The Stadium Events & Hospitality Awards 2023 – Open For Entry
The Stadium Events & Hospitality Awards 2023 are now open for entry. There will be 14 award categories this year, which recognise the very best stadium venues across the UK.
2023 Award Categories
Chef Team of the Year Award – Sponsored by Chef Works UK & Bragard
Outstanding Contribution Award – Sponsored by Taste Beverages
Best Retail Catering Award – Sponsored by Rollover Hotdogs
Matchday Sales Team of the Year Award – Available for sponsorship – Find out more
Non-Matchday Sales Team of the Year Award – Sponsored by Special Occasion Linen
Non-Matchday Mystery Shopper Award – Sponsored by Hi-Impact Media
Best Stadium Events Venue Award – Sponsored by Rational UK
Operations Team of the Year Award – Sponsored by Braehead Foods
Visiting Rugby Directors Award – Sponsored by Conference News
Visiting Football Directors Award – Sponsored by FC Business
Matchday Hospitality Award (Awards by Small, Medium & Large Stadiums) – Available for sponsorship – Find out more
Overall Matchday Hospitality Award
Independent Awards Judging
Each category is independently judged by experienced industry experts. Some categories are voted for by stadium directors, HGEM judge the mystery shopper award, and others are decided by teams of experts with many years experience in their fields.
HGEM judges the Non-Matchday Mystery Shopper Award by providing a mystery guest programme to assess the quality of sales enquiry calls and follow up email correspondence.
The majority of categories are judged by a panel of experts who submit their first, second and third placed votes in each category using strict criteria. The votes convert to scores, with the highest scoring venues winning the top awards. The judging panel for 2023 includes:
- Juliet Price, Executive Director at Beam
- Martin Fullard, Editor at Conference News
- Neil Thompson, The Delegate Wranglers
- Kevin Howland, Head of Partnerships at FC Business
- Kerrin MacPhie, Chief Executive at MIA
- Craig Prentice, Founder at mum
- Karen Guile, Director at tobook and Search4Venues
- Shirley Wynne-Jones, Event Director at SWJ Events
- Andy Lakin, Venue Sales Manager at venuedirectory.com
The Matchday Hospitality Awards are judged separately, led by Head Judge, Rod Bowker. As Head Judge, Rod creates an expert team of judges, each with over 20 years experience in the chef and hospitality industries. The judges attend matchday hospitality experiences and complete a full and comprehensive report on every aspect of their visit. This category opened much earlier (in July this year) to include cricket venues for the first time, in line with the growing membership to Stadium Experience.
Deadlines & Results
The closing date for entries is Friday 31st March 2023, with the results revealed at a glittering awards ceremony in June 2023 at St Mary’s Stadium, home to Premier League Southampton Football Club (date will be confirmed shortly). The event will be the 16th annual awards organised by Stadium Experience. Tickets for the event can be booked here.
Debbie Rigney, Marketing & PR Manager for Stadium Experience and awards organiser, commented: “We are thrilled to be officially launching The Stadium Events & Hospitality Awards for 2023! As our membership now includes cricket venues, the 2023 awards will also be including cricket venues for the very first time. These awards recognise and reward the very best in the stadium industry and we can’t wait to celebrate on the south coast at Southampton FC next summer!”
Find out more about The Stadium Events & Hospitality Awards 2023.
See more about awards sponsorship opportunities for 2023.
