I’ve been sceptical about AI hype in the events industry for a while now. Too many vendors promise the world and deliver a slightly better spreadsheet. But I’ve spent the last six months talking to venue operators around Australia, and there are areas where AI tools are genuinely making a difference to the bottom line and the operational experience.

Here’s what’s actually working, without the marketing fluff.

Rostering and staff scheduling

This is probably the most immediately practical AI application for venue operators. The traditional approach to rostering — a manager spending hours juggling availabilities, skills, and labour law requirements — is being replaced by AI-powered scheduling tools that can produce optimised rosters in minutes.

The better systems factor in historical attendance data, the type of event, staff skill sets, fatigue management rules, and budget constraints. They can predict when you’ll need extra bar staff based on ticket sales velocity and event type, and they adjust rosters dynamically when conditions change.

Several Australian venues I’ve spoken to are reporting 15-20% reductions in labour costs from smarter scheduling, not from cutting staff but from having the right number of people at the right times. That’s meaningful for any venue where labour is a top-three expense.

Inventory and ordering

Bar inventory management has always been a mix of experience and guesswork, with regular stocktakes to catch the variance. AI-driven inventory systems are improving this by predicting consumption based on event type, expected attendance, weather, and day of week.

One Melbourne venue told me their AI-assisted ordering system has reduced waste by about 12% and virtually eliminated running-out-of-stock situations that cost them sales. It’s not revolutionary technology — it’s pattern recognition applied to ordering — but the results are real.

Energy management

For venues with high energy costs (which in Australia means basically all of them), AI-controlled HVAC and lighting systems can make a measurable difference. These systems learn the venue’s thermal properties, anticipate crowd heat load based on expected attendance, and adjust heating and cooling dynamically.

The savings aren’t dramatic — typically 8-15% on energy costs — but for large venues where energy bills run to tens of thousands monthly, that adds up quickly. And the improved climate control often results in better audience comfort, which affects how long people stay and how much they spend.

Customer insights from review analysis

This one’s been quietly useful. AI tools that aggregate and analyse customer reviews from Google, social media, and ticketing platforms can identify patterns that aren’t obvious from reading individual reviews. Recurring complaints about specific issues — sightlines from certain sections, bar queue times, toilet availability — become clear when the data is analysed at scale.

A couple of firms, including an AI consultancy in Melbourne, are building custom tools for Australian venues that combine review analysis with operational data to produce actionable recommendations. One venue operator told me the insights helped them identify a persistent sound issue in one section of the room that had been generating complaints for months without anyone connecting the dots.

Where AI isn’t helping yet

Let me be balanced about this. There are areas where AI in venue operations is still more promise than delivery.

Booking decisions. AI tools that predict which acts will sell tickets at your venue are improving but still unreliable, especially for emerging artists or genres outside the mainstream. Experienced bookers still make better decisions than any algorithm I’ve seen.

Customer service chatbots. Every venue that’s tried a chatbot for customer enquiries has a story about it going wrong. The technology just isn’t reliable enough for the messy, context-dependent questions that venue customers ask.

Security and crowd management. AI-powered crowd monitoring is an active area of development, but the implementations I’ve seen in Australia are still in the early stages and supplement rather than replace human judgment.

The practical approach

If you’re a venue operator looking at AI tools, start with the operational areas that have clear, measurable outcomes: rostering, inventory, and energy management. These have proven ROI and relatively low risk.

Avoid the temptation to buy a comprehensive AI platform that promises to transform everything. The most successful implementations I’ve seen are targeted tools that solve specific problems, integrated into existing workflows.

And keep your expectations realistic. AI is a tool, not a strategy. The venues getting the most value from it are the ones with experienced operators who use AI to enhance their decision-making, not replace it.