ESSMA Summit, the must-attend event

Sustainable development

The European Stadium & Safety Management Association (ESSMA) unites the stadium industry. The role of ESSMA is to support the European stadium industry's growth. ESSMA believes sustainable development is only attainable by learning from peers comparable in capacity and ambition at the international level. At the summit, Juventus FC, Fifa, UEFA, Ligue de Football Professional, Paris Saint-Germain, and many more exciting speakers were present to be able to learn from each other.

Operational excellence

The Johan Cruijff ArenA had two speaker slots during the summit. Willem Hegen, Manager Crowd Services, discussed Operational Excellence as a central topic. He has spent the past six months deploying his knowledge in the Australian events industry, including a consultancy project at the Sydney Football Stadium. For him, it was interesting to see the difference in working between two stadiums, countries, and even continents. He shared the most important learnings he took home with his peers at the summit.

Digitalization in event preparation and execution

Karin den Iseger, Senior Event Manager Football, hosted the other slot. She hosted a session in collaboration with Martin van Ginkel (Royal Dutch Football Association) about digitalization in event preparation and execution.

Within this case, Karin and Martin presented our collaboration with Catchphrase. Together with Catchphrase the Johan Cruijff ArenA digitalized working processes and information around event preparation and execution. We wrote an article about Catchphrase, which you can read by clicking here. Interesting to mention is that this collaboration comes from the Reimagine Football Challenge. Catchphrase entered the competition with their pitch about the platform and together we developed the platform as it is today. A new Reimagine Football Challenge opened this week. Read more about this here.

Johan Cruijff ArenA host in 2024

We are very excited and honoured to share with you that for 2024, de Johan Cruijff ArenA will host the ESSMA summit for the very first time in its history.

Margreet Schraagen, Account Manager (Corporate) Events, at Johan Cruijff ArenA: 'The organization of the ESSMA Summit 2024 is a great way for us to show what the Johan Cruijff ArenA is doing on a daily basis, and to enter into dialogue with other stadiums and clubs to learn more from each other. Together with the organization of the ESSMA, we will use the coming months to shape the conference, and we are looking forward to next year!'