Azure need to booted out.

[Hotchilidog]

I was thinking more about better organisation all round. Such as more pre poured beer, snake queing system to avoid congestion on the concourse, possible Smart card only queues, maybe stick in a vending machine (limited stock I know) to avoid the queues if you only want an overpriced Haribo sugar rush like Bozza and certainly better communcation between the outlets and the back office so you could get beer changed quickly / offer an ETA for pies / move stock around / make it look like they know whats going on instead of acting in shock when someone asks for a drink or something to eat.

Some of these things have probably been already tried / mentioned and I cant be arsed to read all of the thread. I also know that there is a world of difference between, say, the efficiency of an F1 pity crew and some temp on minimum wage chucking out pies and beer for pissed up Brighton fans but there must be quick wins that could be introduced to improve the experience. Surely.

Some of those ideas are pretty good. Particularly the snake system and smart card only tills (they should know enough about the payment breakdown to see if thesis a good idea next season).

Seeing as I have been fairly positive on this thread I though I'd share my one real concern re the catering, and that is the bottleneck created at the top of the first WSU stairwell (from the north end) by the first refreshment bar. Surely that cannot be good from a H&S standpoint. I'll get round it by using the next stairwell in the centre, but it does appear to be overly crowded in that corner after 2pm.

 

[Superphil]

Surely the solution is competition?

Allow, say, 4 different firms a mix of the fixed and some mobile concessions spread evenly throughout the concourse and outside the ground.

Survivial of the fittest! Given choice and the ease to make that choice, punters will very happily vote with their feet.

Impacts from issues around failure of equipment, short staffing, etc are minimised because not all the eggs are in the same basket.

One company finds they can't hack it, then the lose their franchise rights and others get to tender for the available slots.

The club gets the same income and could even insist on parity of pricing (and allow competition solely on service).

I don't think you'd get many firms prepared to tender on those basis.

 

[father_and_son]

Sounds good in theory. Is there evidence that it works as well as that in practice?

Twickers seems to run this system (albeit with much more than 4 suppliers), I've seen it done successfully at festivals/large gigs/events.

Surely there's another club with a working business model that we could copy?

 

[BensGrandad]

I think the only way that would work is if there was one company offering hot food, another offering cold and the same for drinks one alcoholic one non. At least then the customer can say the wait for a pie is too long I will have a sandwich similarly beer or coffee. But I think the real answer is to make Azure more efficient in the concourses and confront the problems and deal with them to rectify them.

 

[Superphil]

Twickers seems to run this system (albeit with much more than 4 suppliers), I've seen it done successfully at festivals/large gigs/events.

Surely there's another club with a working business model that we could copy?

those are all occasional venues, the Amex is used much more frequently, which I think would be a sticking point to try and get 4 firms to go in competetion with each other, or at least you'd stuggle to get good firms to go in on it, the shitehouse firms would, but then we'd get really crap service and products.

 

[HAILSHAM SEAGULL]

Some of those ideas are pretty good. Particularly the snake system and smart card only tills (they should know enough about the payment breakdown to see if thesis a good idea next season).

Seeing as I have been fairly positive on this thread I though I'd share my one real concern re the catering, and that is the bottleneck created at the top of the first WSU stairwell (from the north end) by the first refreshment bar. Surely that cannot be good from a H&S standpoint. I'll get round it by using the next stairwell in the centre, but it does appear to be overly crowded in that corner after 2pm.

Think you'll find there isnt a middle staircase for entry, exit only from the middle one, only one at each end, and the South end one is even worse of a bottleneck. but a few les stairs though.

 

[Hotchilidog]

Think you'll find there isnt a middle staircase for entry, exit only from the middle one, only one at each end, and the South end one is even worse of a bottleneck. but a few les stairs though.

I was not aware of that. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[desprateseagull]

hmm. this 'evacuation' concern didnt seem to occur, at a much smaller, confined stadium, just off the A23..

*cough* Withdean?..

 

[fleet]

Credit where credit is due - food and service in 1901 Profile Lounge v Ispwich was excellent. No fault to be found. Staff very anxious to help, constantly checking to see if all was OK. Meal was nice too.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Credit where credit is due - food and service in 1901 Profile Lounge v Ispwich was excellent. No fault to be found. Staff very anxious to help, constantly checking to see if all was OK. Meal was nice too.

