Utilita Arena Sheffield — Attraction in Sheffield

Last night we went to Sheffield arena to see Peter Kay. Who, before I continue, was amazing! He could have done his act in the carpark and he would still be utterly brilliant.

However, the arena itself - oh dear. I booked a private suite to invite work colleagues and friends. Let’s begin. I had the tickets on my phone where I hoped I could pop down from the suite to check my party in as they arrived. I spent over an hour and a half downstairs. The queue for the suite lift was the same lift used for disabled people. I joined the lift three times. It was badly organised and not what I anticipated for a suite booking. I asked to use the stairs and we set off to be guided through the arena, some more of my guests turned up so I had to go back to the foyer leaving two of my guests to be guided by the stairs with some other persons. The guide showed the other people where to go and just walked away from my guests who then had to find someone else to help them.

Having used the suites before, it wasn’t very clean. The glass at the viewing area had been cleaned with something other than window cleaner.

We could only order drinks to the room, not food, this had to be ordered prior to the event. You have to order your drinks on the phone. When we ordered it was an answering machine where we left a message. One of our party had ordered some drinks separately so when the server arrived with her drinks I asked where my order was, so she took the order in person. This was during the show, so I had to leave that to try and sort the order out. In the interval again we wanted some drinks, so I called - answer machine again. One of the party’s drinks turned up again, I asked the server about my order, she said ‘oh, the answer machine doesn’t work’ bearing that in mind, no one came in to ask if we needed anything we had to rely on the phone and again pulling me away from enjoying the show. I paid over 1k for the suite and I expected a premium experience. It wasn’t and I’m quite surprised that Sheffield arena think this is acceptable. I was discussing with friends that the ‘big names’ don’t come to Sheffield arena anymore, they now go to Leeds arena, if Sheffield are as lax with getting the names in as they are with a ‘premium product’ that might be...

I went to the arena with my Daughter to see Strictly Live on 23 Jan 2024. It was a last minute Christmas present for me because my Daughter had been on maternity leave so money for her and her family had been tight. All lower stand seats had been sold so they had ended up buying seats right up at the top shelf. I have health and mobility issues but at the time of booking all disabled parking spots had been sold online however I was happy to slowly walk to the building from the general car park A. When we went in the building my daughter told the security person we needed to use the lift and we were directed to the end of a long slow moving queue. Imagine our thoughts when we eventually turned into a small hallway and saw just one very small lift which held 6 people plus the member of staff comfortably or 8 plus the staff member squashed. For a building that size with one small lift for disabled people is shocking! The lift took us to the middle floor, we bought a snack and drinks then went to find our seats. My Daughter had to apologise to me because I faced a steep climb of two flights of stairs! Whilst there was a handrail when you struggle with mobility it was difficult and dangerous. When the show ended I had to slowly and carefully climb down the steps to the middle floor and then we decided to try and climb down the outside steps because of the massive queue for the lift. To only have one small lift for a building with all those seats and flights of steep steps and the lift apparently had two stops ie a stop on the middle floor then a stop on the hospitality suits floor, is seriously dangerous when elderly and also disabled people need access to the higher seats. The actual show production was brilliant but I have to say that the owners of the building seriously need to address how elderly and disabled people access the seats in the high sections of the arena when they buy late tickets. One small lift is dangerous and...

Came to watch the Netball Super Cup on 8th March. This was an all day event with over 7,000 tickets sold. Doors opened at 11.30am and the final game was 6.30pm. Any food and drink was taken at the security check in so forced to purchase food from the venue. The queues for food were insane. After queuing for nearly 40mins, we were then told that they had run out of food and could only serve chips (very very slowly, comjng out 3-4 servings at a time for a huge crowd). At this point there were obviously complaints from everyone which the poor young servers had to deal with. Our server nearly burst into tears under the pressure. Surely, a venue of this size holding an all day event should have been equipped to deal with people needing to eat, considering all food items were prohibited from being brought into the venue. I've seen the response from the venue owners saying that passes were available to leave the venue for food however this wasn't communicated to the crowds of people queuing for an overpriced bowl of chips! I missed four games on the day, which I paid to see!!! As we had travelled, like so many others, we didn't have time to eat before arriving so it was the only option. That, or leave early which would have been devastating considering it was such a big event for netball fans and the fact we had bought tickets to actually watch all the games! I think the venue should look at a compensation option rather than just telling people who complain that they had the option of leaving the venue to get food. Definitely won't return or attend events here in the future and I'm pretty sure that's echoed from many people who attended at...