#SAS26 Preview: Rethinking the Venue Workforce for the AI Era
A venue can only be as adaptable as the team operating it.
Stadium and arena teams balance event-day intensity with year-round commercial activity, guest experience, safety, maintenance and increasingly complex technology.
As AI and automation enter that environment, the leadership question goes beyond which tools to adopt. It becomes how to align roles, capability and culture around them.
At TheStadiumBusiness ASIA 2026, Su Jella, Executive and Advisor at Nano Insights, will lead a new interactive session, Future of Work: Sport, Entertainment and Ticketing.
Currently scheduled for the afternoon of Wednesday, 14 October (Day 2), the pre-registered breakout will bring together participants from across venue operations, ticketing and live entertainment.
“Success demands more than just new tools; it requires a strategic overhaul of how we operate.”
Su Jella
What will the session explore?
The discussion will examine how venue organisations can:
- Lead teams in which human expertise is augmented by AI.
- Automate repetitive work while preserving judgement, service and accountability.
- Decide which functions must remain on-site and where flexible or asynchronous work can add value.
- Use generational differences to strengthen knowledge transfer and innovation.
- Prioritise wellbeing, development and clearer long-term career pathways.
Redesigning work across venue operations
Unlike a conventional office business, a venue cannot make every role remote or asynchronous.
The opportunity is more precise: redesign where and how planning, reporting, scheduling, commercial work and collaboration happen, while preserving on-site presence and rapid decision-making wherever event delivery demands it.
Automation raises a similarly practical question. The goal is not to remove people from the operation. It is to reduce repetitive work, improve access to reliable information and give teams greater capacity for the decisions, relationships and live problem-solving that require human expertise.
Preparing the next generation of venue leaders
The workshop will also focus on generational change. With a deliberate mix of experience levels in the room, participants can examine how venues retain operational knowledge, develop emerging leaders and create a culture in which different generations can learn from one another.
The discussion creates a natural bridge between the two co-hosted meetings. Venue operators do not transform in isolation. Their teams work alongside event owners, promoters, ticketing platforms, data partners and suppliers, making workforce change a shared challenge across the entire sports and entertainment ecosystem.
About Su Jella
Su is a distinguished strategist working at the intersection of digital transformation, data and AI. Her work has been recognised by Global Women in Tech, Women in AI (APAC) and Women in Digital. She has also been named among the Global Top 100 Innovative and Visionary Leaders in Data and Australia’s Top 25 Analytics Leaders.
She is the author of The AI Revolution, archived in the US Library of Congress, and co-author of AI: Thriving in a World with Smart Machines and Robots.
Through her writing, academy, Neural Insights Podcast and global keynotes, she helps leaders prepare their organisations and people for a world increasingly shaped by technology and AI.
This is a working conversation rather than a conventional presentation. Places will be pre-registered, giving venue leaders the opportunity to compare real operating experience and leave with practical questions for their own organisations.
Join Su Jella, together with stadium, arena and entertainment venue leaders from across the region, at the fourth edition of TheStadiumBusiness ASIA 2026 at Dorsett Kai Tak, Hong Kong, from 13–15 October 2026.
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