Top 3 Stadium Food & Beverage Must-Do’s for 2024

In Australia, the summer of cricket revolves around the traditional Boxing Day and New Year's test matches in Melbourne and Sydney. This year both venues had fantastic crowds across four days and F&B sales surged driven by great food offerings, technology improvements, a focus on cultural offerings for away fans, and of course beer…. lots of ice-cold beer.?

And this is just the start, with a huge summer concert season around the corner it got us thinking about what it will take to further improve fan satisfaction and F&B stadia offerings in 2024:

Focus on Large Format General Admission (GA) Offers

Much of our recent work has revolved around designing strategies and masterplans for new stadia GA offers. To ensure we are capturing more than just the traditional fans, we have been developing a GA offer that incorporates several feature bars & and restaurants - as well as a hero site that will drive interest, and marketing whilst attracting the experience seekers, the FOMO group, and the socializers.

These large format sites are a driver of pre and post-game revenues whilst also providing vital breakout space during long-form content. Stadiums can be perceived as captured environments and customers an easy target however if the offer is not at the level of the best of the high street you will have lots of missed opportunities. Any large format site needs to be authentic, well-designed, and simply a place where customers would go even if it was not inside the stadium walls.

Offers that Also Operate 365 Days

Always a contentious subject and certainly a stadium-by-stadium prospect as location plays a role in the viability of offers outside match day. However, if there is an opportunity to do this it must be done bigger and better to ensure its success. The offer must have a point of difference - a space that may be steeped in history or members-only exclusive on match day that then allows everyone the opportunity to experience it outside these times, something special. In a new stadium or redevelopment, the opportunity exists to create something that plays the same role on match day as nonmatch day.

Best-in-class examples are a couple of sports bars in the US – LED banners at TD Garden and more recently (and probably the best of all) the new DraftKings Inc. 's Sportsbook at Wrigley Field. Whilst it is part of the stadium it is a standalone offer (no field of play view) but talk about something that attracts and can operate 365 days, with the design focused on nonmatch day as much as match day and if you are going to do it, this is how it’s done - driving strong revenue outside of match days.?

There is No Stopping Technology

The rise and rise of Zippin and Amazon's Just Walk Out technology will continue to dominate and start becoming part of most modern-day stadium offers. Venues are seeing revenue grow by up to 40% like-for-like when checkout-free outlets replace a traditional bar or food outlet and with the speed of transaction cut by more than half, it’s just a win-win. It will be fascinating when the $2BN Intuit Dome - home of the LA Clippers opens later this year as the first sports arena in the world with only checkout-free concession outlets.

These outlets need a lot of consideration with design. They require plenty of BOH space with bar outlets having rear-loading fridges and large cool rooms to ensure a continuous supply of cold canned beers and other drinks. Food outlets need lots of kitchen firepower and ample numbers of rear-loading food chutes to keep the fans satisfied and moving.?

Ground Control Global is Australia & Asia’s pre-eminent food, beverage & hospitality advisory business. Having completed numerous stadium strategy, masterplans, and design briefs in Australia, South Korea, Thailand, and the Middle East over the past 12 months, we are most stadia operators' partner of choice.?

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