Earlier this year, Jeremy Duffy from Isle Brewers Guild (a.k.a. The Guild Brewing Co) blew my mind when he shared the number of events they run each year:
230 Anchor events with 20-50 people in the beer garden.
143 Private events with 50-250 people in a barn space.
That’s just over 1 event per day! And if your mind is just as blown as mine was, it means you might be sleeping on events. Let’s break it down.
Promotional Events
Created and hosted by the brewery, the primary purpose of promotional events are to give more people a reason to visit the brewery, more frequently (a.k.a. increase sales). We’re talkin’ anniversary parties, makers markets, Halloween costume contests, goat yoga, etc. (Yes, there is such a thing as goat yoga and it usually is a packed house.)
An example to illustrate: our data shows that when done correctly, something as modest as a weekly trivia night can increase revenue by 30-50%. For some simple math:
Baseline weekday sales = $3,000
Trivia weekday sales = $4,500
Cost to run = $300
Assuming a 20% average COGS on taproom sales we’re adding $900 in profit each time we run the event, which comes out to $45,000 in additional profit each year!
And that’s just with trivia. Now start to add some variety with other more exotic or seasonal events that can drive up revenue even higher, and the profit really starts to stack up.
Private Events
Alternatively, when you run private events, you’re doing the best of both worlds: generating revenue and promoting your brewery. This could be a bachelorette party, baby shower, wedding, candle making class, cooking class, etc. What I love about private events:
Planned. With events you know the details and party size ahead of time. The event is planned out and predictable.
Profitable. Events are profitable. Once you receive the information for the event, such as date/time, purpose, number of guests, and services, you can set a profit target and back into pricing and options to get there.
Promotion. Events are wonderful exposure to past customers and new exposure to people who are visiting for the first time.
Running the numbers, if your average event revenue is $1,200 and you’re running 50% net margin per event, that would be $600 in profit. If our goal is 1 event per week, that would result in $31,200 in annual profit. And that’s with only 1 event per week!
Last word on events: they don’t sell themselves. So if your current process is to passively wait for customers to contact you, this is another sign you may be sleeping on events. Just like any other revenue stream, your event customers need regular reminders, which means your team is sharing photos, getting on the phone, and really selling the space.
Ready to run this play with your own brewery? Grab the full Taproom Profit Plays PDF and schedule a free profit session with the SBS team!