Bristol Sport Innovates With Technology

Following a hugely successful season, which saw City promoted to the Championship and Bristol Rugby finish top of its Championship in regular season, this is Ashton Gate’s first fully integrated automated solution specifically designed to meet all hospitality requirements for both clubs.

Bristol Sport CEO Andrew Billingham said: “We are rebuilding Ashton Gate fit for purpose for the 21st century. Technology drives consumer behaviour and we have to respond to that. We want every fan and visitor to the stadium to have the best experience possible, be it pre-ordering a drink from their seat or reducing queues using contactless payment. We want fans to have access to all of our brands and products on any device, anywhere.”

Trevor Roberts, Sales Director, Verteda Ltd. commented: “We have proven our abilities to deliver stadia-centric solutions, and are thrilled to bring those solutions to Bristol Sport.

“We’ve delivered more than 50 similar stadium projects in the last few years, which meant Bristol Sport could talk to our customers across the UK and gain insights into the benefits we deliver with integrated solutions.”

This solution, he says, will see Bristol Sport and its group of sporting clubs achieve a raft of benefits, “including the complete removal of manual processes in key areas such as cash handling while seeing new opportunities for ordering and service, plus new operational insights for retail operations and improved workforce allocation across permanent, casual and temporary staff.”

Frazer Halliday, Bristol Sport’s chief technology officer added: “The new stadium released investments to revamp our approach; implementing an automated solution to improve service to fans; to streamline operations; build revenues and manage back-of-house operations.”

He says the stadium will gain far greater control of its operations in real-time, from stock control to workforce management, with faster transactions at the front-end. “We can also serve fans better through innovations like the Qjacker app.”

Verteda’s integrated solution with Bristol Sport includes:

• InfoGenesis™ POS software from Agilysys, Inc. for Food & Beverage and Retail operations: greater accuracy, improved customer service, faster transactions and customer throughput
• Qjacker - Verteda’s mobile ordering and queue-busting solution means fans can pre-order in advance or from their seat, then quickly collect fulfilled orders from dedicated lanes in the stadium 
• VSS – the Verteda Stock Solution for dynamic real-time stock monitoring and management through InfoGenesis POS, supporting venues, food concessions and bars across the stadium
• Contactless payment capabilities integrated with POS – improving speed of service and reducing cash held onsite, the stadium aims to achieve 30% of all transactions via contactless
• WMx - Verteda’s workforce management solution to ensure the right staff are targeted in the right locations at the right time, easing scheduling and management
• Ecommerce for Retail solution – a cost-effective platform powered by the Magento content management system to improve customer service and drive increased sales, linked to the Retail stock system for inventory to provide a holistic view of the business
• Events500 - intuitive Conference & Events Management system for meticulous planning and flawless execution, supporting more efficient, guest-focused and profitable events at the stadium

Andrew Billingham went on to add: “Our project 'Street to Seat' will be ongoing and evolving as we develop the very best partnerships with industry leading technology suppliers. I look forward to announcing these in the coming months.”