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For The Venues - The Cold Hard Facts
Top Reasons Why A Bar or Club
Looks If you're a proud and successful
bar/club owner who packs the house every weekend, who books Click
here for Great Self-Help and Insider Secrets What's All This Got To Do With Anything? First of all, it's for your own good, but most importantly, if you succeed, the bands will, too. And you'll probably end up with a great lineup of bands waiting on your doorstep offering to play at your cool place. And let's not forget, if you succeed, and the blues bands succeed, we have more places to hang out on the weekends for our blues fix. It's Probably What You're Not Doing It ain't the new bar that just opened down the street, it ain't the bands, and it sure as heck ain't the people looking for a place to hang out, party and have fun. It's probably what you're not doing. If you don't make the effort to promote your bar and the bands, you deserve what you get. Or what you don't get.... happy returning customers and money. Blaming the bands for a poor turnout? They're not responsible for bringing you customers that will stay, even if they are their friends. Even if the music is great. You are solely responsible for whether your club or bar succeeds or not. I've found a bunch of stuff on message boards and newsgroups written by bar/club promoters, managers and owners, bands,and people who frequent the clubs. Including this gang. These are all things in our heads, and excerpts from other heads. Authors are noted where they're available Feed Me
exerpts
included from articles by Rich Unger,
Nightclub Promotion-s----> Your club is packed, it's Midnight, and the natives are restless, but all you are offering your bar patrons is more beer, more wine, more liquor.....What is your logic? Where is the food? You don't need a kitchen one to make huge $$$$ and put something more than just liquid in your patron's stomachs....... Why do you just serve liquor and then force your patrons to seek food elsewhere? Why do you cut the staying time of your club patrons in half, by not offering them something to eat? Why do you let other clubs in your Community serve food and profit and prosper and you simply operate with no food of any kind? I accept no excuses, no nonsense, there isn't a reason in the world why your club cannot and should not offer food. I have every answer to every defense that your club is not big enough, that your club is not set up to serve food, that your club is not the type of club to serve food. Nonsense and more nonsense.Bar Patrons want more than just great music, great special effects and great service, they want food!!!!! Clubs in this new Millennium have got to go above and beyond to give patrons food. Reasons for serving food
Every bar, lounge, nightclub and liquor establishment should offer food. From the "AUTOFRY" to Pizza, from chips and dips to finger sandwiches, beverage patrons get hungry, why force them to leave your establishment? From peanuts and pretzels the basics to an assortment of fried foods prepared in the "AUTOFRY" requiring no chef, no kitchen, no overhead, the key is expand your operation and offer your patrons more. And more means food. First of all, your patrons stay longer when they can also eat in addition to enjoying a cocktail. When sports on your big screens and your TV's, it is only natural to offer your patrons food to eat and enjoy while watching their favorite game. Your investment is minimal and your return is tremendous.
There is not one single good reason not to offer food to your patrons. The costs are low, the labor is zero, there is no downside, most are frozen foods, even an alliance with a neighboring restaurant is beneficial to you, they prepare the food and you serve it and both of you work out an agreeable compensation plan.I have consulted many bars and lounges who have found their bottom line, the gross and their traffic count to increase dramatically when they add food. Not one has ever had a negative result from adding food. The more diversity you offer your patrons the more reasons you give them to frequent your establishment on a more consistent basis. Fresh salad sandwiches require no grease trap, no overhead Hood, no heavy duty appliances.Combine them with again my fave, the "AUTOFRY" and you have a great wide variety menu with no kitchen staff, and no headaches. In this day and age, it is a war out there, and there is no reason you should not do everything in your power to give your patrons as much as possible. Food is a necessity, people will stay longer, spend more and enjoy their visit greatly when you offer them food. So, as I always say, take the shot and start serving and offering food, and stop hesitating and procrastinating. *My own two cents - I'll drink more and spend more, and i'm pretty likely to come back, if i eat and i have something to soak the alcohol up with. And word-of-mouth is more important than you think. It's rare that we don't say "and they have great food" when we tell someone they should check out or play at a particular bar or club. Promote Your Club/Bar and Promote
the Bands It's Your Responsibility How can you expect people to come out and party if they don't know you exist? Or if you do exist, that you have something worth hauling their butts around for on the weekend? Do you think bands like having an empty bar to play to? Or that the patrons like hanging out in an empty bar feeling embarassed to be there or embarassed for the band because they have to be there? If you can add weekend listings of your bands in your local entertainment magazines or newspapers, that's the best way. If you're worried about costs, at least put a small in the local paper's entertainment area, even the local 'pennysaver" type of thing. It goes to thousands of homes right into their mailboxes. And it's cheap. Don't do anything fancy if you can't afford it. Just a plain ole text ad will do. Announce your theme night or what band is playing and at what time. Nothing to do with rocket science or low funds.There are free places online where you can add a link to your club (you should have a website, that goes without saying), or a text ad for your club. Calendars you can pop your weekend's lineup into like
