Sonya Hook investigates surefire ways of pulling in customers by providing entertaining events — the only limit is your imagination.
Quizzes and bingo
Setting up a quiz doesn't need to be time consuming. No doubt there are licensees out there that shiver at the thought of scouring encyclopaedias and Google every week in order to compile a new set of questions. But there is help to be found. Redtooth is one pub quiz provider that has a range of quizzes available to download, with themes ranging from music and sports to nostalgia and comedy. There are also holiday-specific quizzes for Christmas, Father's Day and Halloween.
Bingo nights can also liven up a quiet evening in the pub. Rock & Roll Bingo's Mark Walsh (who works for parent company Owdoo) says some bars have reported a sales uplift of £400 evening after running regular Rock & Roll Bingo events.
Redtooth can also help a pub run bingo nights. Since the law changed in 2007 pubs are now able to give away prizes of up to £2,000 per week (not exceeding £20,000 per year) for events such as bingo. Redtooth says it can provide pubs with starter packs (including a bingo machine) and all the latest information to help comply with the law.
Poker
Pubs can be ideal poker venues. Look around your pub on a quiet weekday evening — could it be enhanced by tables of poker players all deep in thought about their next move? All of them are likely to buy drinks throughout the evening, and perhaps snacks. Table service can work well on these occasions, and successful licensees have reported sales uplifts of around £400 per week from poker.
Redtooth is one company that can help with poker by providing equipment such as casino-grade table tops, cards and chips, plus a special pub poker DVD. Regional finals and national finals are also part of the package.
Poker can also work as part of an evening's entertainment package. At the Snooty Fox, in Lowick, Northamptonshire, poker forms part of its regular Gentlemen's Evenings. These regular evenings are held in the pub's upstairs lounge and dining rooms so the rest of the pub can operate as usual. For just over £20 per person, customers get a three-course meal and unlimited wine plus entertainment, which includes poker.
Film nights
Pubs that have an unused room or spare area could find success in catering for film buffs in that space. This could also be a good revenue builder for pubs with a secondary drinking space, or an extra room that can be used for showing films.
And, according to film supplier Filmbank, with the right licence, pubs can show films from 10 to 12 weeks after they have been in the cinema — before the DVD release date — allowing the on-trade to show a film premier before it can be viewed in the home.
Films can also work well with quizzes — how about showing a feature-length film just after a film quiz event?
Filmbank is able to provide advice on the kind of licences that pubs legally require before showing films in their premises. The company boasts that it has one of the largest film libraries in Europe.
Karaoke
Holding karaoke nights too often can turn people away from the doors — there's nothing worse than wanting a quiet night out in the pub only to hear a screeching voice blaring out of the doors every time you try to visit that venue.
However, if a regular karaoke night is well publicised so that it becomes a fixture in people's calendars, then it can bring with it a good crowd of fans. Some pubs have had success with X-Factor karaoke competitions; holding a series of heats and then a grand final can really help to boost interest in this kind of event.
There are companies that can help with karaoke and the investment figure required will vary widely. Think about whether you want to offer live music or similar events at other times of the week. If this is the case then it's probably worth investing in a good microphone and speaker system. Or you can hire one if it's for one-off events. There are also digital jukebox providers that have karaoke services incorporated in the system, or, for real karaoke buffs, it's possible to get a booth built into a space within the pub.
Sports
If you know your customers well then you'll know whether your pub attracts a large number of sports fans. Maybe it's a regular meeting place for a local team, or maybe the pub is near a cricket ground, park or leisure centre. Or perhaps your barstaff are fed up with being hounded to show key matches during your busy lunchtime service. Whatever it may be, catering for sports fans can be lucrative and often supporters of one sport will be interested in other sports as well.
Race nights (and days) can be popular — Racing UK can be a good starting point to make sure you are showing all the key racing fixtures throughout the year.
If you have plenty of space then making one room or section of the pub into a TV area can enable you to show whichever sports your customers demand. Keeping a calendar of key fixtures for sports such as football, rugby and cricket is a good idea. Remember to let people know you will be showing the match, make sure you have extra staff booked on those dates, and think about food.
Beer-tasting evenings
Cask Ale Week and national press coverage of ale shows that consumers are keen to learn more about this drink, so make use of this thirst for more information.
Wine-tasting evenings — often incorporated with food matching — have been popular for a while, but beer-tasting evenings could be a good way of growing the interest in your guest ales and local beer offerings. Consider inviting a local brewer to come and talk through the different beer styles. And talk to your chef and local food suppliers to see if they can offer any dishes to match with the beers.
The Draft House pubs in London hold cask-ale pouring evenings, in which the north of England is compared with the south. The evening hinges on the fact that southerners famously like their beer "straight out", while in the north, beer is preferred with a thick and creamy head. The pub tests a range of beers poured in the different styles. It can also offer beers in thirds of a pint.
Get the ladies in
There are all sorts of ways to draw in regular groups of women. Quieter and more studious activities can include setting up regular book clubs or knitting groups, or encouraging existing groups to use the pub as a regular meeting place.
Other events can be more lively, perhaps incorporating cocktail evenings or linked up with wine-tasting events.
The Embankment in Bedford is one pub that decided to be creative with its events calendar, working on the basis that intriguing and unusual activities would draw in different groups of people. Recent female-friendly activities have included the launch of a flower school, where, for the price of £25 per person, people learn how to arrange flowers, while enjoying samples of the pub's summer menu. Chocolate Heaven is another event on the pub's calendar. Chocolate-tasting evenings with a Champagne reception feature as part of this event — costing £27 per person — followed by a series of demonstrations while customers dine, such as how to make the ganache for chocolate truffles.
"We run at least one of these kinds of events per month here," says an Embankment spokesman. "Other popular events include a menu-tasting event, which we run every time we change the menu. Customers get a five-course meal with dishes from the new menu, and we get a wine expert to come and talk."