Stadium Experience

PROJECT OVERVIEW

As part of a live client brief during my master’s program at Hyper Island, our team worked with Manchester City Football Club to investigate a behavioral challenge affecting the match-day experience at the Etihad Stadium: a recurring pattern of fans leaving matches 15–20 minutes before the final whistle.

Over a three-week sprint, we focused onto uncover pain points and concerns that were driving this behavior. The desired outcomes of this project focused on discovery, in order for the client to better understand and empathize with the fans.

Through participant observation on match days, interviews, secondary research, we found that early departure is driven less by disengagement and more by a sense of urgency to beat crowds and anxiety around congestion during the journey home.

The outcome was a set of behavioral insights and opportunity areas for service-level interventions aimed at easing the need to “beat the rush,” staggering departures, and extending the match-day experience beyond the final whistle.