Introduction
Formed in 2013, Fabulous Fan Fayre (F3) is a joint venture between One Event Management Ltd and Legends Hospitality that is designed to offer guests a new, unique, and truly memorable experience.
Specialising in managing and supporting hospitality at some of the World’s most iconic stadiums, F3 have partnered with Manchester City Football Club (M.C.F.C) in the UK to provide what it believes to be the best stadium catering in the Premier League. The company currently manages all non-match day hospitality for MCFC, as well as catering and hospitality on match days and for concerts. At MCFC’s Etihad stadium the company handles on average 150 conference and event enquiries per month, from which they typically book around 40 events, hosting around 3,000 delegates.
Key Challenge
F3 needed a new venue management solution that could be used across multiple venues to both effectively manage and maximise conference & event bookings.
When F3 took over the running of nonmatch day hospitality from Manchester City Football Club (M.C.F.C), it was obvious that the incumbent system was not going to provide all the functionality and flexibility that F3 required to meet their ambitious business targets. Sales and Marketing Manager at F3, Rebecca Pickard, explains,“We needed to find a more modern system that was owned and managed by F3. We also needed a solution that would offer customised reporting, so that we could analyse booking data and then focus on the areas where we were making the most revenue, and where we should focus our sales effort.”
“Having a system that allows us the confidence that we will never overbook the venue or take a booking on a matchday is really reassuring. The information that the system provides is also critical to managing and developing an events business. You get out what you put in, and whatever data you need, Priava has the ability to provide it. After only having used the system for 12 months, moving forward we will be able to examine year by year trends that will give us even more insight into how we can continually improve the way we run the operation.”
Rebecca Pickard
Special Events – Sales & Marketing Manager Fabulous Fan Fayre
The Solution
An easy to use and cost-effective cloud-based solution from Priava that offered flexibility, key business reporting and integrated sales and CRM management.
F3 reviewed various products on the market. IT Manager at F3, Sean Marshall explains why they finally chose Priava, “The other solutions were much more complex to use, and did not give the flexibility we needed in the reporting and the venue management. The Priava solution on the other hand was much more organised and structured giving us a better understanding of how it could impact our business and was cost-effective.”
Straightforward implementation & training and easy roll-out to future stadia
According to F3 the implementation went very smoothly. After Priava had customised the solution to meet F3’s needs they then initiated a training for the six users at MCFC. They have since taken advantage of Priava’s Advanced Permissions Module for another stadium, that effectively enables additional users to be added to the main system with controlled access to information that is only relevant to that venue. The benefit of this is that F3 need only invest in one system and simply add on additional users as they grow their business with additional venues. Rebecca comments, “The training went very well, from a user point of view the system is very straight forward, self-explanatory, easy to use and intuitive and compared really favourably with other systems I had used in the past.”
The Results
Customised business reporting provides invaluable information for sales team and senior management
“What we really liked”, said Rebecca, “is that we could make it venue specific and customise the reports accordingly producing the data that we wanted – something that was more difficult to do with other systems.” She continues, “This is very important as we can produce weekly reports from the system, log every enquiry, view conversion levels, etc. that we then share with the board of directors and senior management. Essentially it provides a ‘snap-shot’ of the business from how many bookings we have made, lost bookings, reasons why we lost a booking, active enquiries, and so on. We can then do a comparison on either a month on month basis or with a similar period such as Christmas. This enables us to investigate how we can do things better and what elements we need to focus on to develop our key revenue earners.”
Proactive management and nurturing of top clients
Part of this process is producing a ‘Top-Ten’ report that lists which clients are performing the best in terms of biggest spenders, and it allows F3 to compare this month-by-month and make comparisons. Rebecca explains why this is important, “Using Priava’s customised reporting we can break-down the data on any metric that we require, for example we can track conversion levels, monitor every enquiry and so on. What we can clearly see from the top ten report, are reductions in spend, so we can then investigate why this might be. Of course it could be nothing to do with the venue, simply they just don’t have any events planned for that period, however if there is a problem we are in a position to proactively resolve it.”
Built-in CRM facility encourages new business and supports ‘thank-you’ events for clients
One way in which F3 keeps in touch with loyal clients is to invite them to ‘Thank You’ events. Rebecca explains, “Priava is excellent at managing customer relations. We can attach our key contacts against multiple organisations, which allows us to treat each individual as a person rather than merely a corporate contact, as they may move positions or may even book an event for private use. With Priava we can create a report of contacts for an email campaign to attend a thank you event or perhaps send over a special offer.” In parallel, Priava provides a full-blown CRM solution for the sales team so they can encourage repeat business from existing clients and chase up new opportunities.
