Sports stadia and event venues are regarded as prized assets, by any measurement, but there’s a new reality about the way they are operated. The need to be ever more commercial has driven owners and operators to open up their venues to new audiences. In the UK, for example, football clubs might only host 45 home games a year, so their seats remain unoccupied for 320 days. While this allows plenty of time for maintenance and upgrade work to be carried out, it’s hardly “sweating the assets”.

To increase their revenue potential, some football clubs have chosen to go down the ground sharing route; Reading FC share the Madjeski Stadium with London Irish rugby union club; Watford FC share Vicarage Road with Saracens; and Hull City Tigers FC share the KCOM stadium with Hull FC rugby league club. Other clubs have opted to open up their venues to concerts of one music genre or another. Every additional day that a venue is open for business brings much needed revenues, but inefficient operations and logistics are preventing venues maximising these income opportunities. And it’s not just the finances that suffer; the customer’s experience is also jeopardised.

The customers’ enjoyment of any event is dependent on a number of factors. And while ticket price – or whether their team won or lost, or their favourite band played its back catalogue – may have a bearing on this, caterers, together with stadium owners and operators, should not underestimate the role they play in the customer experience, and how they can improve it.

Queuing to buy food and drink refreshments remains the biggest bug-bear for sports fans and concert-goers alike, and is shown to put off people even contemplating a purchase at an event. This means caterers can lose out valuable revenue opportunities from as much as 70% of an audience, because cash-paying customer queues have an uncomfortably long order process cycle: from customer decision, through to order preparation, and then cash (or card) payment. The efficient alternative is to provide a service for customers to order and pay in advance online, and then provide dedicated collection points in strategically convenient locations at the venue.  Such service points have been shown to serve customers four times faster than a cash/card service point. But more than that, data generated by online ordering provides catering managers with the tools to forecast more effectively production levels, while marketing teams can use customer details, and their buying behaviour, to create personalised and targeted marketing campaigns.

Enabling customers to order ahead is a service that has been so widely deployed in the retail sector that current generation consumers have come to expect it as part of their everyday life. And with online ordering moving inexorably onto mobile devices, the process is becoming even more convenient and accessible.  So why shouldn’t consumers expect the same service availability when they attend an event at a sports stadium or music venue? The process is almost identical: customers can place an order days or hours ahead of the event, and pay with a debit or credit card. The only difference is that the customer has to collect their order rather than have it delivered. The process has been proven to work – from a technical, logistical and operational perspective – and is known to enhance the customer experience, as well as bring in additional revenue streams.

Smartphones are a common sight at sports and music events, as consumers share their experience with friends and family via social media, email and texting. For consumers it is a wholly immersive experience; using mobile technology to enhance their enjoyment while “in the moment”. To ignore this cultural evolution – or to deny it, by not providing appropriate WiFi or mobile signal bandwidth at large scale venues – is tantamount to commercial suicide. There are numerous ways to monetise mobile technology at such venues, and to engage with consumers in a way that engenders loyalty and return custom; improving the service delivery of food & drink, and other merchandise, is arguably the easiest to resolve.

Never before has the availability of mobile technology provided stadia and event venues with such opportunities to maximise revenues and optimise the customer experience. Preoday’s partnership with Ticketmaster demonstrates how venues and promoters can increase the customer “spend per head” through online ordering of food, drink and merchandise, post ticket purchase. By integrating the Preoday ordering platform with their own ticketing system, Ticketmaster are capturing additional sales through customer loyalty early in the event lifecycle.

Preoday is the leading provider of online ordering technology for the stadia and event venue sector, having worked with numerous cultural and sports venues in the UK and Europe. We understand the challenges of deploying such innovative technology and can advise caterers, owners and operators in the sector about the whole implementation process.

Sports stadia and event venues are regarded as prized assets, by any measurement, but there’s a new reality about the way they are operated. The need to be ever more commercial has driven owners and operators to open up their venues to new audiences. In the UK, for example, football clubs might only host 45 home games a year, so their seats remain unoccupied for 320 days. While this allows plenty of time for maintenance and upgrade work to be carried out, it’s hardly “sweating the assets”.

To increase their revenue potential, some football clubs have chosen to go down the ground sharing route; Reading FC share the Madjeski Stadium with London Irish rugby union club; Watford FC share Vicarage Road with Saracens; and Hull City Tigers FC share the KCOM stadium with Hull FC rugby league club. Other clubs have opted to open up their venues to concerts of one music genre or another. Every additional day that a venue is open for business brings much needed revenues, but inefficient operations and logistics are preventing venues maximising these income opportunities. And it’s not just the finances that suffer; the customer’s experience is also jeopardised.

The customers’ enjoyment of any event is dependent on a number of factors. And while ticket price – or whether their team won or lost, or their favourite band played its back catalogue – may have a bearing on this, caterers, together with stadium owners and operators, should not underestimate the role they play in the customer experience, and how they can improve it.

