Navigate the Latest Trends Transforming Venue Operations

Top 3 Venue Operations Trends

From exceptional guest experiences and streamlined day-to-day workflows to lightning-fast incident response and automated maintenance management, today’s leading venues are increasingly investing in technology to take their operations to the next level.

To keep pace, it’s critical for venue managers to understand what their peers are doing and learn how technology is reshaping the way venues operate in 2024 and beyond.

To help teams like yours get ahead, our VP of Customer Success Josh Gross recently hosted a webinar, “Innovate to Operate: Navigate the Latest Trends Transforming Venue Operations”, featuring our very own Product Manager Edy Carina Rosario and Senior Director of Sales for the EMEA region Rebekah Murphy.

Keep reading to learn some of the high-level takeaways from the webinar you can apply to supercharge your own venue operations.

Trend 1: The Customer Experience is Always the Top Priority

Today’s best venues are optimizing the customer experience from end to end. This includes making sure that people are able to get into the venue quickly, can easily find food and their seats, and can get any questions they might have answered thoroughly.

“Customer experience is what keeps people coming back,” Carina Rosario says. “When you are hosting events at your properties, you want your patrons to have the best time possible so that they buy another ticket, they come see another show, they come back to your venue. The only way you’re going to do that is to make sure from start to finish they have the best experience possible.”

For the best results, Carina Rosario suggests creating an environment that’s welcoming and inclusive, where nobody is anxious or intimidated by a dominating security presence. While you’re at it, focus on the pre-and post-event experience. Even if guests have the best time possible at your event, sitting in the parking lot for three hours after it’s over won’t leave the best taste in their mouths.

Trend #2: Venues as a Part of Entertainment District

To increase foot traffic and make their facilities more destinations than standalone experiences, more and more venues are expanding behind stadium or arena doors and building up areas in the immediate vicinity around them.

“As we see these stadiums and venues expand as well and consider the areas around them, they’re becoming more of these entertainment districts,” Carina Rosario says. “We’re seeing that more and more. You want people to come to the district as a whole, go to the restaurant that’s attached to the stadium or visit the park or the areas that are surrounding it. You’re getting them there earlier. They’re able to enjoy their day, and it becomes a whole entire family outing as opposed to just attending an event.”

Of course, you can’t just decide to enhance the area surrounding your venue and expect great results. To ensure you make a shrewd decision, you need to collect data and use it to inform the path forward.

“If you’re not collecting data, you have no way of knowing what the actual pain point is,” Carina Rosario continues. “You can see and make guesses and assumptions, but you have to have the data behind it in order to act on it. So being able to capture that data is really important.”

Trend #3: AI in Venue Operations

You’ve no doubt heard about the artificial intelligence arms race and how AI is being used in pretty much everything these days. In venue operations, is AI only a buzzword? Or can it actually make a difference?

“When I’ve been attending talks around stadiums of the future, venues of the future, AI has been a part of that,” Murphy explains. “I will reiterate that it’s not designed to replace a human. For example, their workforce is going to stay the same. But using AI or technology in different ways allows for a more seamless customer experience, a more seamless or revenue-generating experience for them as a business.”

For example, over in Europe, Murphy has seen venues deploy AI to automate food and drink outlets. “You scan in with your card or your ID, you go to a shelf, you pick up whatever it is you want to eat and drink, and you walk straight out,” she says. “Yes, you don’t necessarily interact with an individual. So you might think, ‘Okay, well, what does that mean? That means that somebody’s lost the job.’ Well, no. It means that that person can be repurposed in a totally different way rather than standing in a line and becoming potentially frustrated because things aren’t going fast enough. You can serve people quickly because essentially they’re serving themselves.”