During the 2023-24 academic year, a total of 470,792 fans and 48,945 students attended 147 Demon Deacons home contests in Winston-Salem. Wake Forest Athletics takes extreme pride in providing the Best Fan Experience in North Carolina as these community-treasured events bring Value to Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem & Triad Communities.
“Beyond those facts, any time we go into any event, big or small, whether it’s your football game days or your tennis match days, our number one priority is safety,” says Jeff Dusin, Assistant Athletic Director of Event and Facility Operations at Wake Forest.
Dusin’s purview is vast, overseeing everything from event staffing and security to compliance. Ensuring a superior game day, however, is very much a team sport shared between Dusin’s staff, student and administrative groups, campus police and more.
“One of our core goals at Wake Forest is to have the BestFan Experience in North Carolina, so we’re constantly asking ‘How can we make things better?’” explains Dusin. “We want every fan that comes through Allegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium to have a great time and we want them to come back for every game.”
About Wake Forest University
Wake Forest University is known for its distinctive combination of world-class academics, unrivaled campus experience, intimate learning environment and Power 4 athletics in a top-growing metro market. A Charter member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Demon Deacons have won 59 conference titles and are one of 10 ACC schools to win 10 or more national championships, along with Notre Dame, North Carolina, Virginia, Duke, Syracuse and Florida State. Additionally, Wake Forest anchors the Winston-Salem and Triad market, which includes 1.3M residents and was ranked as ESPN’s seventh-best market from a viewership perspective.
Wake Forest’s comprehensive excellence includes its highly regarded school of medicine, business school, law school and an innovative department of engineering. Additionally, Wake Forest has campuses across Winston-Salem, Charlotte and Washington, DC – providing many academic offerings to students from across the nation and around the world.
Learn more about Wake Forest University at www.wfu.edu and at GoDeacs.com.
Managing large-scale events with surround sound support
When dealing with live athletics events, especially at the Division I level, there are countless moving parts at play. Having worked in college athletics at multiple institutions, Dusin knows this well.
“There’s no such thing as a perfect game day. Things are always going to come up, whether they’re big or little. [Success] is about knowing what people can help you resolve in a timely manner and trusting those people to make the right calls.”
Fortunately, Dusin has a strong Incident Command Center team backing him up on game day. But after being at Wake Forest for a year, he knew they needed a better way to open the lines of communication with fans directly. At the time, they had a game day hotline and email system for reporting game day incidents—neither of which were scalable.
“We had two phones up in the Command Center that were always going off, and our game day operator would be fielding a lot of those questions,” explains Dusin.
Knowing that Wake Forest Athletics was already using RealResponse to support student-athletes, bringing on the platform to support the Athletics fan experience was a no-brainer.
Giving fans a voice on game day
Wake Forest launched RealResponse’s onsite event communication solution in 2024, specifically for football games. Now, fans have the option of reporting questions and concerns through a phone hotline or via text—with all communications centralized on the back end for Dusin’s team.
The Incident Command Center Team can monitor inbound reports in one place, using preset templates to respond swiftly and share additional resources with fans.
“It’s really important for fans to be able to engage back with us,” Dusin emphasizes. “We have a ton of security, we have a ton of police officers, but they all only have two eyeballs. Now, we have more eyes to help catch things that happen during a game day, and we can respond in real time.”
Even in a short period, the platform has helped Wake Forest address a wide variety of issues faster, from restrooms needing a paper towel restock to a backpack left unattended in the stadium. During one busier than usual game day, fans reported the need for more shuttles to transport attendees from the satellite parking lots to the stadium. Dusin’s team was able to quickly reroute student buses to the lots, ensuring no one missed the game.
“When incidents or issues race to that level, this program helps us ensure that we can respond to fans in real time.”
A playbook for a winning fan experience
Game days are often a form of “controlled chaos” for Dusin. But RealResponse has helped mitigate the frenzy. “It’s so much easier to respond in real time to incidents than hearing about them on Monday morning. If we know there’s something wrong and we have the resources (which I know we do), we have a lot of great people that can solve the issue.”
The platform’s intuitive nature has helped expedite adoption, so that event staff can focus on the fans rather than putting out fires. “It’s very user-friendly,” says Dusin. “The best part too, is that the RealResponse staff uses our feedback to enhance the product.”
In the coming semesters, the Wake Forest team looks forward to expanding RealResponse to more athletics events to give attendees even more options for interacting with staff (and assurances that their input will be heard).
“Wake Forest has a very unique game day—it’s special to us. This tool allows us to continue providing the Best Fan Experience in North Carolina.”
Learn more about how RealResponse can amplify the voices and insights you need to strengthen your institution’s game day experience.