Priava incentivises the team
“Not only does Priava support the day to day activities of the sales team but it also helps to incentivise them too” says Rebecca. “The reporting within Priava provides complete transparency on overall and individual performance, so for example we can celebrate the ‘booking of the week’ or motivate staff when they reach targets or have healthy projected bookings”.
Priava’s ‘Packages’ and ‘Master & Sub-Events’ modules reduce admin, save time and increase revenues
Once bookings are confirmed Priava provides some key functionality that helps save time for staff and maximise revenues. Two such features include ‘Packages’ and ‘Master & Sub-Events’ that can be applied to larger events or promotions. One such example at M.C.F.C was to set up a ‘Mother’s Day package’. Once set up it makes life very easy for the event coordinators as they can simply add the data for each new booking and the system does the rest. Rebecca explains, “All menus are configured so that all data such as pricing is just entered once and we can call on it when we need it. It’s brilliant because it allows the team to spend more time talking to prospects and clients and as they don’t have to create a new template each time, it saves lots of effort, introduces consistency and reduces errors. The Master & Sub Events feature means you have a single function sheet that breaks down the revenue to individual bookings or clients rather than lumps it into one big event. For example on the last Mother’s Day we had 20 bookings as sub-events, for 95 people for a package that included; a carvery, tea and coffee, room hire element, and complimentary chocolates. We were then able to identify who was buying what and to charge them accordingly.”
Day to day efficiencies through easy navigation, automation, multiple tabs and bookings chart
One of the biggest challenges for managing venues at stadia is uncertainty in terms of what fixtures are coming up. In M.C.F.C’s case, match days can be changed sometimes at a moment’s notice but with Priava’s Chart feature it’s easy to see what’s confirmed or the bookings secured against certain dates. In parallel it is impossible to double-book events, because the system will flag up any clashes when bookings are changed and it also manages all the inventory that is available within the venue such as furniture, projectors, and puts quantity restrictions on certain items. According to Rebecca this is perfect for stadiums where you have multiple team members taking bookings within different wings of the same facility at the same time. The new ‘Tasks’ upgrade that attaches user specific ‘Tasks’ to bookings, means that notes can be added and activities can be assigned to different team members.
“We know what our figures are before accounts do”
According to Rebecca one important aspect of managing the venues is having financial figures readily available as soon as possible. “With Priava we can record all revenues so there is no need to wait for the accounts department to produce the reports, we can look at what we’ve done at the end of the month immediately. We know what our figures are before accounts do.
Bookings up by 44%
Since the installation of the Priava solution the F3 events business has seen a significant increase in the number of bookings taken, due to a number of factors, such as the quality of the venue and catering, the hospitality team as a whole and the underlying technology. Rebecca says, “The Priava system has definitely assisted us in maximising the number of bookings that we have had over the last 12 months and the ongoing information on trends will enable us to increase this year on year.”
Summary
The benefits that F3 has achieved through the use of the Priava cloud-based venue management solution so far include:
- Supports multiple venues and can assign clients to multiple organisations;
- Supports meeting targets and year on year increase in bookings (44%);
- Customisable reporting that allows a venue to specify exactly the data it needs to run its business;
- Eliminates double bookings and assists with resource management;
- Easy management and clear demarcation of ‘booked’ and ‘provisional’ events;
- Intuitive system is easy for new staff to pick up and use;
- One system serves multiple departments across the organisation;
- Identification of ‘top spenders’ allows more effective marketing;
- Support for marketing campaigns;
- Eliminates errors and enables staff to focus on more customer contact;
- Supports high quality service for clients with fully automated and professional system with access to checklists and deadlines;
- Easy to use and navigate system saves time and minimises training required;
- Instant access to Financial Revenue Summaries that identify sources of business and new opportunities;
- Valuable sales information including conversion rates, reasons for losing a booking;
- Quick access to information using ‘universal search’ function;
- Easier maintenance of system with all updates done remotely, no need for internal IT resources;
- Enhanced client communication with event reports;
- Reduce admin for sales staff so they can focus on new business;
- Anywhere, anytime access to system enables team to check availability out of the office e.g. at exhibitions/shows.
Final comment from Rebecca
“Having a system that allows us the confidence that we will never overbook the venue or take a booking on a matchday is really reassuring. The information that the system provides is also critical to managing and developing an events business. You get out what you put in, and whatever data you need, Priava has the ability to provide it. After only having used the system for 12 months, moving forward we will be able to examine year by year trends that will give us even more insight into how we can continually improve the way we run the operation.”
Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about how you can introduce live availability and instant bookings at your venue using Priava.
