Stadium technology to improve fan experience at Twickenham Stadium
Twickenham Stadium has been on the same site since 1909, but remains in a constant state of evolution to ensure a world-class offering.
The stadium has the biggest open loop system in the world, going contactless in 2015, the year England hosted the Rugby World Cup. Prior to this, the venue suffered from long queues at the bars during half-time, which meant lost revenue. Since moving to contactless and going ‘live’ with ApplePay, transaction times have decreased from 18 to 4 seconds. Contactless payment is an evolving landscape, pointing to the fact that the average cash versus card spend in 2013 was 92% and 8% respectively, whereas for 2016/17 it was 66% and 34%.
“During the Six Nations in 2017, contactless payment averaged around 62% of all spend across all games.”
In terms of dealing with queue management, Twickenham Stadium developed a ‘Click & Collect’ solution. This system allows fans to pre-order their F&B ahead of and during an event for collection at designated locations. The venue also utilises Intelligent POS and IPTV Messaging, which can react to sales, and increases across the levels at the stadium and pushes messaging to the fans.
On matchdays, there are around 190 hawkers present; 120 with backpacks and 70 with buggies, with the mobile tills, contactless payments, real-time tracking and queue-busting nature of this solution, being of major benefit. Taking a wider stadium view, real-time spending can be tracked across all parts of the venue and the existing hawkers can even be used to provide an order-to-seat service.
Besides less queuing and improved operations, the use of contactless payment provides key data analytics, which can be used to drive digital signage, improve queue management, general operations and the overall customer/fan experience. Thanks to the integration of these new technologies, an estimated £900,000 has been saved in the last 24 months.