The Stadium Events & Hospitality Awards is an annual celebration designed to continually drive-up standards and recognise the very best venues across the UK stadium industry. Around 400 guests from 40+ stadia join together to celebrate the achievements of their stadia colleagues in a glittering awards ceremony.
Here are a few more details about how the categories are selected each year, and how the categories are all independently judged.
Each year the categories featured at the awards are selected using feedback from the member venues of Stadium Experience, along with considerations for any wider developments which may affect how a stadium operates. The categories available in 2022 include:
*NEW* Outstanding Contribution Award – Recognising those individuals or teams who are simply outstanding at what they do, and continuously shine. This can be something as part of their regular duties, or perhaps focusing on supporting the local community or business recovery from challenging times.
*NEW* Best Retail Catering Award – Recognising the best retail catering teams at stadia across the UK. This team will demonstrate commercial growth, high quality food offerings or proactive sustainability improvements.
Matchday Sales Team of the Year Award – Recognising the very best matchday sales team in stadium venues across the UK. Entries will demonstrate strategies for growth, brave new ideas, and overcoming challenges.
Non-Matchday Sales Team of the Year Award – Recognising the very best non-matchday sales team in stadium venues across the UK. Entries will demonstrate strategies for growth, new ideas for unique and different events, creative use of their spaces, and overcoming challenges.
Best Stadium Events Venue Award – Recognising the very best stadium events venue within the UK. Judges are specifically looking for a stadium venue which consistently displays exceptional venue facilities and outstanding guest experiences.
Operations Team of the Year Award– Recognising the often unseen behind-the-scenes teams that make stadium events run so smoothly, going above and beyond the call of duty to provide the very best service to customers.
Visiting Football Directors Award – Voted for by Directors at each football club. They are specifically asked to consider the welcome, service and catering when casting their votes.
Visiting Rugby Directors Award – Voted for by Directors at each rugby club. They are specifically asked to consider the welcome, service and catering when casting their votes.
Matchday Hospitality Awards (Small, Medium & Large) – Experienced chef and hospitality experts attend a venue to try out their matchday offering. Each element is carefully considered and scored against strict criteria. This category is split into small, medium and large categories based on the number of hospitality seats on a matchday.
Overall Matchday Hospitality Award – As above, but instead pitches all venues against all, regardless of size.
Each award category is independently judged. Some are voted for by stadium directors, and others are decided by teams of experts with many years experience in their fields.
The majority of categories are judged by a panel who submit their first, second and third placed votes in each category – Chosen using strict criteria developed by the Stadium Experience Leadership Team in advance. These votes convert to scores, with the highest scoring venues winning the top awards.
The judging panel for 2022 includes:
Read more about the biographies of our judging panel.
The Matchday Hospitality Awards are judged separately, lead by Head Judge, Rod Bowker. As Head Judge, Rod creates an expert team of around 12 judges, each with over 20 years experience in the chef and hospitality industries.
On the day the judge has a strict criteria report pack with them, which has been developed jointly by the Head Judge and the Stadium Experience Leadership Team. Each full report is then validated by the Head Judge and Stadium Experience to ensure consistency across the board. The full reports are made available to each venue after the awards event to aid the venues future learning and training.
The current list of judges are shown below, please click to read more about their culinary and hospitality experience.
Rod Bowker (Head Judge) | Geoff Acott | Gerald Roser |
Neil Thomson | Graham Crump | Martyn Lawson |
Mark James | Donald Leitch | Anton Endelmann |
Andrew Green | David McKown | Sue Woolcock |
Find out more about The Stadium Events & Hospitality Awards, by emailing office@stadiumexperience.com.
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