Making festival preparation simpler for Waitrose suppliers

Preparing for a food and drink festival means coordinating reservations, product information, compliance, accreditation and logistics. Suppliers need to understand what applies to them, while the event team needs a clear view of submissions, approvals and outstanding work.

Even with online forms, practical questions remain: which space is suitable, what is still outstanding and where should a document go? The festival needed a connected supplier experience that made the work visible and helped people take the next step.

We designed the portal around the supplier's journey, bringing tasks, deadlines, bookings, documents and communication into an authenticated workspace. A personalised dashboard helps each supplier see what needs attention, while administrative views support the event team's reviews and decisions.

The AI concierge builds on that foundation. It receives the supplier's identity, role and current page as context, allowing guidance to relate to the person asking and the work in front of them.

The platform brings space reservations, applications, extras, team management, compliance and logistics into a shared operational system. Suppliers can submit the information required, and the event team can review it with clear distinctions between a submission and an approval.

Inside the portal, the concierge combines maintained festival guidance with live tasks, product requirements and space availability. It can help a supplier find a suitable location, understand outstanding work or navigate to the right action. Requests that need an event-team decision are directed to the people responsible.

Suppliers have a central place to prepare for the festival, with visible next actions and guidance tied to their own situation. The event team has a corresponding view of the work, helping it manage reviews and exceptions within the same system.

The portal and concierge work together to make a demanding process easier to navigate. The software organises the work; the assistant helps suppliers understand it and move forward. It is a practical example of AI adding value inside a complete service, where a useful answer can lead directly to the right action.