So, you’re planning on hosting a trivia event at your bar or restaurant. Trivia events can be great for increasing your foot traffic and introducing new customers to your business. Everybody loves getting together with a couple of friends and proving who is truly the smartest. Here are a couple of tips and tricks to help promote your upcoming trivia event!
First off, you should decide whether your trivia night is going to have an underlying theme to it or if you are going to go with a more generalized trivia night. If you are planning to go with a themed event, don’t be afraid to go all in! Serve themed drinks and food or decorate your bar/restaurant. For instance, if you are planning on hosting a Harry Potter trivia night, consider offering specialized cocktails and snacks to make your patrons feel more immersed. Planning on a movie trivia night? Ask your staff to dress up as their favorite film characters. Not only will this excite your customers, but your staff will probably get a good kick out of it as well!
If you are planning for a more generalized trivia contest, be sure not to make the questions too specific or difficult. You want your customers to have fun and enjoy themselves at trivia night, not feel stumped or unintelligent by too difficult of questions. You may also want to lay down some simple rules at the beginning to discourage patrons from using their phones to simply look up the answers to your questions.
Next, plan how you will reward your trivia winners! Prizes can range from free drink/food coupons to cash. If you have video gaming machines in your establishment, consider offering a $10 or $5 match-play on their favorite machine. This has the added benefit of also creating more potential gaming customers! You can also give away any merchandise with either your bar’s or Accel Entertainment’s logo.
Now to really get the word out about your trivia night, it is time to embrace social media! Make sure you advertise the event on all your active social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.). If your establishment is active on Facebook, consider creating a Facebook Event for the night and promoting it. Hopefully, this will give you a good estimation of how many of your customers are interested in attending the event before it even happens. However, keep in mind that this number is not always indicative of how many people are actually planning on attending.
In addition to social media, try to promote your trivia events through more traditional channels as well. Post fliers around town or take out an ad in the local paper. Hang posters or signs advertising the event in your establishment and on the exterior of the building. Also, have your staff do some in-house promoting by talking up the event to any patrons who visit in the days leading up to the event.
Trivia events can be a great way for bars and restaurants to increase foot traffic on slow nights. Having a weekly or monthly event can help create returning, regular customers who can eventually turn into brand evangelists and convert their friends and families into loyal patrons as well. Let us know how your next trivia events go by leaving a comment below!
Sources
https://sarahblooms.com/harry-potter-cocktails/
https://www.lastcalltrivia.com/a-simple-guide-to-promote-your-themed-trivia-night/
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/blog/5-best-practice-examples-of-a-facebook-event-page-ds00/
