DrinkedIn Trends

As an innovator who works tirelessly behind the stick, you are uniquely qualified to share your thoughts on today’s hot cocktail trends. After all, who knows better than you what people are looking for, ordering and consuming?

The International Wine and Spirit Research (IWSR), a Nightclub & Bar partner, is looking to you for cocktail trend information. Simply complete this quick survey from IWSR, the leading source of data and analysis on the alcohol beverage market, and you’ll be rewarded for your time.

Just how will you be rewarded? You’ll receive a unique Promo Code to save an additional $10 off the early bird rates toward your 2017 Nightclub & Bar Show pass, which takes place March 27 through 29, 2017, in Las Vegas.* Nightclub & Bar Show is the nation’s most influential gathering of bar and nightlife professionals. Annually, for over 30 years now, more than 36,000 professionals gather from across the US and 50-plus other countries to learn, network and grow the industry!

Take the survey now! See you in Vegas!

*Disclaimer: Nightclub & Bar Show promo code will be provided upon completion of the survey. Must be 21 years of age or older to attend Nightclub & Bar Show.

Name:E. Carter Wilsford

Establishment:Analogue

About the Bartender: E. Carter Wilsford was born and raised in Central Texas, near San Marcos and Austin. He has always worked in the food and beverage industries and loved it. Three years working in kitchens and grocery retail followed by three years in spirits retail helped E. Carter Wilsford to acquire a fairly unique set of skills and knowledge for working behind the bar. He previously bartended at Freedmen’s, Hopfields and Peche in Austin. This highly skilled bartender and self-proclaimed whiskey geek moved to NYC a year ago to further challenge himself, and he says the experience has been pretty fantastic so far.

Astute readers will recognize E. Carter Wilsford from the dark and black cocktail feature we published last week. Read on to learn more about our October 2016 Bartender of the Month.

Why did you become a bartender?

The key to measuring the success of your club is by understanding your data. Yet, most venues don’t look at their data to get an accurate gage of how well their club is performing. The problem is few venues have a system in place to analyze this data, and even fewer have the necessary time and resources to comb through the information to make sense of it all. As a result, venues are operating blindly and wasting time and money on areas that may not be working.

To get a true sense of how your venue is performing, you should be able to rattle off:

If you don’t have an answer to these points, it’s time to put a system in place. The good news is there are systems out there, like Vēmos, that are designed specifically for nightclubs and automate data and analytics for you to help you run a more profitable nightclub. Don’t cut yourself short by only turning to your point of sale (POS) system to provide this data. While it’s true that most POS systems collect data, it’s oftentimes presented in convoluted ways. It’s nearly impossible to get a glimpse of your club’s employee performance, promoter performance, individual guest sales, or trending liquor sales.

The best systems are fully integrated solutions that collect data from any area of your club and analyze and present it in one central spot. Stop using separate systems for each area of your venue. You shouldn’t need to use a different system for guest list, reservations, events, ticketing, and general admission. Not only is this inefficient, it also makes it really hard to understand your performance as a whole. A system that combines all of this into one dashboard is able to:

With this type of system, you’re able to easily review the data that’s presented, benchmark it against your goals, and optimize your results to work in your favor. If something isn’t working – such as a certain type of liquor isn’t selling well or a promoter isn’t providing results – then fix the problem. Data is the true power of a sustaining business. After all, the more you now, the more you can do.
 

Employees can be a tremendous source of new customers, referrals and customer retention. However, not every employee invests their time into promoting the business they work for. What separates employees that simply show up to work from those who invest their time and energy into building relationships that ultimately result in more customers?

The employees who bring the most customers to their bars are motivated by more than money. They are fired up, proud and passionate about the bar at which they work. This attitude does not just happen accidentally. An employee with a positive attitude towards their bar becomes that way as a result of the work environment the owners create. Keeping staff morale high is a strategy that is no different than a recipe for baking a cake.

If you are interested in creating more excitement among your staff, and transforming them from order takers into promoters, here are 4 tips for raising staff morale and turning them into ambassadors of your business.

