TWICKENHAM STADIUM

A great deal of hard work went into ensuring that Twickenham Stadium’s South Stand seating bowl was ready to accommodate the 82,000 crowd for the Investec Challenge England v New Zealand opening match on 5 November.

Many challenges were overcome by all those involved as part of the stadium operational team and they are to be congratulated on ensuring that even with the additional crowd the overall management of the event was successfully achieved.

Our thanks must also go to the many external organisations who make a significant contribution to the success of our events, including but not limited to the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, Hounslow Council, the metropolitan police, emergency services and transport authorities. The relationship with each of these organisations remains very strong and stands us in good stead for the future.

During the current building works we have achieved business as usual and will next year continue to meet the challenges of ongoing work. Although the commercial facilities will be delivered later than originally hoped, they will start to come into operation in July 2008 with all facilities projected to be complete by the 2008 autumn internationals. Once Twickenham Stadium is operating in all its glory there is no doubt that we will have a truly world class sporting, business and leisure venue.

As I write contractors are busy on site working on the fit-out and from the surrounding area people can already see the stadium’s spectacular new front door. The project itself continues to attract much interest within the industry around

the world, including from New Zealand’s Eden Park Stadium who visited us recently to study how Twickenham Stadium has remained open for business during major construction work, and from other national and international stadia interested in how Twickenham continues to develop its business.

Looking ahead to the coming year one of our key challenges will be to develop and implement a coordinated site-wide operational plan in order to ensure that all visitors to the complex, whether to the stadium, hotel, leisure club or to a function, enjoy the experience.

The stadium has had another busy and successful event year. The Heineken Cup final, the biggest club match ever with 82,000 spectators, was a highly successful event, much praised by the organisers European Rugby Cup and much enjoyed by spectators.

During the year we have hosted a record number of concerts, with four highly successful events being enjoyed by thousands of concert fans from the area and much further afield. Given that both Wembley and the O2 opened for business this year, this underlines the success of the stadium as a viable concert venue outside of the rugby season.

For this to be achieved we rely on the dedication and hard work of our Stadium staff, who have put in long hours and much effort to ensure that matches