How to Plan Mini Pub Events

Whether it be a pub quiz night, a food festival, or summer party, mini events at your venue can transform it from a place to grab a pint, to a place where people form unforgettable memories.

Getting the planning of pub events right is key to it’s success. They present a huge opportunity to attract both returning and new visitors to the venue and should they be successful, they offer up the chance to make these occasions a regular fixture in your pub’s annual calendar.

With many people unsure about how to plan a mini event at their pub, we have come up with some important techniques for you to maximise your offerings to your customers.

Ensuring that your event aligns with the theme of your pub is an incredibly important initial step to planning a mini event. For example, if your pub is a sports bar, a watching party for a major sporting event might be a more appropriate event to host than a cheese and wine tasting night!

You know your customers better than anyone and should therefore know what they want to see. By asking yourself who visits your pub regularly and defining your demographic with your own eyes, you should leave yourself in a position to plan effectively.

Conduct Informal Research

If you are completely unsure what events your customers would like to see, conducting informal research can be a great way of gathering information. This can be done through informal conversations with customers when they are visiting, including talking to them about what they would like to see or perhaps what they have attended elsewhere that you could make better. You can also observe the most popular activities in your venue and elsewhere and plan from this accordingly. Make notes of if your customers like to play games or watch sports in big groups.

Recognise what is possible with the space you have

Maximising your capacity is key to making the most of a mini event at your pub, but it is important to do so with other concerns in mind. The space at your venue should always be assessed before confirming how many tickets you can sell to the event. Making adjustments such as opening out some doors that are usually closed, moving tables in from the garden or adding that extra chair can help to maximise your revenue generated from ticket sales, going some way to helping offset the costs if the event. It is also important to note that enough space should be left to avoid overcrowding, so it is about getting the balance right in line with the capacity of your venue.

Health and Safety Regulations

It is possible that for a mini pub event, you could be operating with a layout that is different to the one that is used for everyday service. In this case, it is imperative that a thorough risk assessment is carried out, with any measures put in place documented accordingly. Through consideration to fire exits and placement of temporary electrical devices should also be given, with ultimate customer safety the most important deciding factor.

Furthermore, depending on the size of the event, it may be worth allocating some of your staff or any volunteers as stewards. This can ensure that people are kept behaving appropriately and nothing gets out of hand.

Plan your marketing campaigns

Once you have chosen what your event is going to be, having a clear and structured plan for your marketing campaigns will help the outreach of the event and ensure that it reaches as many people as possible.

This can be done via a number of means. If you use booking systems, it is likely that you have customer contact data. From this, you can reach out to them via social media and email campaigns. Other techniques could include collaborating with local businesses, creating shareable content to create a buzz about the event, or offering additional discount to regular customers for bringing family and/or friends to the event.

Remember, the goal of every promotional activity is to get your customers talking about your event.