Retail record at the Ricoh Arena
The Ricoh Arena smashed its retail record when Premier League runners-up Chelsea came to the Ricoh Arena for their FA Cup quarter-final tie versus Coventry City.
A new Ricoh Arena record of £2.67 spend per head (calculated by dividing the final retail revenues by the actual public attendance) was achieved.
The figure includes the total spend on food and refreshments in the concourses at the venue before, during and after Chelsea’s 2-0 win.
Daniel Gidney, the chief executive of the Ricoh Arena, believes the record amount is partly due to the complex being the first UK sports venue to operate a cashless payment system.
“This was our slickest operational delivery ever,” he said. “We have learned lessons from serving huge volumes of crowds after attracting 40,000 crowds to the Bon Jovi and Red Hot Chili Peppers concerts as well as the sell-out England under-21 international.
“Since then we have introduced the cashless payment system and the FA Cup tie was a perfect example of the smoothness of the operation.
“To speed up the process we had staff selling pre-loaded £10 cards outside the Ricoh as well as in the concourses and it definitely meant less queuing time.
“The game attracted the highest ever sporting crowd to the Ricoh since there were 31,407 inside the ground before kick-off and the atmosphere was fantastic.
“Throughout the day we served over 10,000 pints of beer, 5,000 pies and 3,500 breakfasts and although it was busy in the concourses and in the corporate hospitality suites as you would expect with a crowd that size, the queues were managed smoothly.
“We also had the IMI Cornelius fast pour beer technology in our pub kiosks as well as fast beer vending machines in operation which serve up to four pints at once which proved popular.
“All of this endorses that fact that the Ricoh Arena is a world class destination for business, entertainment and sport that is market leading with its blended approach of optimising the customer experience through the use of innovative technology.
“We believe the spend per head of £2.67 is better than any Football League club in the country including Premier League Clubs and in the immortal words of Brian Clough; ‘We may not be the best but we’re definitely in the top one!’”
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