More than £8.9 million of sales were completed in 2024/25, with £3.2 million being new business brought into the Coventry venue for the first time.
It hosted 451 events from April 2024 to April 2025 and its repeat business rate is 60 per cent, welcoming back events including the National Painting and Decorating Show, Spatex 2025, Childcare & Education Expo, Executive Hire Show and many more.
Its sales growth has been fuelled by the venue’s versatility and opening up new spaces, such as the concourse surrounding the stadium bowl, for business events.
Coventry Building Society Arena hosted a multi-layered conference, in partnership with Strive Events Agency, for a national multiservice provider in September.
The event welcomed 3,500 delegates and it was the first time the stadium incorporated its concourse for a conference event, with other areas of the venue converted to relaxation areas and the main conference being held in the Indoor Arena.
The venue also benefitted from a strong festive period, with one private Christmas function welcoming more than 4,000 guests – with the Arena’s versatility highlighted by it hosting a football fixture for 28,000 fans on the same day.
To support the delivery of its event schedule the venue has expanded its team to more than 100 fixed term roles and had a retention rate of 87 per cent across its team for the year.
It has also invested in new facilities such as new kitchens in the Commonwealth Convention Centre, a full refurbishment of the onsite 121-bedroom DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel and the introduction of new technologies to enhance the delegate experience.
The venue has implemented a new integrated payment solution from Planet to provide a faster service for visitors.
The Arena has also grown its sustainability offer to event organisers through its new partnership with E.ON.
It has also introduced a new social value and community programme which events can tap into at the venue, fuelled by partnerships with Coventry foodbank and Coventry & Warwickshire Children’s Charity.
Paul Michael, Managing Director at Coventry Building Society Arena, said: “We’ve had a strong year across all areas of our business, but it is in conferences and events that we have experienced our strongest growth.
“This signals a record year for this area of our business and follows a series of strategic investments at the venue, supported by the work of our excellent team. It also reflects growing confidence across the wider conference and exhibition sector.
“Our operations team continues to deliver brilliant events, proving that we can deliver time and time again – and this is reflected in our high repeat business rate. This year we have delivered large-scale and versatile events that have not been seen before at the venue.
“It’s important that we keep evolving our service and developing our offer to event organisers, be that through new sustainability and social value initiatives or opening up new events spaces.
“We are working on creating new conference spaces within the venue to cater for the increased demand we are seeing.”
