Stadium Experience Industry Meeting at Edgbaston Stadium
Stadium Experience has created a new industry meeting to bring together key industry leaders and stadium venues for a full day event at Edgbaston Stadium in Birmingham. The special event saw over 100 representatives from UK stadium venues come together to network with like-minded colleagues, meet suppliers, sample products, hear from key industry speakers on the latest top trends, and feel inspired by a special motivational speaker.
The event included separate sessions for different areas of the stadium business including non-matchday events, hospitality and retail kiosks and public catering managers. The morning began with networking and meeting key suppliers at two exclusive expos. Suppliers included; Attain, Cadbury’s, Choose Your Venue, Crowd Guard, Dr Oetker (Chicago Town Pizzas), Eventologists, Global Payments, Pie Minister, PSP, Racing Snake Media, Rollover Hotdogs, Special Occasion Linen, Taste Beverages and Wigan Pier Promotions.
Each group then gathered to welcome guest speakers covering the latest industry trends. Speakers included representatives from Beam, Venue Performance, The Delegate Wranglers, Food Allergy Aware, Greengage and Global Payments Inc, before joining together for a very special motivational session with Aaron Phipps MBE (Wheelchair Rugby Paralympian Gold Medallist).
As part of the event, the guests experienced the non-matchday event offerings at Edgbaston Stadium, including their new Spring menu specially created by Head Chef Scott Marini, as well as a private tour of the matchday kiosk facilities, and full venue tour of their 30 unique event spaces. Edgbaston offers versatile, multi-function event spaces featuring panoramic views over the iconic cricket pitch and accommodating for anything up to 800 delegates, providing the ideal venue for an assortment of events from intimate meetings to large exhibitions. See more about the event spaces at Edgbaston Stadium.
The event concluded with the guests visiting and supporting a live kitchen competition taking place onsite at the Xcelerate With Edgbaston, a regional community skills and learning centre. The competition, organised and judged by the British Culinary Federation, is for the Chef Team of the Year Award category of The Stadium Events & Hospitality Awards 2025. The award, sponsored by Chef Works & Bragard, saw 12 stadium chef teams competing for the coveted title. The official results remain top secret, and will be announced at the annual awards evening on 3rd July 2025 at Brighton & Hove Albion FC.
Angela Sanders at Edgbaston Stadium, commented: “We’re delighted to have been selected as the host venue for this amazing event. It was fantastic to finally bring the industry together in-person to talk all things UK stadia sales after so long. We truly enjoyed catching up with industry colleagues to share insights and best practice and loved showcasing our amazing venue and food offering. We hope everyone enjoyed their time with us.”
Neil Thompson from The Delegate Wranglers, added: “Having worked with the Stadium Experience team for a number of years, we are delighted to be talking to the wider membership about the 11 year journey of The Delegate Wranglers including some ways to make sure they are getting the most out of our thriving community.”
Sue Robinson from Greengage Solutions, commented: “It is always a pleasure to work with Stadium Experience and their members, who we are helping to earn credibility in the area of sustainability and demonstrate their commitment to it, a great day!”
Debbie Rigney from Stadium Experience, added: “We would like to express a huge thank you to the team at Edgbaston Stadium for hosting the very first Stadium Experience Industry Meeting. It was invaluable to meet up with our colleagues face-to-face to hear the very latest trends, learn about new opportunities available and explore another fabulous stadium venue. It has also been fantastic to be able to support our new Chef Team Award and see them in action, in a real live kitchen competition. We would love to see this develop to become an annual event which helps and supports our member venues.”
About Stadium Experience
Stadium Experience was established in 2002 for football venues, and evolved in 2013 to welcome rugby stadium venues too. In 2022, the association expanded further to include cricket venues for the very first time. Some examples of their activities include; sharing best practice and ideas with regular networking events each year, joint exhibition opportunities, meeting event buyers and key agencies as a consortium, regular newsletters and blogs, an annual recognitions awards celebration; The Stadium Events & Hospitality Awards and much more.
Thank You To Our Event Speakers & Suppliers
