Bristol Sport innovates in hospitality with award-winning Verteda technology

Bristol Sport has awarded Verteda Ltd a wide-ranging contract for a new fully automated hospitality solution as part of its rebuild of Ashton Gate Stadium, which is home to Bristol City FC and Bristol Rugby.

Following a hugely successful season, which saw City promoted to the Championship and Bristol Rugby finish top of its Championship in regular season, this is Ashton Gate’s first fully integrated automated solution specifically designed to meet all hospitality requirements for both clubs.

Bristol Sport manages the commercial interests of its group of sporting clubs, working across rugby; football; basketball and motor racing in Bristol, and aims to replicate the successful approach adopted in other cities such as Barcelona to benefit sports fans.

“Previously, the approach was mostly manual and outsourced, which could obviously have an impact on speed, accuracy and customer service,” says Frazer Halliday, chief technology officer at Bristol Sport, the company managing the £45m rebuild. “However, the new stadium released investments to revamp that approach; implementing an automated solution to improve service to fans; to streamline operations; build revenues and manage back-of-house operations.” He says the stadium will gain far greater control of its operations in real-time, from stock control to workforce management, with faster transactions at the front-end. “We can also serve fans better through innovations like the Qjacker app.”

Verteda’s integrated solution with Bristol Sport includes:

• InfoGenesis™ POS software from Agilysys, Inc. for Food & Beverage and Retail operations: greater accuracy, improved customer service, faster transactions and customer throughput
• Qjacker – Verteda’s mobile ordering and queue-busting solution means fans can pre-order in advance or from their seat, then quickly collect fulfilled orders from dedicated lanes in the stadium
• VSS – the Verteda Stock Solution for dynamic real-time stock monitoring and management through InfoGenesis POS, supporting venues, food concessions and bars across the stadium
• Contactless payment capabilities integrated with POS – improving speed of service and reducing cash held onsite, the stadium aims to achieve 30% of all transactions via contactless
• WMx – Verteda’s workforce management solution to ensure the right staff are targeted in the right locations at the right time, easing scheduling and management
• Ecommerce for Retail solution – a cost-effective platform powered by the Magento content management system to improve customer service and drive increased sales, linked to the Retail stock system for inventory to provide a holistic view of the business
• Events500 – intuitive Conference & Events Management system for meticulous planning and flawless execution, supporting more efficient, guest-focused and profitable events at the stadium

Bristol Sports’ Frazer Halliday says, “It was an extremely rigorous selection process, with the contract awarded to Verteda based on the quality and performance of its technology, and the company’s huge experience in this sector. We wanted to move to the next step in food and beverages and retail, with a more integrated and automated approach, and we had confidence Verteda would deliver.”

Work is underway to transform Ashton Gate into a state-of-the-art 27,000 capacity stadium which will see it also become the largest conference and events facility in the south-west of England. The 86-year-old Wedlock Stand has been demolished and replaced with a new six thousand-seater South Stand, housing new conference facilities, administration offices, sports bar, café and shops. The Dolman Stand has been completely remodelled with a roof extension and lower-tier replacement. Both stands will be open in time for the 2015-16 season. The third and final phase of the project sees the demolition of the Williams Stand, which will be replaced with a two-tier 11,000-seater stand, which includes a dining hospitality area capable of seating almost a thousand people, 18 corporate boxes and a media centre. Following an outstanding season, Bristol City’s manager Steve Cotterill was named the League Managers’ Association League One Manager of the Year in May, recognising his contribution to a double-winning season: the Sky Bet League One title and a record-breaking third Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.

“We have proven our abilities to deliver stadia-centric solutions, and are thrilled to bring those solutions to Bristol Sport,” says Trevor Roberts, Sales Director, Verteda Ltd. “We’ve delivered more than 50 similar stadium projects in the last few years, which meant Bristol Sport could talk to our customers across the UK and gain insights into the benefits we deliver with integrated solutions.” This solution, he says, will see Bristol Sport and its group of sporting clubs achieve a raft of benefits, “including the complete removal of manual processes in key areas such as cash handling while seeing new opportunities for ordering and service, plus new operational insights for retail operations and improved workforce allocation across permanent, casual and temporary staff.”