Behind-the-scenes: Meet Selina

Meet Selina

In her 17 years at TEAM, Selina has never missed being onsite to support UEFA at the club competition finals. Not only does she play a prominent role in helping to organise the hospitality spaces for the UEFA Europa League Final, but also for the UEFA Champions League Final and the UEFA Europa Conference League Final.

For the UEL Final 2022, she worked closely with and supported the UEFA Hospitality Production Team to create and coordinate the Europa Lounge, which occupied two levels of the Meliá Lebreros hotel near the Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán Stadium in Seville. The hospitality lounge was around 2’200 m2 and welcomed 1,700 guests (UEFA commercial partners and UEFA guests) before and after the Final match.

The process of creating the Europa Lounge began already in November with multiple site visits and days of calls with all partners. Selina provided guidance every step of the way – allocating space for each sponsor partner and then consulting on venue design, catering, entertainment and access management. Overall, it was her job to help facilitate and support a smooth implementation of the hospitality space, help ensure UEFA commercial partners’ activations are executed as agreed upon and ensure that all guests had the perfect hospitality experience.

• Her schedule onsite looks like: Arriving three days before the match, she helped supervise the entire set up of the Europa Lounge and the different partner areas. Her master task list included every detail, from the seemingly minor (charge tablets used for surveys overnight) to the more imperative (test lighting to ensure all branding and food is properly illuminated). She oversaw everything from the installation of partner activations to rehearsals of entertainment activities. If produced partner branding was incorrect, she coordinated re-printing. During the hospitality hours, she kept everything on schedule, orchestrated and flowing.
• Skills needed: organisation, positive attitude, client-servicing mentality
•  Biggest challenge: Creating a hospitality space in a hotel (as opposed to in the stadium or in a custom-built tent) required flexibility and creativity. The space occupied what would normally be the breakfast room and also the public pool area, meaning these sections had to be closed off to guests at the last minute, impacting set-up time. Additionally, Seville’s extremely warm temperatures caused some challenges in setting up the different elements (for example, signage, floral arrangements and beverages) in the outdoor areas. Cool spaces within the hotel had to be secured at the last minute to store around 2,800l of beer and 6,000 glasses, so they wouldn’t sit in the sun all day.
• Biggest reward: “It’s truly amazing to see how everything comes to life…what starts as just a sketch of a floorplan, results in this truly impressive and immersive space.”