Question: How are some bars boosting profits? Answer: Trivia nights

Shaw said the NYC Trivia League has recently brought places that never used to see themselves as trivia bars, adding more than a dozen to their lineup this year alone. Retention rates are up in 2023, and the league has become more selective with venues and hosts.

“I’m sure there are a million trivia apps out there, but there’s something about group competition, something about community when like-minded and competitive people come together to play a silly game but everyone understands the rules.” Shaw said.

According to Mike Kostio, a “trendologist” at Datasential, the rapid growth of trivia nights is part of a broader move toward “eEntertainment”, a combination of food and interactive activities ranging from bar trivia to pickleball-dining concepts. Kostyo said that catering has been beneficial for many bars and restaurants, as it does not add significantly to labor costs.

“You have a lot more customers at your location, so you need more back-of-the-house, front-of-the-house staff, but not something where you need to hire someone to manage it. It’s usually an outside The vendor is doing trivia programs,” Kostyo said.

According to a Datassential report from last year, 82% of Americans have been to at least one eatery venue, and more than 50% of diners said they are “very interested” in revisiting such an experience. Eighteen percent of respondents said they would visit eateries more often if they had regular trivia nights.

“At Trivia Night, we’re easily doubling our sales from last night,” said Will Arvidson, Tasting Room Manager at the Brooklyn Brewery. “Sometimes it’s hard for us to make people sit, but we find a way.”

Victoria Dawes and Christina Cheng, who most recently teamed up at Brooklyn Brewery Thursday, said they’ve been playing bar trivia for nearly a decade and agree it’s more popular now than pre-pandemic. The two said they take time each week to bond with friends and show off their random knowledge.

“I feel like we’ve lost so much connection with each other, and trivia has been an especially fun way to have normal conversations again,” Dawes said.

The rise of food and drink comes as inflation forces more Americans to examine how they spend their money.

According to Datasential’s February Table Stakes report, 39% of consumers said they are holding back on eating out, although Kostyo said cost-conscious people are looking for places to eat for value when they go out .

“A lot of consumers, they’re stuck at home all day and they don’t really socialize, so they’re looking for opportunities from the food service industry to re-socialize with friends and family,” Kostyo said. Said.

“But that doesn’t mean they’ve come back in large numbers,” he said.

Teams can win cash prizes – as much as $50 or $100 for first place at some bars – or shots, food or free merchandise. Those potential wins may encourage more spending from players and potentially offset costs for budget-conscious trivia-goers.

Conrad Coretti, who says his trivia team usually places in the top five at Brooklyn Brewery and other locations, said he’s more likely to cut spending on other weekdays, so he turns to bar trivia. Can spend “more liberally”.

“You’re showing up with your group, and you don’t really get to interact with other people, so it’s been a great activity to hang out with people you don’t always see and have a good time,” he said. Said.

With so many new venues hosting trivia nights, Kostyo warned that bars could “cannibalize each other” as more businesses try to plant their flag in the trivia space. They’ve seen more niche topics attract niche audiences at trivia nights.

To attract more consumers, some companies such as Geeks Who Drink have recruited new quiz masters and brought in customer managers to develop relationships with venues. Brian Carr, the trivia company’s marketing director, said the company launched a “Twitch” quiz that continues to this day, and that it has retained its 15-plus-person writing team to keep the creative content flowing.

Bringing back old locations and onboarding new locations has been a “slow process,” but the company has continued to grow its presence in cities including Denver, Chicago, and Austin, Texas. It operates full-service pub quizzes at around 650 locations, although that number was around 1,000 pre-pandemic.

“We try to provide venues with a great starter kit to make sure their event is ongoing, and we know it takes two to three months to build a really consistent follow-up,” Carr said. . “They can really see a big difference compared to before when they had common sense and then when they have these slow nights.”

Joshua Lieberthal, founder of King Trivia, a California-based company that has locations in about 35 states, said he’s seen more typical trivia nights today than before the pandemic. However, with lower profit margins, many bars have been forced to schedule “significantly more” weekly events to stay afloat, which may explain why the company went from about 200 weekly locations in 2019 to about 325 now.

Still, about 30% to 40% of King Trivia’s pre-Covid customers went out of business, and the rebuilding process has been bumpy.

“It wasn’t like when things started up again you got your old customers back — it was starting from scratch,” Lieberthal said. “Amazingly, we were more profitable pre-pandemic than we are today, even though we were much larger than we are today.”

Attendance and retention are back to pre-pandemic levels, due in part to the company’s expanded sales and customer service teams, he said. Every week though, Lieberthal said another client goes on hiatus or pushes back the launch date due to staff troubles.

“Because everybody gets paid more, because it’s harder for employees, you need more people working behind the scenes to make it all happen,” Lieberthal said. “It’s an unfortunate reality that the breakeven point is much higher in this industry than it used to be, but thankfully there are so many places wanting to run the show that it’s worth doing.”

For the Wisconsin-based Pub Quiz of America, founded in 2007 by Michael Landman, everything from staffing to pencil box costs has slowed the company’s pace of growth compared to before the pandemic.

As of 2020, the company had 205 locations in eight states. It is now back to around 175 despite starting from scratch and struggling with the high cost of doing business.

The company built an online system that could handle dozens more teams, but Landman noticed that many locations were unable to keep up with the increased demand. Others with sufficient staff could not find a suitable common sense host.

Tyson Sevier, general manager of Omaha, Nebraska-based Varsity Sports Cafe, which has partnered with America’s Pub Quiz for a decade, said venues are often one or two employees short on a busy trivia night. He acknowledged that’s a far cry from the “employee horror stories” he said he’s heard from other bar owners in the city.

Still, trivia nights at the Varsity Sports Cafe cost $2,000 to $3,000 more than other weeknights, he said.

Sevier said, “We’re having more and more people calling who want to play, so I think there’s definitely an interest that was common knowledge at only a few bars and now it seems like every bar has it.” ” “To be competitive you have to do it now.”