Top Tips from those in trade…
Here’s some great advice from Pub & Bar Network member, Gareth Kavanagh, who says:
- Good, regularly updated posters and on-line calendar on your website.
- Good advance planning, looking at what is coming up and when – take advantage of the time to plan an entire schedule.
- Make sure you’re not tied to just one team, but look after your customers whoever comes in your door.
- Make use of zoning to allow people to enjoy their game/sport with sound in comfort.
- Zero tolerance for hate chants in the pub. Cultivate a pleasant atmosphere where you are likely to see both sets of fans in.
- Innovate and create – search out fixtures no-one else is selling. research Twitter thoroughly and use services like MatchPint.
- Make your big Tournaments inclusive. Out In Your Own Language initiative piloted in Euro 2008 and used ever since, ensuring all games where possible are marked with native commentary has not only made us busy for virtually all games, but created a connoisseur atmosphere amongst our British customers keen to mingle with other fans from other nations. Takes a lot of work and planning, but it’s brilliant.
- Ensure your staff have good basic knowledge. Explain the difference between the FA Cup, League Cup and European Cup. Also, what constitutes a big game and what isn’t.
- Take a personal stake in quality and consistency. I hate places that advertise things and don’t show them, using the excuse no-one asked. Or show it with no sound. Always find a space where it can be enjoyed but if no-one watches it, so what? As long as you’ve tweeted and advertised, people know it’s on and will come another time.
And from Licensees Supporting Licensees:
Kris Morse
I have created a “Live Sports” discount card which give around 10% off a pint of all draught and ale when an advertised live sports game is showing, the card costs £1 and last for 12months. The price is only on the card so people remember they have it and return to us, over others, when games are on.
I don’t watch or support any football team so I simply read the back page of the Sun each day, it gives you just enough to pop into a conversation every now and then.
Dawn Hopkins
Investment in good equipment will show you mean business & be taken seriously.
J Mark Dodds
Customers nagged and nagged and nagged us about showing the footie and even told me “we didn’t care about them”, and “as long as they came in and spent their money we were happy to look after them” but when it came to listening – “our ears were closed, we didn’t care about sport and football lovers… we can understand your not showing sport on satellite but you don’t know what it’s like for people like us not to be able to be in the place we meet all the time when at least the big terrestrial games are on.”
So I said “OK you do the work, tell us the schedules you want to watch, send emails/text for when the big games are on and we’ll make sure you get something footie wise but remember people actually come here to get away from sport sometimes, so it’s got to be special and not put other punters off”.
And they made it into party fun and we rearranged the space on football match days and made signs saying ‘football free zone’ etc where there was table service and so on.
We were fortunate enough to have the space to be able to be flexible. Some of the customers loved the pub because we did listen and we changed what we did for them. Sometimes this added thousands to our turnover in a week.