Having worked in and around pub's and club's for many a year now, it's clear to see why we are still losing these venue's at the high rate we are.
For this, i'll be using where i currently entertain at, which is the Skelmersdale Comrades club (AKA, the commies).
See, this is a venue with ALOT of history behind it, it's been open since before i was born. It was your typical friday / saturday night, bingo and a band type of venue. Over the years the people stopped going and they now operate their main room as a "hire only" kind of a deal, which works for them.
Before we entered into recession, things were not too bad for the business, when they had a booking in the main room, it did well, people would turn up, spend money and go home at the end of the night. It made money and let's face it, that's the main thing. In 2009 we all went into recession and thing's went down for the club.
When i came onboard it was under a manager who had the lease and had spent abit of time giving the place a lick of paint and they tried to fix it up. They with 3rd party companies were able to offer a package deal, whereby a customer hiring the venue could pay 1 amount and that would cover the cost of the room hire, dj, buffet and room decoration. This was a popular concept and when it was managed right, the venue managed to beat off the recession and stay open.
Over time and management fall-outs, the deals stopped being produced, so after new year in 2012, the business almost dried up.
New management came in, in the form of the current manager. He managed to get the old contacts back in and set the offer up again, where to this day, it still proves to be a very popular option with people. So what is this manager doing in order to fight off the recession?
The current manager looks at what the customer will and decides if HE likes it. If he doesn't like it, he'll change it until he does. Basic things like broken light-bulbs, toilet seat's, how the toilets flush.... the minute details are looked at and fixed until they're right.
Then he looks at the staff and 3rd party involvement. I remember doing one event in the sports bar and having problems where the plug sockets where and which ones worked. What did this manager do? He fixed up all the plug socket, had new light switches installed aswel as new plug sockets for us dj's and entertainers to use.
Any idea's that the staff or customer's have, he will listen to and do what he can to act upon if he can.
For me, i think this is where some venue's are going wrong. Customer's want more for their money these days, you cant escape that fact. If a customer enjoy's their time in a venue, they're more likely to come back to it. Toilet's clean, lights working, pleasent smell and they're not having to pay through the nose for a drink, then you can be quite sure of repeat business.
See, social clubs are team work and there's ALOT of team work that goes into it. Customer's only see a VERY small amount of this. Like last week, when one of the functions had finished at about quater past 11, the owner couldn't get out until around 2am, because of counting the till's, the cleaning needing to be done etc.... yet this side is forgotten about when a customer goes home.
Thing's will improve as the economy get's better, that's a fact, but for now, is your venue doing enough to stay open?
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