13th Beach Clubs and Pubs

My last article was about how much to spend on advertising. I really didn’t give you a figure because it will depend on your margins – the amount of money left after all the relevant costs are paid for.

One of my long term clients moved to a new regional venue with a local population of 8000. There was no consistent entertainment on offer, just the occasional show or musician on either a Friday or Saturday night.

This manager decided to take a risk (mind you he’s repeated this process in every venue he’s managed with great success) and put on a really good band every Friday night for free. Luckily there was a circular bar, so it was easy to manage the bar. However there really was little room for entertainment – yet he squeezed them in.

Let’s look at the maths. Before the entertainers came in bar turnover on a Friday was about $1800 for the night. Once the bands started playing it grew to around $6000 – an increase of $4200. Multiply that by 52 weeks and you have about $200 000. The bands cost from $600 – $1000 per week – so remove $30-40 000 for the year. Advertiser – banners, posters and postcards were about $20 000. Extra staff to run the bar – a circular bar – just one more staff member.

The result – spending $50 – 60 000 brought in an extra $200 000 revenue in the bar alone on a Friday night. The club bistro was booked out every Friday night and gaming revenue was up. However, more people joined as members and came to the club at other times. So the risk he took brought in a considerable increase in revenue for the year.

Increasing your revenue is as simple as that but you have to spend the money and make a commitment to the longer term, don’t just give up after a few weeks if you dont get the response. Give people an excuse to come to your venue and they do.