the new one we have right here - DO IT! We spend a good deal of time checking out online entertainment guides, newspapers, entertainment weeklies, other people's band calendars, travel guides, etc. LOOKING FOR YOU. And who's playing and what you have going on. Give us a break, it shouldn't be a chore. And how many times did we end up going someplace because it sounds okay and there doesn't seem to be anything else happening. Only to find out the next day that we missed a phenomenal band and great food because YOU DIDN'T TELL US. When we have a great time at your place and we can find you, we tell you. And we blab to whoever will listen. So how's about letting us in on the big secret - who's playing and what's happening there this weekend? No Excuses Following
Article © 2000 Rich Unger I have never, ever, seen so many club owners simply become complacent and lay over, play dead and allow their competition to simply roll over them. My question is why? Why own a club, pay your staff, order liquor and beer, pay the rent, pay the utilities, pay the insurance, and simply linger and lay there? What good is your club if it is dead? What good is your bar, your lounge, your restaurant if it is dead? Top Ten Excuses For Not Promoting Your Venue
The Competition is Eating You Alive
It's no wonder so many clubs never make it, between absentee owners who have no clue what's going on in their clubs, to managers who don't make the effort to bring about change and fresh and new concepts, and ideas, and theme nights, to the patrons, who's loyalty factor is built on the old adage "what have you done for me lately?" I tell owner after owner, manager after manager you are not giving your patrons any FUN, I said FUN!!!!!! It's the same old music, same old people, same old drink specials, I mean if you're bored and tired of offering them, how do you think your patrons feel? You have got to get off your dead butt and make things happen. Yes, you're worried about paying the rent, who is stealing from you, what bills are due, who is going to show up for work, but you have got to over ride all those concerns with the major concern, I NEED TO GIVE MY PATRONS MORE AND I NEED TO DO IT NOW!!!!!!!! Take a look at your club in the daylight, turn on the lights, open the front doors, and take a long hard look at what you are offering your patrons at night......
Take Good Care of Your Bands
Do you treat your bands and their entourage and friends with respect? Do you take an honest interest in them, do you spend time with them? Do you make unreasonable demands on their loyalty - unless you are paying them by exclusive contract for an embarassingly big pile of money, it ain't your business where they play and what they do when they're not playing for you. Do you tell them how and what to play, what not to play? You booked a blues band. Don't ask them to play rap or Elvis. If they feel like playing it, fine, but that's their decision. And if a patron mentions they want to hear something, don't try to coerce the band into playing it. They know what they're doing. They won't run the bar if you don't run their show. Feed the band - it's not going to break the bank to feed the people who are standing up there sweating and working for four hours. And it's a good idea, too, if they're drinking. Nothing elaborate, pizza, fries, burger, wings, whatever quick, but substantial, fast foods you usually offer on your menu There are as many scary stories about difficult or unscrupulus club/bar owners as there are about bands and managers! They wonder why they can't book a decent band or get people in on the weekends. Can't be their attitude, can't be the way they present themselves. Can't be that their place is not a pleasant or happy place to hang out in. Can't be their reputation for being demanding and a royal pain in the ass to bands and patrons alike. Must be the band, must be the weather, the new club, sunspots, whatever. Don't Stiff The Bands Be sure to take care of the bands you book. Don't give them the runaround or boo hoo about not taking in enough money to pay them at the end of the night. What kind of nonsense is that? It's not like running a bar tab - these people busted butt and put up with rowdy or drunk customers, and might have passed on another booking to play your place. If you booked them, you knew how much they wanted or how much you offered them. You should have set aside that money when you decided to hire them. They lived up to their end of the bargain and probably made a bunch of people really happy. People who will probably go back to your place. Not paying the band at the end of the night is robbery, plain and simple. And word gets around when friends and patrons find out that their favorite bands got stiffed. "i'll pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today..." don't work here. You'll be blacklisted. You'll lose your bands, they'll tell other bands, they'll tell their friends. Can you afford to lose business and the respect of the music community, as well as the potential income from serious weekend partiers? We do have scruples.
Promote Your Band,
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