Queuing to buy food and drink refreshments remains the biggest bug-bear for sports fans and concert-goers alike, and is shown to put off people even contemplating a purchase at an event. This means caterers can lose out valuable revenue opportunities from as much as 70% of an audience, because cash-paying customer queues have an uncomfortably long order process cycle: from customer decision, through to order preparation, and then cash (or card) payment. The efficient alternative is to provide a service for customers to order and pay in advance online, and then provide dedicated collection points in strategically convenient locations at the venue.  Such service points have been shown to serve customers four times faster than a cash/card service point. But more than that, data generated by online ordering provides catering managers with the tools to forecast more effectively production levels, while marketing teams can use customer details, and their buying behaviour, to create personalised and targeted marketing campaigns.

Enabling customers to order ahead is a service that has been so widely deployed in the retail sector that current generation consumers have come to expect it as part of their everyday life. And with online ordering moving inexorably onto mobile devices, the process is becoming even more convenient and accessible.  So why shouldn’t consumers expect the same service availability when they attend an event at a sports stadium or music venue? The process is almost identical: customers can place an order days or hours ahead of the event, and pay with a debit or credit card. The only difference is that the customer has to collect their order rather than have it delivered. The process has been proven to work – from a technical, logistical and operational perspective – and is known to enhance the customer experience, as well as bring in additional revenue streams.

Smartphones are a common sight at sports and music events, as consumers share their experience with friends and family via social media, email and texting. For consumers it is a wholly immersive experience; using mobile technology to enhance their enjoyment while “in the moment”. To ignore this cultural evolution – or to deny it, by not providing appropriate WiFi or mobile signal bandwidth at large scale venues – is tantamount to commercial suicide. There are numerous ways to monetise mobile technology at such venues, and to engage with consumers in a way that engenders loyalty and return custom; improving the service delivery of food & drink, and other merchandise, is arguably the easiest to resolve.

Never before has the availability of mobile technology provided stadia and event venues with such opportunities to maximise revenues and optimise the customer experience. Preoday’s partnership with Ticketmaster demonstrates how venues and promoters can increase the customer “spend per head” through online ordering of food, drink and merchandise, post ticket purchase. By integrating the Preoday ordering platform with their own ticketing system, Ticketmaster are capturing additional sales through customer loyalty early in the event lifecycle.

Preoday is the leading provider of online ordering technology for the stadia and event venue sector, having worked with numerous cultural and sports venues in the UK and Europe. We understand the challenges of deploying such innovative technology and can advise caterers, owners and operators in the sector about the whole implementation process.

Sports stadia and event venues are regarded as prized assets, by any measurement, but there’s a new reality about the way they are operated. The need to be ever more commercial has driven owners and operators to open up their venues to new audiences. In the UK, for example, football clubs might only host 45 home games a year, so their seats remain unoccupied for 320 days. While this allows plenty of time for maintenance and upgrade work to be carried out, it’s hardly “sweating the assets”.

To increase their revenue potential, some football clubs have chosen to go down the ground sharing route; Reading FC share the Madjeski Stadium with London Irish rugby union club; Watford FC share Vicarage Road with Saracens; and Hull City Tigers FC share the KCOM stadium with Hull FC rugby league club. Other clubs have opted to open up their venues to concerts of one music genre or another. Every additional day that a venue is open for business brings much needed revenues, but inefficient operations and logistics are preventing venues maximising these income opportunities. And it’s not just the finances that suffer; the customer’s experience is also jeopardised.

The customers’ enjoyment of any event is dependent on a number of factors. And while ticket price – or whether their team won or lost, or their favourite band played its back catalogue – may have a bearing on this, caterers, together with stadium owners and operators, should not underestimate the role they play in the customer experience, and how they can improve it.

Queuing to buy food and drink refreshments remains the biggest bug-bear for sports fans and concert-goers alike, and is shown to put off people even contemplating a purchase at an event. This means caterers can lose out valuable revenue opportunities from as much as 70% of an audience, because cash-paying customer queues have an uncomfortably long order process cycle: from customer decision, through to order preparation, and then cash (or card) payment. The efficient alternative is to provide a service for customers to order and pay in advance online, and then provide dedicated collection points in strategically convenient locations at the venue.  Such service points have been shown to serve customers four times faster than a cash/card service point. But more than that, data generated by online ordering provides catering managers with the tools to forecast more effectively production levels, while marketing teams can use customer details, and their buying behaviour, to create personalised and targeted marketing campaigns.

Enabling customers to order ahead is a service that has been so widely deployed in the retail sector that current generation consumers have come to expect it as part of their everyday life. And with online ordering moving inexorably onto mobile devices, the process is becoming even more convenient and accessible.  So why shouldn’t consumers expect the same service availability when they attend an event at a sports stadium or music venue? The process is almost identical: customers can place an order days or hours ahead of the event, and pay with a debit or credit card. The only difference is that the customer has to collect their order rather than have it delivered. The process has been proven to work – from a technical, logistical and operational perspective – and is known to enhance the customer experience, as well as bring in additional revenue streams.

