Best Retail Item: Steelys Souvenir Draft Cup At The Orion (2025 Excellence In Concessions Awards) 

Pour me another one.

The Orion F&B team in Huntsville Alabama noticed a bar trend and then capitalized by creating a retail product that supports sustainability and customer satisfaction.

The Steelys Souvenir Draft Cup was born from a recurring request: Guests routinely wanted to keep the venue’s reusable cups. The Orion’s hospitality and sustainability pros recognized that patrons weren’t just enjoying their drinks, they were connecting with the experience in a tangible way.

“A lot of what drove this was actually demand that I was seeing at our gates during egress, because we do have a reusable cup program and people wanted a souvenir cup,” says Drew Stewart, The Orion’s sustainability manager. “We want to get those cups back, but we want to be sure that our guests were also happy as they left.”

The Orion team introduced a retail version of its reusable draft cup: a 16 oz. stainless steel Steelys cup, available for purchase at merchandise stands and six bars.
“We knew they wanted something and a stainless steel, reusable cup was exactly that – one that they could take home and bring back in,” adds Stewart.

The first draft beer is included in the $20 cup purchase, and patrons who buy a cup receive $1 off every draft pour served in it for the life of the item.

“One of the important things we like to promote here with sustainability is that people are taking these cups home and they are reusing them at home, and then they are able to bring them back year after year,” says Stewart. “We have no plans to change up the design so that next year you have to buy a new one. We intend to honor these cups going forward, even if the designs change, because we want people to keep using these cups.”

The 8,000-capacity amphitheater has used reusable, heavy-duty polypropylene plastic cups since it opened in 2022.

The Orion permits fans to bring in up to 36-ounce, non-glass bottles to use at 11 free water refill stations.

“The original idea was for somebody to have a souvenir they could take home, which helps with sales, helps with marketing and keeps Orion on your mind,” offers Alan Hufford, The Orion’s senior food & beverage manager. “They get a discount when they buy a draft beer with this cup. And then the cup can be used at our water refill stations, as well”

Hufford said they have sold 1,400 cups to date and the venue has seen a 10 percent increase in beer sales since the cup was introduced in 2023. The venue is considering expanding the souvenir cup program to specialty cocktails – with an appropriately sized cup – in the future.

Having a take-home keepsake of a special concert experience creates “a special memory and on top of that, the cup looks good, has Orion on it and keeps us in the forefront,” adds Hufford.