Suites were, and will still be, one of the most valuable areas at stadiums.
The Los Angeles Chargers and Rams at the new SoFi Stadium saw their biggest source of recurring revenue be leases for their 275 luxury suites — outside of TV deals, merchandise licensing and national sponsorships, of course. Each team could make up to $56.3 million annual revenue from the suites, according to the LA Times.
Especially as downsizing stadiums and arenas is becoming a trend, the revenue-generating suites become ever more important. At Chase Center in San Francisco, suites and box seating only takes up 1,356 of the 18,064 overall capacity, but makes up a third of the overall ticket revenue, according to an article by Front Office Sports.
But is the future of suites under threat? Especially given how the crowd-drawing menus ranging from 20 different craft beers to custom-made sliders are no longer optimal at suites in a post pandemic world?
Similar to wars, pandemics can accelerate the adoption of changes by years. That’s a good thing — because not only will venues be able to leverage new solutions to increase revenue, but also guests will enjoy a more seamless and premium experience.
In this blog, we’ll break down what the new suite experience will look like this year for both operators and guests. You can also learn more about our premium suite ordering solution here.
*You can inquire about our premium suite solution by submitting the form on this page.
1. Skip the PDF menus and phone calls. Meal package booking will become much easier.
If you’re still emailing suite holders PDF menus and manually taking meal package orders through email or phone calls, you’re doing it wrong.
Wouldn’t it be great if suite holders can visit a website where menus are neatly displayed with eye-catching photos, and they can select items to cart and check out all by themselves without having to talk to someone? It’s now doable with our online suite ordering platform.
Guests will first visit the pre-ordering website (which they can access with a short link or QR code that’s customized to your venue) and select their suite number. From there, they’ll can see the different food and drink packages available, together with photos of those items.
If they have the suite for multiple events, they can also choose the event and date from the drop down menu to make sure the pre-orders are for that specific event.
After selecting the meals, they can go on to choose merchandise and other items from the gift shops, before checking out with credit card or other online payment methods.
The entire process only takes minutes to complete, and there’s no server or operator required to take the orders or perform the transactions. Not only does this make the whole pre-ordering experience more efficient, convenient and pleasant for the guests, but also it saves time for the staff, and even reduces the number of people needed for suite operations.
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2. On-demand ordering while in suite.
A great way to increase check sizes is to give guests the option of ordering additional items while in suites. Granted, most food and drinks are pre-ordered before the day of the game, but if you can offer an easy-to-use, on-demand ordering platform in the suite — guests are more than likely to purchase additional drinks, or gifts and merchandise while in suite.
What some suite operators are doing is giving guests the option to use order on FanFood’s suite ordering platform on gameday. There are two ways to go about doing this: They can either provide a tablet inside the suite for people to order on, or simply provide a QR code that guests can scan to order on their phones. Either way, there’s no hardware needed to implement this new ordering system.
Each suite will be tied to a unique QR code that once guests scan, will bring them to the phone browser where they can see menus available for that suite. Guests can also be allocated credits by the suite holder to use for purchasing. From there, everyone can add what they want to the cart, and check out right there on the phone.
No more waving down busy servers or having a hard time coordinating orders from everyone. This gives guests the flexibility and convenience to get whatever they want, while freeing up servers to tend to more urgent requests from other guests.
Check out our premium suites solution >>
3. Instantly reflect promotions or menu changes.
To keep your most valuable VIP customers coming back, you might want to offer promotions, loyalty discounts, or make sure they are the first to be aware of of the latest menu specials. Wouldn’t it be great to reflect any price drops, menu changes, and even item availability instantly with a single tap, without having to update an entire menu PDF or write up an email for the customers?
That’s entirely doable on the FanFood Manager Portal. You can change the description, visibility, pricing and more with a few toggles and clicks. When guests pull up your digital menu with a scan of the QR code, they can see the changes reflected in real time.
This easy-to-use, plug-n-play solution has helped many operators and kitchens save tons of time and effort, so they can focus on providing a premium service to the customers. Additionally, a self-service ordering platform like this can effectively reduce the server-to-suite ratio, potentially reducing overhead cost or freeing up staff members for other tasks.
Check out our premium suites solution >>
With the flexibility of menu designs and changes, you can also increase revenue by adding up-sells upon checkout, reminding guests to add a souvenir together with the order, or add a side or a drink. This, again, will help with increasing revenue for your suites. To learn more about how to make the most of a mobile ordering platform to increase revenue, check out our blog here.
So back to our question in the beginning of the blog: Is the future of premium suites under threat?
The answer is a resounding no. As long as operators are ready to embrace new solutions that meet new challenges, premium suites will continue to be among your top revenue generators and best ways to offer a premium guest experience at your venue.
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