Home / Latest News / Five Minutes With Mark Hollington
It's time for another '5-minutes with…' and we have a bumper edition for you today! Meet Mark Hollington, Group Hospitality and Customer Service Director for Trafalgar Theatres. Mark has the enviable task of planning and overseeing all our hospitality and event operations, delivering high-quality, high-value experiences across all our venues. We can't wait to see what he has in store for Fareham Live. Read on to discover his exciting plans—you won’t want to miss this one!
Hi Mark, welcome to the team! Can you start by telling us a bit about yourself and your role as the Group Hospitality and Customer Experience Manager? I've been working in theatres, event venues, and the hospitality & leisure sector for over 20 years now, with a focus on leading Hospitality Food and Drink businesses. Specifically, for Fareham Live, my job is to ensure that our Hospitality and Event strategy is effectively implemented and fully operational in good time. This involves creating menus, selecting product ranges for drinks, confectionery, and food, and managing the information and messages our guests receive. It also includes overseeing the supply chain, arranging bar and kitchen layouts, and ensuring we have the right equipment. Additionally, I lead the Trafalgar Events team, who will be organising a variety of dining and immersive events at the venue, all delivered through our venue team.
Sounds busy! What does a typical day look like in your role? No two days are the same for me, but generally, my days revolve around balancing a mix of priorities. I lead a team of hospitality and event experts, so I'm fortunate to be surrounded by inspiring, passionate people who keep me motivated. My main focus is to grow the food and drink operations in our venues, which means understanding and impacting our results is crucial. A significant part of my day is spent planning various projects, developing strategies for service improvements, and working with our teams to continuously refine and enhance our operations and offerings.
Can you tell us some of your best experiences in your career to date? I always feel like I’m the luckiest food and drink professional in the industry. I get to develop a Hospitality and Events business within an industry I know and love— the Arts! Working with theatres allows me the freedom and trust to truly create and enhance our customer experience, whereas the wider hospitality industry can be somewhat formulaic and confined. There have been so many memorable moments for me. I’ve had the pleasure of watching numerous team members grow and managers become leaders. It’s brilliant to see our teams and their venues succeed, partly because they’ve had a little support from me. I love seeing the operation thrive. The best part of my job is fusing food and drink with experience and entertainment. When we get it right, it’s absolutely fantastic. Some of my best experiences have included co producing immersive events with our various partners and seeing our events really take off in venues.
What unique hospitality offers can guests expect when they visit Fareham Live? Fareham Live will stand out in its field because it benefits from being part of the wider Trafalgar Theatres family, where we prioritise customer experience, service in hospitality, and innovative ideas in food and drink. Few theatres dedicate as much time as Trafalgar Theatres to crafting their food and drink offerings. We understand that this can make or break a customer's experience, so we work hard to get it right. Uniquely, Fareham Live will feature a fantastic all-day café open to the public, without the need for a ticket. The café will serve traditional favourites like fish and chips, as well as lighter options, including sandwiches and other snacks—oh, and fantastic coffee too. In the evenings, showgoers can look forward to an exciting range of street food dishes, including authentic curry, bao buns, goujons, and other tasty, world-cuisine-inspired quick eats!
We can’t wait! Could you also tell us about any upcoming dining events that Fareham Live is planning? What makes these events special? Trafalgar Events, our dedicated events team, works to attract a variety of uses for the venue and also produces our own unique immersive events, many of which will be coming to Fareham Live! Our newest Trafalgar Events production, ‘Aunt Fanny’s Dinner’, will be arriving at Fareham Live in the new year. Don’t miss the chance to enjoy this high-energy, laugh-out-loud immersive dining experience—it’s exclusive to Trafalgar Theatres, so make sure you grab a ticket! We also host other fantastic events, including an 80’s themed disco called Tropicana Nights and the best Christmas parties in the industry—The Stage is Set for Christmas! Uniquely, we don’t outsource our catering. Instead, we curate our own menus through our talented chefs and collaborate with some of the best acts and bands. We hope to see you at one of our events in 2025.
Why is Fareham Live an ideal venue for hosting various events? What facilities and services do you offer? Fareham Live is perfect for a wide range of events. The new venue will feature versatile functionality, including retractable seating to create a flat-floor hall space for large-scale dining events, as well as second and third spaces for break-out sessions and smaller events. With well-appointed bars, spacious front-of- house areas, and impressive terraces overlooking the gardens, Fareham Live is set to become the venue of choice for events in Hampshire and beyond.
How does Fareham Live ensure the quality of food and drink served at its events and venues? The team at Fareham Live benefits from ongoing collaboration with the wider Trafalgar Theatres team. Fareham Live will have an expert Hospitality Manager and a team of excellent chefs leading the operation. Additionally, the venue will be guided by the Head of Food & Beverage, the Food & Beverage Support Manager, and a 'link chef' who works across other Trafalgar Theatres venues. This team ensures that the food and drink offer is of high quality and executed brilliantly every time. They work together to maintain the highest standards of food safety, conducting their own audits and checks. We also continuously review customer and venue feedback to make necessary tweaks and improvements to our offerings.
Are there any sustainability practices in place for sourcing food and managing hospitality at Fareham Live? Our approach embraces sustainable and ethical procurement and consumption, continuously piloting the latest ideas and practices in effective food and drink service. We design our menus to reduce food waste through continual analysis of plate waste and portion review. By identifying areas of concern, we adjust recipes and portions to minimise waste. Any plate and prep waste we generate is recycled. Food waste from our venues is collected and reprocessed into biofuels, gas, and fertilisers, resulting in zero food waste. Partnering with Heineken UK, we have removed traditional dispense equipment from our bars and cellars. Conventional systems use thousands of litres of water for cleaning, wasting product and reducing yield. By installing 'Smart Dispense' line systems, we have eliminated product loss and reduced the need for cleaning to bi-monthly, significantly cutting water and energy use. We are proud to partner with Hallmark Vending for hot beverages. Their charitable arm, The Point Foundation, supports education projects for children in Rwanda. Other notable initiatives include:
We retail Life Water, funding clean water projects worldwide through the charity Drop4Drop.
Our fish is accredited by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC 1-2 certified).
We use only Red Tractor accredited meat, ensuring higher welfare standards.
We proactively removed straws from our venues in 2016, except for those who need them.
Our venues use 100% recyclable disposable cups and participate in the Born in the UK closed-loop recycling scheme, removing over one million cups from landfill each year.
In 2022, we invested over £50,000 to eliminate single-use plastic cups, opting for reusable polycarbonate glassware.
Our ice cream partner, Marshfield Farm, operates a closed-loop system with a low carbon footprint.
We use coreless centre-feed kitchen rolls, reducing the equivalent of three miles of cardboard core waste annually.
Our fruit and vegetable suppliers deliver in reusable crates, and we exclusively use eco-friendly chemicals.
We are immensely proud of our food and drink service strategies and will continue to make conscientious decisions as we operate.
This all sounds incredible! Let’s finish this interview with a final question about you. What would be your perfect evening out? Well, I have to say a show, don’t I?! I love seeing anything live—music, bands, shows, musicals, plays. So, my perfect evening would be grabbing an early bite to eat, ideally somewhere like a food hall or market where I can try a few different things, followed by a show and a late-night cap.
Thanks for taking the time to chat with us Mark, it’s made us even more excited about our launch in September! Why not try one of our dining events? The first one is Soulstruck - An Evening of Soul and Motown in December!