By Paul Trainer

Copyright glasgowworld

Glasgow’s annual summer of music has been greatly enhanced by Hampden Park taking its place in recent years as one of the UK’s biggest and most in-demand music venues for some of the world’s leading artists. Kendrick Lemar, Lana Del Ray, Pink, The Script, Foo Fighters, Coldplay, Calvin Harris and Liam Gallagher have all featured in high profile shows with capacity crowds. Providing the hospitality and ensuring music fans have an experience to remember has been powered by a long-term partnership between the national stadiume and Sodexo Live! a global leader in world-class hospitality, retail and event catering services for sports and leisure venues as well as major events. Claire Morris is the company’s CEO for the UK and Ireland. She joined Sodexo Live!’s global executive team in 2015 and has more that 25 years’ experience in the food and facilities industry. Sodexo is a large and diversified business, with revenue of over €23 billion, the events business contributes about 10% of that figure. North America, France and the UK are their key locations. Claire sees their role as partnering with clients to drive forward with premium customer experience. The company, headquartered in Paris, operates in 55 countries and serves 100 million customers on a daily basis. In Scotland, alongside Hampden, where they have been responsible for hospitality at 25 Scottish Cup Finals, Sodexo Live! also work with Celtic Park, Hamilton Park racecourse, V&A Dundee and National Galleries Scotland. Sodexo was launched in 1966 by Pierre Bellon in Marseille, initially serving company restaurants, schools and hospitals. “Today, we have clients who are visitor attractions, airports, convention centres and venues that are well known at a global level. Our founder, Pierre, and his daughter still run the business today and I think the thing to remember is we remain a food and hospitality business, that is what we are focused on”, Claire explains. Even for a substantial global entity, having a footprint in Glasgow that includes Hampden Park and Celtic Park represents a major proposition in terms of the scale and scope of sporting and music events that they are dealing with: “It’s huge. And we are really proud of our footprint across the cities in Scotland. It’s grown over the years and we’ve got a brilliant team. We’ve got an office space in Edinburgh. We’ve got a local team based in Edinburgh. We’ve also got a team based in Hampden Park. So we’ve got 22 people who are there full time. And at Hampden in particular, we’re serving 46,000 fans in retail, over 3000 guests in hospitality. And we’ve been doing that since 1999 at Hampden. So it’s big. “We added the hospitality sales to our portfolio at Hampden a few years ago, it’s fantastic because we can curate the product, designing different levels, from the lounge up to the sky boxes and then to the super box. For a music event at Hampden Park, that means around 1600 meals across 38 different hospitality lounges, suites and boxes. A venue like Hampden that is set up for matchday hospitality has its advantages but also some logistical challenges. Flexibility is key, Claire says: “In a football environment we don’t sell alcohol, we need to logistically switch the building to be able to do that for a concert. So from a team perspective, making sure that, from an operational point of view, we’ve got the right people in place, we’ve got the right checks from a safety and security point of view. There’s all of those things that change when you move from a football environment into a concert or for something like the Commonwealth Games.” For next summer, there’s a huge gig from Metallica to prepare for and at least two gigs for Take That who are taking their show The Circus out into stadiums, including Hampden. Each gig will have its own tailored plan for hospitality which will include what food and drink are on offer and how the various areas of the stadium will be set up. “As soon as the concerts are announced, the marketing manager onsite at Hampden Park works alongside the client team and with our catering team to make sure we understand what’s the demographic of the individuals we’re going to get coming through the door. Because for football, you’ll have a demographic and that changes depending on the team or the occasion. “If you look at this summer, when you have Kendrick Lamar and SZA one night and Lana Del Rey on another, we know that people save their money to spend on a ticket to come to the concert and we work hard to deliver an experience that matches their expectations. “We need to make sure that their experience is the best it’s going to be and that they walk away from that concert, after being in hospitality, knowing that they had great food, brilliant service and experienced great facilities. Hampden Park is a great venue to enjoy a concert. In the main part of the stadium we want to make sure they’ve not had to queue too long to get a drink, so we have fast pour machines on the floor to help and we are always looking at that customer experience.” Hampden Park includes a core team who work in hospitality, both for major footballing events and for the roster of summer concerts, and who have long-term experience of major events: “The assets in my business are my team, whether they are a full-time member of staff or casual staff, they really understand the brand and our team live and breathe Hampden Park. It’s the same at Celtic Park. They know their venues and they know they are experience makers. They are really proud to work in those venues.” More details of summer concerts at Hampden Park, Scotland’s National Stadium, can be found here.