Pub Quiz - Idea Of The Year - NOT

[JTRS]

As some of you know I do a regular pub quiz every Thursday night, and the new landlord decided he had come up with the brainwave of the year.

In an attempt to encourage more people to come along to the quiz he has decided that the quiz sheets will now be buy one get one free!

When I asked if he was going to promote this quiz on a sandwich board outside, or via another advertisning medium to passing trade I was told NO.

I know what's going to happen this week, we'll have the same amount of teams entering, the same people in the quiz and we will sell half as many quiz sheets because the ones who would normally buy 2 quiz sheets for the table now only have to buy 1 and couples will give their free quiz sheet to friends who will reciprocate the following week.

I tried telling him, but would he listen? NO

JTRS

[DAVESOUNDS SERVICES]

THEY NEVER DO!!! Jtrs
Ive Just told one landlord to Stick his open mike folk night
i WAS his Sunday Quiz Dj but he "Couldnt" afford me so he finished me (over the phone)...and said "Youll still do the PA for my Open mike night wont you"
Er.....No!
This is the same landlord who once told me he
"Knew all about music and sound cause he was a drummer in the 60s"!!!!

Sometimes i just dispair!
good luck with your quiz sounds like youll need it!
cheers

DAVESOUNDS

[Charlie Brown]

Give him a few weeks to realise. ;)

[Corabar Entertainment]

It does seem to be par for the course that a lot of landlords expect things to just 'happen' without them telling a soul that it is happening!

Quite how they expect people to know what's going on if they don't promote it is beyond me!

(At best, they put up a notice in the pub, but if not many people are going in the pub in the first place, what good do they expect that to do? :confused: )

[StarZSoundS]

It does seem to be par for the course that a lot of landlords expect things to just 'happen' without them telling a soul that it is happening!

Quite how they expect people to know what's going on if they don't promote it is beyond me!

(At best, they put up a notice in the pub, but if not many people are going in the pub in the first place, what good do they expect that to do? :confused: )


My Oh My we are beginning to agree on somethings......
:beer1: :beer1:
Folk chilling in Pubs and WMC's love to have something to read about...particularly forthcoming events...it gives them something to talk about sometimes....

If I get the occasional night off I like to think there will be something happening where I'm going.I'm constantly looking for Posters and Sandwich Boards to decide where I'm spending the evening....

Why are they so lax about it??:confused: :confused: :confused:

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Hope the landlord comes round to your way of thinking / working JTRS. I've worked with some landlords who just don't listen and the only one that suffers is us in the end because somewhere along the line, they turn it around and make out as if it's our fault.

I'm lucky I guess....I've been at my local for 5 years now and the landlord really does listen 100%. He's the one that asks me for ideas etc.

[JTRS]

Hope the landlord comes round to your way of thinking / working JTRS. I've worked with some landlords who just don't listen and the only one that suffers is us in the end because somewhere along the line, they turn it around and make out as if it's our fault.

I'm lucky I guess....I've been at my local for 5 years now and the landlord really does listen 100%. He's the one that asks me for ideas etc.

I hope so, it's a new landlord, the old landlord was briliiant and listened to my input/suggestions.

I'm shaking my head at this new one right now

JTRS

[RabbittsKaraoke]

Can we not make this into a "landlord bashing" contest.

I have experience in this matter and sandwich boards and other advertising mediums cost money. It might not be a lot of money in the overall scheme of things but, believe me, every penny in that industry counts.

Breweries are not bothered about helping their tennants anymore. All they are interested in is filling up tins and selling them to supermarkets, and also selling beer at less than half the price to their "managed houses".

The entire industry is a farce.

I'm sure there are inept landlords but those struggling along and doing their best, not making any money to even pay themselves a wage have my full backing

[JTRS]

Can we not make this into a "landlord bashing" contest.

I have experience in this matter and sandwich boards and other advertising mediums cost money. It might not be a lot of money in the overall scheme of things but, believe me, every penny in that industry counts.

