ASM Global has added Sheffield’s City Hall and the Utilita Arena to its portfolio. What have they got planned?

It’s a Wednesday night and comedian Greg Davies — best known, in his own words, for playing Mr Gilbert in The Inbetweeners — has sold out Sheffield City Hall. According to Dom Stokes, the 49-year-old general manager of both City Hall and Utilita Arena, he’s sold out all four nights he’s performing this week. Though I’m able to buy a ticket to Wednesday night’s performance only an hour before doors open, City Hall is almost entirely packed, so I can readily believe Dom when he says more than 8,000 people will come to see Full Fat Legend this week. 

My seat, the cheapest available, cost a little over £50 (thankfully charged to the company account), so the show will easily make around half a million in ticket sales. However, all of this profit goes to Greg Davies and his promoter. Where City Hall — a Grade II-listed, council-owned venue which first opened in 1932 — makes its money is by selling food and drink. Though I doubt they’ll sell half a million pounds worth of beers and crisps, even with a captive audience, they'll still make a considerable sum. When I go to the bar, a pint of Madri sets me back £8.25.

That’s the first thing the woman behind the bar points out, when I ask what’s changed since Los Angeles-based ASM Global — “the world's leading producer of entertainment experiences” — took over both this venue and the Arena in January. “The prices have gone up,” she says, with an apologetic wince. A disappointed Tribune reader, who wrote in after visiting City Hall last week, puts it far more strongly. “It's ridiculous,” she wrote, referring to both the cost of drinks and the price of a ticket to see Greg Davies this week. “This publicly-built and publicly-owned venue is now only for the wealthy, and it's shameful.”

Is this true? Dom is best placed to know, given he’s been the general manager of City Hall for the last 20 years, long before ASM Global arrived on the scene. When I ask him whether it’s still affordable for the average Sheffielder, he immediately says yes. Then, after a pause, adds: “But you would expect me to say that.” He argues its prices are broadly in line with the bars he can see from the building — such as cocktail bars Manor Hatter and Cosy Club — albeit adjusted for the fact his venue has a “smaller window of opportunity” in which to sell drinks. 

“The audience tends to be more within the 10-15 mile radius of Sheffield,” he says, “it’s a local demographic who can afford to come.” While he’d obviously prefer for audiences to buy food and drink inside — his job depends on it, in fact — those looking to limit their spending could pop into the nearby Wetherspoons before and after the show. “Our challenge is to deliver a product that people do want to buy,” he says and, judging by the queues that form at each bar during the intermission, they’ve succeeded.

But Dom, who at one point apologises that he “can get very passionate” about the “two phenomenal venues” he manages, doesn’t just want to talk about what Sheffield is going to give ASM Global, one £8.25 pint at a time. He also wants to talk about what ASM Global is going to give Sheffield. “Since 2008, the focus has been on cutting costs in our venues and now we are seeing investment,” he says. “Yes, ASM is a global commercial company which has returns but they want to make money the right way.” He’s particularly excited about plans for Utilita Arena, which he has managed since 2017 and feels is unfairly put down by many in the city (including, he seems to feel, The Tribune itself). “With all the improvements taking place in the next 18 months and all the plans in place,” he says, “I’m sure it will be one of the best arenas in the country.”

Then again, as with the comment about City Hall’s continued affordability, I’d expect Dom to say that, given ASM Global is his new boss. He’s equally positive about his old boss — the charity Sheffield City Trust (SCT), which ran City Hall and Utilita Arena until last year — despite the fact it was described as “haemorrhaging” money by council officers in 2019 and had to be bailed out to the tune of £7 million in 2022 to avoid a “potential insolvency situation”. It’s never been made clear to the public precisely why SCT struggled so much, although the council report from 2019 notes some of its issues date back to 1992. But I don’t entirely buy Dom’s claim that the trust’s demise last year “was always the plan” and “had nothing to do with costing the council too much money”. Some of its venues — specifically those built for the World Student Games — were always due to be re-tendered in 2024, but SCT also handed the rest of its venues back to the council along with them.

Following the tendering process, Sheffield Council seemed just as excited about working with ASM Global — which only last year was purchased by a sporting events company, Legends, for more than $2.3 billion — as Dom does. “We have big ambitions to develop Sheffield’s events offer even further,” council leader Tom Hunt said in a press release at the time, “and our new partnership with ASM Global will ensure our city continues to have fantastic venues for the best events.” On their part, ASM Global is clearly confident it can transform these two venues into a highly profitable, world-class operation. The only question is whether Sheffield audiences will like how it plans to get there.