I'm not really one for making New Year's resolutions. Invariably, I forget I've made them or, in order to achieve them, I cheat: I once resolved to pair up all the socks in my sock drawer, and then promptly threw them all out and bought twelve pairs of matching black socks so I'd never have to worry about unpaired footwear again.
Last year, though, I did make myself one promise for 2010: to still be in business come 31st December. We all knew it was going to be a tough year, and it was. So when New Year's Eve came round I gave myself a little pat on the back, and then wondered what the evening trade was going to be like.
You see, earlier in the year my wife and I decided to take some advice from a blog Chris Maclean wrote at the start of 2010 and not put anything on in the pub for New Year's Eve. I was nervous of this decision, but as we saw out 2009 the chap who had been doing the discos in my pub since the dawn of the millennium said he didn't want to do them any more.
That was fair enough. He'd been doing them for ten years and wanted to see the next new year in in a different way. I couldn't blame him, and it was probably time for us to do something different too. Interest in the discos was clearly waning and for a couple of years we'd experienced a real 'dead spot' in the night between the early evening trade wishing everybody well before going home for dinner, and the midnight trade.
The gap of deadness had grown larger each year as we waited for the New Year revellers to join us and it had become clear it was time for something new. The questions was: what?
Early in 2010 we started phoning around to see what people's availabilities were, and what the cost would be. We looked at different things: live music, casino events, murder mysteries, and so on. The problem was, people were either not interested in working that particular night, were already booked, or wanted an exorbitant amount, more than I knew was reasonable to expect my trade, even on a good night, to cover.
Eventually, we settled on the idea of doing nothing. We'd put some party music on the stereo system, lay out some nibbles on the bar and plug the kids' Wii or karaoke system in to the pub television and let people have a bit of fun, no matter how damaging it might be to my eardrums.
As the year end approached I wrote about what we were - or weren't - going to do on the pub's blog, Facebook and Twitter pages, then sat back and waited to see what the reaction was. At first, there wasn't much, and then a steady stream of "that sounds... nice," comments came back to us.
They reminded me of being a teenager, when girls would tell me they liked me... as a friend.
My confidence waned and I began to wonder if I'd made a bit of a blunder, but it was too late to make any real changes to the evening so Ali and I grit our teeth and decided that what would be would be.
And then the most amazing thing happened: people started to tell us that the idea of having nothing on for the evening sounded great. They didn't want to go to a pub and pay to enter, or stand there having their eardrums blown out. They just wanted to see the new year in with their friends, having a laugh.
As we opened the doors at 5pm on New Year's Eve 2010, trade was slow but steady. And then it began to grow. At nine o'clock, when in the past the early trade headed home and the wait began for the midnight crowd to appear, more people arrived. By eleven o'clock a buzzing crowd stood in the pub, enjoying each other's company, singing along to the stereo and generally mingling with each other.
The atmosphere was amazing, and as the clock on the big screen behind the bar counted towards midnight, everybody joined in, shouting out the countdown and then cheering in the New Year.
Auld Lang Syne played, everybody had another drink and shook each other's hands … and then they went home.
Putting nothing on, it seemed, had been a success. Trade was better than either of the previous two years, there was no stress to the evening, and 2011 began in a relaxed and very enjoyable manner.
Less, then, is the new more. I hope that the rest of the year continues in the same vein, and however you chose to bring the new year in I hope it was a successful, profitable and enjoyable evening for you all.
Happy New Year!