Smartphones are a common sight at sports and music events, as consumers share their experience with friends and family via social media, email and texting. For consumers it is a wholly immersive experience; using mobile technology to enhance their enjoyment while “in the moment”. To ignore this cultural evolution – or to deny it, by not providing appropriate WiFi or mobile signal bandwidth at large scale venues – is tantamount to commercial suicide. There are numerous ways to monetise mobile technology at such venues, and to engage with consumers in a way that engenders loyalty and return custom; improving the service delivery of food & drink, and other merchandise, is arguably the easiest to resolve.

Never before has the availability of mobile technology provided stadia and event venues with such opportunities to maximise revenues and optimise the customer experience. Preoday’s partnership with Ticketmaster demonstrates how venues and promoters can increase the customer “spend per head” through online ordering of food, drink and merchandise, post ticket purchase. By integrating the Preoday ordering platform with their own ticketing system, Ticketmaster are capturing additional sales through customer loyalty early in the event lifecycle.

Preoday is the leading provider of online ordering technology for the stadia and event venue sector, having worked with numerous cultural and sports venues in the UK and Europe. We understand the challenges of deploying such innovative technology and can advise caterers, owners and operators in the sector about the whole implementation process.

Sports stadia and event venues are regarded as prized assets, by any measurement, but there’s a new reality about the way they are operated. The need to be ever more commercial has driven owners and operators to open up their venues to new audiences. In the UK, for example, football clubs might only host 45 home games a year, so their seats remain unoccupied for 320 days. While this allows plenty of time for maintenance and upgrade work to be carried out, it’s hardly “sweating the assets”.

To increase their revenue potential, some football clubs have chosen to go down the ground sharing route; Reading FC share the Madjeski Stadium with London Irish rugby union club; Watford FC share Vicarage Road with Saracens; and Hull City Tigers FC share the KCOM stadium with Hull FC rugby league club. Other clubs have opted to open up their venues to concerts of one music genre or another. Every additional day that a venue is open for business brings much needed revenues, but inefficient operations and logistics are preventing venues maximising these income opportunities. And it’s not just the finances that suffer; the customer’s experience is also jeopardised.

The customers’ enjoyment of any event is dependent on a number of factors. And while ticket price – or whether their team won or lost, or their favourite band played its back catalogue – may have a bearing on this, caterers, together with stadium owners and operators, should not underestimate the role they play in the customer experience, and how they can improve it.

Queuing to buy food and drink refreshments remains the biggest bug-bear for sports fans and concert-goers alike, and is shown to put off people even contemplating a purchase at an event. This means caterers can lose out valuable revenue opportunities from as much as 70% of an audience, because cash-paying customer queues have an uncomfortably long order process cycle: from customer decision, through to order preparation, and then cash (or card) payment. The efficient alternative is to provide a service for customers to order and pay in advance online, and then provide dedicated collection points in strategically convenient locations at the venue.  Such service points have been shown to serve customers four times faster than a cash/card service point. But more than that, data generated by online ordering provides catering managers with the tools to forecast more effectively production levels, while marketing teams can use customer details, and their buying behaviour, to create personalised and targeted marketing campaigns.

Enabling customers to order ahead is a service that has been so widely deployed in the retail sector that current generation consumers have come to expect it as part of their everyday life. And with online ordering moving inexorably onto mobile devices, the process is becoming even more convenient and accessible.  So why shouldn’t consumers expect the same service availability when they attend an event at a sports stadium or music venue? The process is almost identical: customers can place an order days or hours ahead of the event, and pay with a debit or credit card. The only difference is that the customer has to collect their order rather than have it delivered. The process has been proven to work – from a technical, logistical and operational perspective – and is known to enhance the customer experience, as well as bring in additional revenue streams.

Smartphones are a common sight at sports and music events, as consumers share their experience with friends and family via social media, email and texting. For consumers it is a wholly immersive experience; using mobile technology to enhance their enjoyment while “in the moment”. To ignore this cultural evolution – or to deny it, by not providing appropriate WiFi or mobile signal bandwidth at large scale venues – is tantamount to commercial suicide. There are numerous ways to monetise mobile technology at such venues, and to engage with consumers in a way that engenders loyalty and return custom; improving the service delivery of food & drink, and other merchandise, is arguably the easiest to resolve.

Never before has the availability of mobile technology provided stadia and event venues with such opportunities to maximise revenues and optimise the customer experience. Preoday’s partnership with Ticketmaster demonstrates how venues and promoters can increase the customer “spend per head” through online ordering of food, drink and merchandise, post ticket purchase. By integrating the Preoday ordering platform with their own ticketing system, Ticketmaster are capturing additional sales through customer loyalty early in the event lifecycle.

Preoday is the leading provider of online ordering technology for the stadia and event venue sector, having worked with numerous cultural and sports venues in the UK and Europe. We understand the challenges of deploying such innovative technology and can advise caterers, owners and operators in the sector about the whole implementation process.