

This allowed multi-membership support without fragmenting experience or compromising access logic.

Solution

All in One

To support Venues NSW in evolving the Sporting Club of Sydney (SCOS) membership experience, we delivered an MVP focused on consolidating core member access, with additional capabilities scoped and designed for post-launch development.
The work prioritised establishing a clear, reliable foundation first, then expanding the platform’s value through targeted enhancements.

The MVP delivered an All-In-One member experience that unified core SCOS offerings into a single, accessible interface. This ensured members across all seven membership tiers could easily access their entitlements and essential services, and established the baseline experience required for broader feature expansion.

Following MVP delivery, additional capabilities were designed to extend the platform beyond member-only access. Digitised share cards introduced guest membership functionality, enabling secure sharing and reclamation of access while addressing long-standing friction points for members. Alongside this, bespoke experience enhancements such as food menus and parking were scoped to elevate the guest experience and support stronger marketing, visibility and engagement opportunities for Venues NSW.

Together, the MVP and post-MVP roadmap established a scalable platform that introduced a more versatile membership experience, supporting member access today while enabling future growth.

Tier integration and service preference onbaording

Provided access across all seven Sporting Club of Sydney membership tiers, ensuring each tier reflected its specific entitlements, offerings, and experiences.
Integrated with Avanade’s CRM member login system to enable secure, authenticated access to the member experience.
Delivered an educational, personalised onboarding flow that reintroduced members to their membership benefits and allowed them to tailor the app experience based on their interests and activities.

Holistic service view

Provided a single point of entry through the app homepage, consolidating access to events, gym bookings, food offerings, and membership details in one place.
Personalised homepage modules based on onboarding inputs and selected preferences, surfacing relevant content such as preferred activities, bookings, or supported teams first.

Events, booking and calendar integration

Enabled members to explore upcoming sport and entertainment events and clearly understand whether their membership tier and their guest cards granted complimentary access.
Integrated add-to-calendar functionality, allowing members to save individual events and receive scheduled reminders.
Introduced a restaurant discovery and booking module linked to event dates where available, turning individual events into a more cohesive end-to-end experience.

Gym access, booking and Mindbody integration

Provided access to SCOS gym information and bookings, enabling members to view available session times, class details, trainer profiles and on-site services.
As a native build was out of scope, the gym booking flow was delivered via an external Mindbody integration, allowing SCOS management to quickly onboard, manage and service patrons using an established backend.

Game-day eats & restuarant booking

Provided a holistic view of game-day food and dining options across Allianz Stadium, the Sporting Club of Sydney and the SCG.
Enabled advance restaurant bookings through integration with Merivale’s SevenRooms booking platform.
Allowed users to filter food options by stadium stand or by location, making it easier to find nearby outlets or specific menu offerings.
Integrated WaitTime data across outlets, giving members visibility into queue times and helping them choose the best time to access game-day food options.
Integrated ordering capabilities for select food outlets, allowing users to pre-order and skip the line.

Digitised Membership card with share card functionality

Following MVP mobilisation, we reviewed and debriefed Avanade on required updates to membership APIs to support hosting digital membership cards within the SCOS app, while retaining physical card access.
Subsequent developments enabled members to share digital membership cards, inviting member guests to create an account and access the membership benefits extended to them by friends or family.
Introduced a Guest List feature that retained previously shared cards, allowing members to quickly and easily reissue access to frequent guests.
Enabled relinquish and recall functionality for both members and member guests, giving users clear and simple control over shared access.
In collaboration with Avanade, supported the ability for Members and member guests to hold multiple digital cards across different membership tiers within the app, enabling broader and more flexible access across the SCOS experience.

Solution

UI Built for Members

The UI for the SCOS app was designed with clarity, legibility, and familiarity as core principles, reflecting a primary member audience aged between 40 and 75 years old.
We kept layouts restrained, with clear hierarchy, generous spacing, and predictable patterns that reduced cognitive load and supported confident use, particularly for less digitally fluent members. The focus was on making key actions obvious and repeatable, rather than introducing unnecessary visual or interaction complexity.

A key challenge was balancing a strong master brand with the need to support seven distinct membership tiers. We approached this through a modular UI system that allowed tier differentiation through controlled use of colour, card treatments, and contextual branding, while keeping the overall experience consistent. This modular approach also allowed features and content blocks to scale over time without fragmenting the interface or introducing new patterns unnecessarily.

Accessibility and scalability were treated as baseline requirements. WCAG best practices informed typography, contrast, touch targets and interaction states throughout the app. In parallel, modules were designed to align with content outputs used across multiple web platforms, ensuring consistency between app and web experiences, supporting content reuse and reducing ongoing operational effort as the product evolved.

Outcome

Signs of Success

Venues NSW and the Sporting Club of Sydney shared key performance data demonstrating the success of the SCOS app following launch and subsequent feature expansion.
Usage increased steadily and consistent engagement confirmed that the core value proposition resonated with members. The following insights highlight the impact of the platform.
Sustained weekly usage at scale
After two years, the app consistently recorded an average of 11k–16k weekly active users. With a core membership base capped at approximately 16k, this indicated strong ongoing engagement and validated the app as a habitual, utility-driven product rather than a one-off touchpoint.
Digital share cards validated through adoption and sentiment
The introduction of digital membership cards and guest sharing functionality was strongly validated through usage and feedback. The “Create Guest Account” flow averaged over 1k views per week, reflecting regular sharing behaviour and organic growth in app adoption. Within the first year of release, digital membership cards achieved an average app store rating of 4.7, reinforcing their value and ease of use from a member perspective.
Consistent engagement across all membership tiers
Interaction data showed balanced usage across the full range of SCOS membership tiers. This confirmed the success of the app’s all-in-one positioning, ensuring equal value regardless of membership type and validating the platform’s ability to serve a diverse member base through a single, unified experience.
Increased on-site spend through guest access
Member Guest barcode scans reflected increased guest attendance across venues, contributing to an uplift in on-site spend through higher footfall and reduced entry friction.

Team:

Present Company
Head of Product - Russel Privett
Technical Director - Arturo Escartin
React Developer - Will Walsh
Lead Strategist - Alex Vitlin
Lead Product Designer & Product Manager - Sean Valadão Duarte
UI Designer - Fil Josevski
Venues NSWSenior Experience Manager - Ryan Selvage
Technical Director - Tim Blight

Tasks:

User & Technical Discovery
Ideation
Workshopping
IA & Service Flow Mapping
Strategic Product Development
UI Design
Design Systems
Logic Definition, Briefing & Documentation
Usability Testing
QA Testing
Product Management

turning chaos into something you can click.

turning chaos into something
you can click.