Breweries are not bothered about helping their tennants anymore. All they are interested in is filling up tins and selling them to supermarkets, and also selling beer at less than half the price to their "managed houses".

The entire industry is a farce.

I'm sure there are inept landlords but those struggling along and doing their best, not making any money to even pay themselves a wage have my full backing

It wasn't intended to be a "landlord bashing" post, but to address your points.

The pub in question does have a sandwich board, currently displaying a poster for their Halloween Party

The pub in question does have various posters, the most up to date one is advertising their New Years Eve Party Night, these posters have a blank template and are filled in by hand.

My point is that rather than promote the quiz night, the landlord seems to think that offereing a BOGOF on the admission to the quiz will swell the numbers, I don't see that working.

I'm actually in favour of trying to do something to help them have better profits and a better wage but believe me this isn't the solution.

JTRS

[Shakermaker Promotions]

My post also wasn't intended to be a landlord bashing one.
As I said, I'm lucky....the current landlord listens to ideas etc. The majority of the customers are between 18 and 50 and are an alternative type crowd which I know well.

[Corabar Entertainment]

I wasn't 'landlord bashing' either: met many who are brilliant, wonderful, hard-working and clued up.

I've also met (and been friends with) some who are complete lazy gits who do nothing but prop up the bar and socialise whilst the staff do all the work :lol:

I really do appreciate that times are hard, and money is tight for many pubs, but promotion doesn't necessarily have to cost much to be effective.

[JTRS]

I really do appreciate that times are hard, and money is tight for many pubs, but promotion doesn't necessarily have to cost much to be effective.

That's the crux of my moan

The pub has a sandwich board (with an out of date event on it), it has a supply of blank posters (all they have to do is write the words QUIZ NITE Every Thursday 9.00PM, or something to that effect), but NO the master plan is do a BOGOF.

:bang:

JTRS

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

all they have to do is write the words QUIZ NITE Every Thursday 9.00PM, or something to that effect

QUIZ NIGHT maybe? :p

[Corabar Entertainment]

Rofl!

[JTRS]

QUIZ NIGHT maybe? :p

That's what I would put, however I see far more signs saying NITE, I guess it's like Wedding Fayre.

JTRS

[DazzyD]

Can we not make this into a "landlord bashing" contest.

I have experience in this matter and sandwich boards and other advertising mediums cost money. It might not be a lot of money in the overall scheme of things but, believe me, every penny in that industry counts.

Breweries are not bothered about helping their tennants anymore. All they are interested in is filling up tins and selling them to supermarkets, and also selling beer at less than half the price to their "managed houses".

The entire industry is a farce.

I'm sure there are inept landlords but those struggling along and doing their best, not making any money to even pay themselves a wage have my full backing

I accept that things are tight these days but this thread was about a venue that had a quiz - that was paying good money for Dave to do a quiz - but the landlord had no idea of how to promote it. The idea that you would sell more quiz sheets by offering BOGOF without any promotion to get more people in to the venue for the quiz is just farcical. It's astonishingly absurd! The only possible outcome is that you sell half the normal amount of quiz sheets! :bang:

If the LL had promoted the event externally based on "cheap quiz entry", drinks promotions, etc then he'd get more bums on seats, more beer sales and probably shift a few more packets of crisps and nuts. But if people don't know about it they won't come. That's for sure.

Promotion needn't cost the earth. A line in the What's On section of the local rag can cost a little as, er, nothing! We're not suggesting he takes out full-, half-, quarter- or even eighth-page adverts. People do tend the read the What's On section so this is a good place to start.

There's also external notice boards, posters in the window, etc. All good, and very cheap, sources of promotion. Then there's third party venue advertising (ie notice boards in cafes, church halls, community centres, sports halls, garages - the list goes on).

So, my apologies if anyone takes offence at my comments, but I simply don't subscribe to the argument that LLs can't afford to promote their events. £20 spent well can easily get the word out to people and increase footfall. And this is something that independent pubs/venues have to do or they risk going out of business. It's as simple as that.

