FSM
Feature
Behind the Scenes at the Oval
The following article was originally written by Joanna Jones for Business Leader Magazine. BLM spoke with George Hampson, Head of Corporate Sales at Surrey County Cricket Club, to get a behind-the-scenes peek at the historic Oval stadium.
Can you tell me a bit about the Oval’s history?
The Oval was created in 1845, when Surrey Country Cricket Club was founded. It’s been used for various things – it was set up as a Prisoner of War Camp during World War II, for example, though it was never used for that. The Who played here in the ‘70s for a fundraising event; the first FA Cup happened here. And from 2005 onwards, since we had the new stand built, we started using the venue as an event space as well as a cricket club.
We’re one of four venues in the world
which has held one hundred or more test matches. So it’s a world-famous sports venue.
How many staff does the Oval employ?
We have about 80 full-time staff on any given day. Through the summer, we increase to about 120, and on a match day, we increase to about 750.
How many visitors can it hold?
About half a million people will come through the gates in 2019. For any one match day, it’s 25,000. But for a standalone event, we can have 2,000 – 3,000 people through the gates on a given day. People come both for cricket and for events, so it’s a real variety of clients.
What are some of the Oval’s most distinctive features?
We’ve got roof terraces that overlook the pitch all the way around the grounds. Whether they’re used to watch cricket or for events, you’d be hard pushed to find another venue in London that has the same views.
Being a cricket club, you’ve also got to
have a pavilion. Our pavilion is fantastic: there are big, oak-panelled walls in the long room. That’s a really distinctive feature.
What kinds of events do you host at the Oval? Are there any plans to expand into new areas?
We have a lot of business conferences, teaching conferences, conferences for the NHS. We do a lot of dinners and award ceremonies, and that’s the area we’re looking to grow in. We’re building a whole new stand over
the next two years with 750 sq ft of space. We’re building two rooms, and both of them will be able to hold dinners for 700-800 people each. We also do everything from small meetings
to exhibitions – we recently hosted a whisky festival. We also do a lot of weddings. We’ve grown in popularity over the last
five years. We did more in one quarter last year than we did in the whole of 2014. So we’ve increased by about 35% in terms of events over the last four years. Our events account for about £6m in revenue.
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