With 10 years' experience working in brand and content for some of the UK's biggest hospitality brands under her belt, Bella leads marketing for Togather's Live events. Owning the go-to-market strategy for festivals, stadia and event partnerships. Recent work includes the Palate Shift trend report and the concepts behind a number of Togather's biggest tender pitches.
Planning an immersive, exciting F&B experience at a sporting event is one thing. Delivering it at scale, with thousands of fans arriving at the same time, is another. That’s where operational thinking comes in.
Levy’s analytics subsidiary, E15, shows that nearly 90% of consumption occurs before kick-off or during half-time - but Oracle’s 2021 report on sports entertainment habits showed that 59% of fans typically go out after the event for more food or drinks. The opportunity is there for venues and operators that can capture those crowds.
That’s why stadiums are designing around dwell time, looking to flatten those peaks by enticing crowds to come earlier and stay later. But increasing dwell time alone isn’t enough. Your ops teams and FOH staff have to be able to handle it, and that’s where operationally led design and smart technology can make millions.
One operator leading the way when it comes to hospitality tech is Boxbar. They operate self-serve machines that are a novelty for attendees, and a huge time- and space-saver for venues.
"Sports clubs are putting more and more emphasis into mapping out each fan engagement point whether that is accommodation, hospitality, merchandise or of course F&B.
Whether it’s football, horse racing, boxing, rugby, cricket or near enough any sport, the action is broken up with periods of inactivity. As we all know, this means everyone wants to hit the bar at the same time creating crazy bottle necks and rushes where fans get stuck in queues and bars cannot keep up with demand. In turn, both the fans and the operators lose.
Our automated, self-serve solution allows venue operators to install more points of sale per metre. We help them do more with less, whilst speeding up service significantly. Together these two things mean serving capacity increases exponentially, resulting in less queues and more sales, so everybody wins!
As costs for clubs and stadia continue to rise, the industry seems to be really getting to grips with the savings that self-serve solutions deliver, especially when installed on a large scale."
Reshad Hossenally, CEO & Co-founder, Boxbar Tech
In fact, tech can help in almost every aspect of operating F&B at scale, whether it’s allowing punters to pull their own pints, predicting stock levels and peak flows, or offering guests the opportunity to order drinks and snacks directly to their seats.
Togather track every transaction at every managed event, allowing us to analyse and report on sales trends, popular dishes, areas of opportunity and consumer habits year after year. Data informs everything from what traders are placed at a venue, ensuring attendees have their every need met, to where they are placed and what they are serving. This in turn allows traders to be better prepared on event day, limiting food waste and keeping queues short and service smooth for every fan.
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