[BossmanKaraokeDisco]

Hi Guys
Have the same problem with the local LL that I do work for. The only advertisement for the Friday night karaoke is a blackboard behind where I set up. I even did some posters for him, dropped them in on the Monday and they apparently were put up on the Friday.
He has just got me doing the last 4 weeks on a Sunday as a Themed night, Guess what, not a single poster was seen and he wonders why his pub is half empty.
I know times are hard but it does not cost a lot of time and money to knock some A4 posters up on the computer.
To top it all he said he might have to cancel either the New years eve or Christmas Eve booking as his takings are down, theres not a poster in sight advertising this either....
So not bashing LL as there are some really good ones out there, so if anyone wants a DJ for New Years Eve in the Midlands, drop me a message, I am not waiting around to find out that I am not working.

Dave
(Bossman Karaoke Disco)

[JTRS]

Guess who had roughly the same number of teams in for the quiz tonight, gave out the usual number of quiz sheets but only took half as much money?

A) Anne Robinson
B) Jeremy Paxman
C) JTRS

Guess who thought it was a great success and wants to repeat it next week

A) Nobody
B) JTRS
C) The Landlord


If you answered mainly C then well done, if you answered anything else then maybe you should open a pub, get a DJ and tell them how to run the quiz

Nite all

JTRS

[Corabar Entertainment]

Pmsl!

[Dynamic Entertainment]

Does this venue have a facebook page? Facebook is a seriously good tool for promotions.

To put it into context, i started a pub quiz in one venue and had posters made up and flyers done (only a couple of hundered and cost about £20 from Vista Print). For the first month or so we were averaging about 50 people per week.

I set up a facebook profile and within 2 months we were averaging 120 people. Weve since dropped off to 100ish per week.

You have to allow time to build up "friends" (and be careful as Facebook doesnt like businesses to have profiles as people...they prefer you to have a fan page and people click that they "like" you instead of adding you as a friend*) but once its up and running a status update is all it takes to remind people whats going on.

* I apprecate that for the most part im teaching people to suck eggs...but not everyone has facebook or apprecates how it works ;)

[Andy Goodtimes]

Next thing is the landlord will be finishing you and starting someone else and prob saying it was your fault it never worked out.

Best thing I found for a quiz or any other pub night for that matter is an ongoing draw each week which grows in value. I call it "what's in the envelope". You sell raffle tickets and the winner gets the chance to choose from one of 5 identical envelopes. Each envelope contains a slip of paper saying what their prize is, it can be a T bag, bag of crisps, drink from the bar, meal for 2, bottle of wine, bottle of scotch etc. but one of them is always for the money and of course if the money isn't won it goes on till the following week. I had it go to over £2k once and folk were coming from miles to try and win it.

So many quiz nights and karaoke nights and so on about that you have to have something special and different to be sure to fill the place each week.

[JTRS]

Next thing is the landlord will be finishing you and starting someone else and prob saying it was your fault it never worked out.

Best thing I found for a quiz or any other pub night for that matter is an ongoing draw each week which grows in value. I call it "what's in the envelope". You sell raffle tickets and the winner gets the chance to choose from one of 5 identical envelopes. Each envelope contains a slip of paper saying what their prize is, it can be a T bag, bag of crisps, drink from the bar, meal for 2, bottle of wine, bottle of scotch etc. but one of them is always for the money and of course if the money isn't won it goes on till the following week. I had it go to over £2k once and folk were coming from miles to try and win it.

So many quiz nights and karaoke nights and so on about that you have to have something special and different to be sure to fill the place each week.

After the quiz we do run a play your cards right, the current jackpot is just over £750 and that is a crowd keeper/pleaser, but, again without advertising this (on either a sandwich board or a poster) passing trade or people who call in on a non quiz night don't know about it.

Ooooh maybe I should suggest doing a BOGOF on tickets to play your cards right, I bet the landlord would love that idea

JTRS