Secure Trivia Bookings at a Bar
Secure Trivia Bookings at a Bar
How to Get a Bar Owner to Book You
You may be an enthusiastic, keen and talented Trivia host. You may have invested in technology, equipment and tools. Indeed, you may even have spent time researching and amassing a massive database of questions to ensure you have everything you need to run a Trivia night. But all of the above is rather pointless unless you know how to get booked. The easy part is hosting the trivia night and putting it together, the hard part is getting booked in the first place and making sure YOU are the person they hire. Competition is rife in the trivia industry and you need to make sure you take advantage of every opportunity given. Here are some hints and tips to making sure you get yourself booked every time.
The first tip revolves around one word….Professionalism. At every stage of your interaction with the person you are hoping is going to hire you need to show that you’re a professional trivia host. Any signs that you are not confident, unreliable or don’t know what you are doing will only result in you not being booked.
First impressions count. The basic fact is this….if you don’t make a good first impression then you are going to get booked. It is very hard to recover and attract business if the first impression you make is a poor one. Whether you are contacting them by email, letter, face to face or telephone, when you are seeking to get booked you need to make sure everything is tip top. Positive, friendly and high levels of customer service. Keep it short and sweet and tell them what YOU can do for them to attract their interest. Dress well, have good marketing materials and you are half way there.
We have discussed previously how to compose a sample demonstration (see previous postings) and this matters when getting booked. Without a good, effective and exciting sample of your best work then you are not going to get anyway. You can look the part, talk the part and offer to market the trivia night to mars and back but if your sample is lacking in quality then you will find that you don’t get anywhere. Ensure the trivia is error free, interesting and up to date.
- If you are a pen and paper trivia host, have colorful, good quality versions and showcase your best work to ensure you get booked. Don’t just give them photocopied or old trivia quizzes on pieces of paper, give them full color laminated examples showing what you can really do.
- If you have a game show system, or wireless buzzers, bring it in and show them what you have. Nothing speaks volumes like showing the real thing and letting them touch and feel it. Being ready with a software game already running on your laptop so that the bar owner doesn’t have to sit and wait for you to boot up your machine.
- Do a 5 minute sample game. Get the staff to do a quick game so that the owner can see the system in action. Now, use discretion here, the staff may be very busy getting ready for the doors to open. Also the owner might be thinking about his cost in paying these people per hour to play the sample game. This is only an option to consider. Ultimately the best option is doing a sample trivia game with a real audience present.
You may have all sorts of gadgets and gizmos and lights etc to make your trivia night even more fancy and the tip would be to put all your cards on the table as early as you can. Maybe the bar owner is looking for something different but doesn’t know what is out there….you showing him what you can offer may just peak his interest and get him to agree to hiring you. Embracing technology may just result in them embracing you.
One area people often forget to cover is the $$$$ signs that are running through the venue owners head. You are there to get people in and make them money so in the whole process of getting yourself booked what you need to be doing is telling them HOW you are going to do that. I have extensive social media channels and mentioned to bar owners how I can advertise the trivia on there, that I have knowledge of local business to attract prizes and posters and that I have experience getting people into bars. This is what they want to hear and want to know. If your trivia is great and you have appealing formats then that will only work to some degree, the rest needs to be how YOU are going to benefit their business.
All in all, you need to make sure that the first contact you make with a venue owner is positive and professional from beginning to end. Tell them what YOU can do for THEM. To secure trivia bookings at a bar show good samples, tell them how you are going to market the quiz, tell them of your past achievements….whatever it takes to get them to see $$$$ signs and take a chance on you. Getting booked is the hard part but once you master the art you will begin to learn what works for you and begin to turn your business into a rip roaring success.
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[…] ALWAYS tend to start the deal with the first few trivia nights at a price lower than I was hoping if it means getting the gig and […]
[…] is, by far and away, the most important trivia you will write. This is what will draw business, secure trivia bookings at a bar, get owners interested and it is your first impressions. And as I keep drilling into you, first […]