Featured image credit: SSE Arena, Belfast
Once upon a time, the general admission concourse food and beverage offering was rarely inspiring, with long queues and overpriced, tasteless produce commonplace and broadly accepted as part of the event-day package.
However, such low expectations are a thing of the past for many attendees, with F&B becoming an increasingly important factor in the overall experience.
According to research published last year, 78% of consumers who visited a sporting event or concert at a stadium ordered food, with an average spend of $32.02 per head – a total that has traditionally been far higher in the United States than elsewhere. Some 62% of those surveyed said that food options were very important when attending such an event, but only 44% were extremely or very satisfied with such offerings – lower than the average for the recreation segment.
Part of the challenge is to facilitate such transactions quickly and efficiently, slashing wait times and giving spectators the opportunity to boost spending with repeat purchases, even during a relatively short 10- or 15-minute interval in the action.
With that in mind, stadiums are increasingly adopting solutions such as mobile payments, self-checkout and personalised digital shopping assistants to minimise friction and enhance satisfaction rates.
Automation equals efficiency
These technologies were highlighted by industry experts during TheStadiumBusiness Summit 2024.
Touchless, self-checkout solutions, such as those provided by Autocanteen, increase checkout efficiency to generate more revenue and less food waste, with an average of 10 seconds for each transaction reducing the likelihood of the customer walking away.
“In total it takes around 10 seconds or less to complete a transaction, that is two to three times faster than the traditional checkout point,” said Autocanteen chief executive Sergii Khomenko.
“In environments where you have issues with space or peak times, quick processing becomes very important. Autonomous stores, vision technology and AI can really help that process.”
Time is money
In March, the 10,000-capacity SSE Arena in Belfast collaborated with Amazon to implement its Just Walk Out technology, making it the first indoor arena in Europe to offer frictionless checkout-free shopping.
With the Pay & Away offering, visitors are able to enter the store using a contactless payment method at the entry gate before the technology detects the products they carry as they walk out, with a payment automatically taken.
As the arena hosts a busy schedule of cultural events and Belfast Giants ice hockey games, it has greatly increased the efficiency of sales from a substantial footfall.
“Our opening night saw a 44% sales uplift,” said SSE Arena Belfast chief experience officer Adrian Doyle.
“That was a soft performance as we were limiting people to two pints per person. If we compare what we’re doing now to 2019 for a similar event, we predict the sales uplift will actually be 125%.”
A central rationale for implementing the technology was the sheer number of potential customers walking away from making a purchase due to the amount of time spent queuing.
Despite a high price tag, the payback time for the technology at SSE Arena is forecast to be no longer than three years. As a result of its early success, operators of the venue are already looking at installing a second unit.
Productivity impact
While some may fear the impact of such technology on staff members, with efficiencies potentially leading to a lower headcount, Doyle claims that it has caused the productivity of staff members to go “through the roof”.
At the Adelaide Oval in Australia, the key to this has been to reassign workers to different roles to ensure they can still provide a valuable service.
The stadium, which primarily stages cricket and AFL matches as well as concerts, adopted computer vision-powered technology from Silicon Valley’s Mashgin earlier this year.
During a trial period, early surveys found that customers were in favour of the change as 71% said they preferred Mashgin over a traditional checkout with a cashier.
“Where we would have staff on counters, I now put those staff behind the bar pouring drinks,” said Adelaide Oval’s food and beverage general manager Matt Omond.
“It’s not about offloading staff but putting your staff in positions that you need to create greater efficiency.”
Evolving concourses
In 2024, it became obvious that technological innovation is driving a new general admission concourse experience, with more venues than ever before adopting such solutions.
In London, The O2 announced that self-serve bars powered by Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology would be fitted.
Meanwhile, in the US, AT&T Stadium, which stages Dallas Cowboys NFL games, introduced Zippin’s checkout-free technology, and TD Garden, home of the NHL’s Boston Bruins and NBA’s Boston Celtics, integrated Mashgin technology into its new Provisions MRKT outlet.
Many more venues have taken such a step, with more to follow in 2025.
The customer’s concourse experience is evolving – and if operational benefits can emerge alongside happier fans, then frictionless technology will continue to provide a win-win solution and will grow in importance as we enter the second half of the 2020s.
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