I ate at Ipswich as well. They were so close to getting the highest of praise until our 2nd drinks order took 30 minutes to arrive, for which [MENTION=12187]Uter[/MENTION] was charged twice. He queried this, the young lad went back, re-arrived claiming the money had been refunded, and could not produce a receipt for this when it was asked for. Suffice to say when Uter checked his card the refund was not there. This was a bit of a pain as it all happened just before KO. And my Harveys was flat...probably been on the side waiting for 30 mins. A bit of a pain but all things considered I wont beat them up over it.

 

[fleet]

I ate at Ipswich as well. They were so close to getting the highest of praise until our 2nd drinks order took 30 minutes to arrive, for which [MENTION=12187]Uter[/MENTION] was charged twice. He queried this, the young lad went back, re-arrived claiming the money had been refunded, and could not produce a receipt for this when it was asked for. Suffice to say when Uter checked his card the refund was not there. This was a bit of a pain as it all happened just before KO. And my Harveys was flat...probably been on the side waiting for 30 mins. A bit of a pain but all things considered I wont beat them up over it.

Sad to hear that - it all seemed to be so much better. My Harveys was not flat so I think you are correct that it muct have been sitting there for a while. The various waitresses that served us were very attentive and everything came very quickly. I hope it is moving forward in a positive way.

 

[Storer 68]

Excellent match day experience.
within 5 minutes of arriving in WSU , after a long climb!, in my hand I had a pie AND a well earned pint. the e-money was on the season ticket and it all worked a treat,

The Pie was hot - and the one that I asked for - Chicken balti. tates delish
the beer was warm and wet - and went down a treat.....

and then duly fortified I went and watched us BATTER ipswich......................

 

[Storer 68]

hmm. this 'evacuation' concern didnt seem to occur, at a much smaller, confined stadium, just off the A23..

*cough* Withdean?..

Hmm - capcity of the WHOLE stadium at Withdean.................... 8,850
capacity of JUST the West stand at Falmer............................. 11,833

think you'll find the safety certificate for the stadium allows for proper evacuation in an emergency

 

[leigull]

The Pie was hot - and the one that I asked for - Chicken balti. tates delish
the beer was warm and wet - and went down a treat.....

and then duly fortified I went and watched us BATTER ipswich......................

Warm beer?

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

At the Millwall game could not get a veggie pie after q'ing at all WSL kiosks, not moaning about that as its been random all season and I am now aware of the reasons (see Saturdays programme - interview saying they only expected to shift 2000 a game) will be sorted in the summer when they upgrade the Kiosks.

However was touched when the person serving apologised after hearing I had q'ed 3 times and when I said it wasn't her fault she replied 'but it looks so bad on us'. So hopefully will stop the staff getting grief when us greedy astards can't get our food and drink

 

[Storer 68]

Some of those ideas are pretty good. Particularly the snake system and smart card only tills (they should know enough about the payment breakdown to see if thesis a good idea next season).

Seeing as I have been fairly positive on this thread I though I'd share my one real concern re the catering, and that is the bottleneck created at the top of the first WSU stairwell (from the north end) by the first refreshment bar. Surely that cannot be good from a H&S standpoint. I'll get round it by using the next stairwell in the centre, but it does appear to be overly crowded in that corner after 2pm.

The congestion is caused by 2 things - beer and TV screens, and mainly the TV screens. People gather quite close to the entrances to waatch the screens and this, undestanadbly, casues a bottleneck to appear at the busiest times. Th club do have stewards on duty there, presumably to make sure people keep movig but I agree it is not a very satisfactory situation when having climbed 100 stairs you are confronted by a mass of people all stading around with their backs to you, oblivious to people coming up the stairs, and not enabling people to access the concourse in a quick and orderly manner.
easeiest way to sort this out I would think would be to turn the screens off at the ends of the stand after 2pm to stop people gathering around them and creating unecessary congestion around the entrances.

 

[Storer 68]

Warm beer?

Cold beer