Industry News

New Wembley strategy sparks reshuffle

Wembley’s head of business development is to leave his role as the national football stadium focuses on sport rather than other entertainment events.

Jim Frayling will step aside as the venue looks to reduce the amount of music events that are staged at the multi-purpose facility, according to IQ.

While at Wembley, Frayling helped to secure concerts featuring big names such as Ed Sheeran, Oasis, Coldplay, U2, The Stone Roses and Adele. The latter will play four dates at the venue this summer.

“It’s been brilliant but all good things come to an end,” Frayling told IQ. “We’ve achieved everything we set out to achieve and the Adele shows are going to be a culmination of that.”

Wembley will become the temporary home of Tottenham Hotspur in the 2017-18 season, with English Premier League rivals Chelsea set to use the venue for their home games during the following campaign.

Spurs are already playing their European games at the national stadium this season. It has been announced that more than 50,000 tickets have already been sold for the club’s Europa League tie with Ghent next month, meaning the upper tier is now to be opened. Tickets for the bottom two tiers only went on sale from just £5 as organisers initially feared poor sales.

Wembley has been staging NFL American football matches for a decade, and will host four games this year. It has hosted major rugby league and boxing events, and has already sold out 80,000 tickets for the April bout between Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko.

Danielle Russell, partnership development manager, will now take responsibility for bookings at Wembley.

“I’m leaving things in really good hands with Danielle; she is brilliant,” Frayling said. “She took Ed Sheeran from start to finish with me in the background during his run of three shows in 2015 and she is more than ready to do more.

“Along with Danielle and the events team, I know people will be in good hands.”