Key Considerations To Manage A Roadmap To Re‑Opening Stadiums

By Alan Stoddard, VP and GM, Verint Situational Awareness Solutions

Empty seats, piped in cheering, closed vendors, and coaches in masks. As the beginning of 2020 started out, I doubt any stadium manager would have imagined this scenario. But as the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to affect daily lives, stadium managers have had to address this unfathomable situation.

Across the world, the circumstances around the re-opening and use of stadiums widely varies. In England, plans to allow fans to return to sporting events was placed on hold due to a spike in positive coronavirus cases. As the NFL season kicked off in the United States, games were held without fans. In Japan, there is a limit of 5,000 spectators per individual sporting event, concert and other cultural activity but singing, chanting, cheering and drumming is strictly forbidden.

These are some examples of how the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted operations at venues around the world. It is clear that the business of events must adapt and organisations in this market segment — arguably one of the hardest hit by quarantines and closures — are under mounting pressure to restart operations as quickly as possible in an effort to compensate for lost revenue. The latest government announcements suggest that limited numbers of spectators in low risk areas can now return to stadia. With social distancing and other measures implemented to curtail the spread, arenas, stadiums and venues must turn their attention to a critical question: "How do we effectively restart operations while protecting the health and safety of our employees and visitors?"

In the absence of defined contingency plans, industry standards, or regulatory guidance, stadiums worldwide are looking for new, innovative ways to address these challenges. Stadium and facility managers must not only focus on response or monitoring the situation; they also need to consider what the future looks like — when people return to daily activities under a different, new set of circumstances.

Embarking on this journey and being successful requires a key element: the insight to adapt. As organisations begin to "reboot," they must consider many factors and focus on what they can control: employee safety, operating models, and existing compliance requirements.

Adjusting these elements demands a pragmatic approach that addresses the potential risk to employees in various environments while also delivering a degree of confidence to customers that a sporting institution is taking a meaningful, proactive posture to keep people safe and healthy. Also, as circumstances change, obtaining the insight to adapt to those changes and implementing workplace health and safety tools are crucial for businesses to stay one step ahead and remain agile.

For example, we can expect to see an increased use of mobile applications to provide remote health checks of employees while delivering push notifications of wellness tips, rapid communication when issues arise, and provide a response to a call for help. New use cases like this at stadiums and venues evolve as tenants and businesses implement new daily operations approaches to reopen the best way they can. Regardless of the use case, the underlying driver is that access to information and flexibility is critical, and the ability to respond quickly is vital.

Overall, stadium managers will look for ways to gain more in-depth insight into the solutions and processes that will help businesses make the right decisions to stay proactive, safe, and secure. Here are some ways to accomplish this:

Identify mission-critical challenges.

This must be specific to your business or venue as these challenges are different based on industry, physical infrastructure, and geographic location. As a decision-maker in a stadium environment, you have been forced to adjust your strategies for business continuity and safety and security based on your specific requirements; a facility located in a downtown area will have many different needs than a smaller venue in a less populated area, for example. To address the challenges, stadiums must implement security processes and technologies in unique ways to protect people, property, and mission-critical assets.

No matter what, you need to focus on the things that are within your direct control.

Focus on protecting what matters most to you – again, it will be different depending on your organisation's focus, but it will incorporate your employees, processes, and property. Maintaining vigilance over current risks while ensuring safety and compliance is critical to maintaining high levels of protection. While challenges will continue to be problematic, minimising operational disruption can be achieved with a technology-centric, scalable approach that can enable managers to support current operations and expand their coverage to protect now highly dispersed teams.

Implement processes and policies that are flexible enough to fit your unique situation.

Adapt to new requirements – whether they’re regulations, standards, procedures, or new technologies. Operators value technology because it is critical to ensuring a high level of safety and health — and now, technology plays a more vital role than ever. Mobile applications can deliver remote health checks on individuals before entering a building, while security personnel can focus on checking symptoms and evaluating risks. By using reporting tools built into mobile applications, you can collect information about an individual’s health status. Using advanced collaboration tools, they can chat directly with those in their care and conduct voice and video conversations. These immediate access points to information and ongoing issues help building and stadium managers to be more proactive with health planning and enhancing safety by ensuring accurate access.

Above all else, be pragmatic. The solution should not be worse than the problem.

Luckily, several solutions have been brought to market to make your life a bit easier in terms of how to best address health and safety requirements at your facility. Some focus on managing and monitoring temperatures through video, others focus on social distancing, and health and safety intelligence platforms enable you to have complete oversight across your environment. No matter what solution you choose, all of them can be used to help you realise more vital risk awareness, more resonant efficiencies, and broader visibility within your organisation. Together, these can help you develop a return-to-work strategy that enables you to get your facility up and running quickly and efficiently.

In today's world, adaptability is critical. Your ability to embrace changes quickly and effectively will improve efficiency so you can get back to business and mitigate revenue loss. Armed with knowledge, a contingency plan, and equipment to keep your team and your stadium safe will give you the power to create and change policies as needed and prepare for future challenges. You will then be better positioned to protect all that matters most and provide much-needed peace of mind as your buildings reopen for business.