Both ESMMA and BASIS (British Association for Sustainable Sport) members attended the workshop with insights on topics ranging from energy efficiency & waste management to hospitality & innovative ticketing in smart stadiums and fan & sponsor management.
The key takeaways from the ESSMA-BASIS Smart & Sustainable Stadium Workshop were as follows:
- In terms of what makes a stadium SMART – Sustainability, Mobility, Accessibility, Resiliency, and Transport – sustainability should be top of the agenda
- Green transport should be promoted and incentivised. To encourage fans to use public transport, it needs to be easy, efficient, quick and regular. It can even be packaged with food & beverage to maximise sales
- Don’t build car parks on expensive stadia sites. It makes much more financial sense to utilise out-of-town Park and Ride solutions. Have retail, restaurants and the like on-site instead, and maximise both revenue generation and the fan experience
- Data is key. The only way to operate and make a stadium more efficient is to have the necessary data at your disposal
- Have a long-term vision; invest now and stay flexible
- Effective communications and close working relationships with all stakeholders is vital – from sponsors, suppliers, tenants and the local authorities to your fans and the local community. Being a good neighbour is an often under-spoken about element of sustainability
- Challenge your suppliers to influence the supply chain and to think ‘outside the box’ when it comes to innovating and delivering on your waste management and energy reduction goals
- Make sure that CSR and sustainability work together
- Monitoring and metering your energy usage is key to lowering consumption; carefully track consumption and submit budgets accordingly
- Understanding your fans (consumers) is vital when it comes to implementing different marketing strategies based on the specific fan group’s needs
- Make sure you have visibility on every penny spent in the stadium; with real-time data from every till, including spend per head, with headline reports sent to management every 15 minutes
- Keep pace with digital natives; they will be the major consumer group in 10 years’ time. The three pillars to achieving this are to: connect; communicate; and transact
- Evolve the stadium experience in the same way that shopping centres have, with way-finding, interactive digital displays, location-based messaging, Click & Collect, free Wi-Fi, etc.
- Battery storage is changing the role venues play in society and offers huge potential moving forward