Throw a Staff Party

Regular social gatherings with your staff are a must to get them excited about working for your company. Keep in mind that most restaurant and bar workers are party animals, and half the reason they work in the industry is to partake in the festivities. Regular staff gatherings deepen bonds between coworkers and increase the comfort level people have with their workplace. It also creates excitement and a sense of identity and belonging, which automatically leads to staff feeling more confident in bringing their friends to your venue. If you want to raise the energy level of your staff, one of the easiest ways to do it is to throw a party of legendary proportions, and show them a hell of a good time.

As any nightclub operation knows, booking an artist is one of the more stressful parts of the job. Not only do you have to ensure that you get the kind of artist that people will pay money to see, but you also have to make sure the artist is kept happy throughout the process. You also have to take into account your own financial considerations; after all, the cost of the artist is usually one of the biggest – if not the biggest – costs of the night.

Cut Out the Middleman

If you’re unfamiliar with the booking process, you might be tempted to use a talent buyer, also known as a middle buyer, to help guide you through the steps of getting in touch with an artist’s representation and securing the artist for your venue. Unfortunately, those middle buyers come with a cost, and in most cases, the work they do isn’t necessarily worth the amount of money they’ll charge for doing it (usually 10% of the artist’s fee). From your standpoint, all a middle buyer does is add an additional layer of communication between you and the artist. Sure, they can save you time and hassle in some cases, but it’s not the route to go if you’re looking to save money.

Know How to Negotiate

You should also be willing to negotiate (and know how to effectively negotiate) the artist’s fee. Just because an artist quotes a particular fee doesn’t necessarily mean you should pay it, nor does it mean that they expect to receive it. Being willing to negotiate on their fee can save you a lot of up-front costs. As with any negotiation, though, you have to know when to push and when to ease off.

Nominations for the 2017 VIBE Vista Awards are due no later than November 11, 2016!

The 2017 VIBE Conference, known as the premier annual event for recognizing the leading chain and hotel adult beverage executives and suppliers, will be held in San Diego, CA, from February 27 to March 1. Each year, VIBE recognizes the creation, training, execution, management, and ongoing positive results of national on-premise companies’ corporate beverage programs with the VIBE Vista Awards

There’s no time to waste – submissions are due no later than Friday, November 11, 2016. For more information on the 2017 VIBE Vista Awards, please visit www.vibeconference.com/awards. To view the 2016 VIBE Vista Award winners, please click here.

Nominations may be submitted by sponsors, consultants, agencies, distributors, suppliers and operators, and are judged on creating positive initiatives that spark beverage sales, innovations that contribute to operational efficiencies, and training and service programs that lead to the highest quality standards and operational practices. All submissions are reviewed by a panel of Johnson & Wales University beverage faculty, staff and alumni.

The VIBE Vista Awards recognize top performance in the Multi-Unit Chain Restaurants and Hotel, Cruise Lines, and Casinos divisions. The awards highlight programs and promotions in the following categories:

Demography, in terms of our industry, is the statistical study of human populations. And in terms of just about any industry, there is nobody better at interpreting demographic information that 2017 VIBE Conference keynote speaker Ken Gronbach. Perhaps more importantly than the gathering and analysis of demographic statistics, Gronbach has a peerless, innate ability to explain demographics. It’s his seemingly preternatural skill for the communication of invaluable information that makes his upcoming appearance at VIBE so significant, and what he has to share to his essential to your success and the success of your brand.

So what can 2017 VIBE Conference attendees expect from Ken Gronbach’s keynote speech? Perhaps the best way to answer that question is to share a story directly from the demographer himself. Not too long ago, Gronbach was invited to speak to a group of elite marketing officers operating in the hospitality industry. He started his presentation by asking those gathered one question: “What’s the most important question in marketing for you?”

Many answers were offered up: understanding Gen Y, reaching Gen Y, discovering what products and services are most important to Gen Y, psychographics, and many more answers specific to particular hospitality operators. Gronbach looked around this room of powerful officers and told them that they had all missed the answer: How big is your market, and is it getting bigger or smaller? What the 2017 VIBE Conference keynote speaker understands as a demographer is that it doesn’t actually matter much what you do for or provide to your customers. If your market is shrinking, if the generation that’s heading towards you is tiny, it doesn’t matter how great your products or services may be or how clever your marketing campaigns are – your business is going to go down.

“On the other hand,” Gronbach says, “If you have a huge market headed your way, it almost doesn’t matter what you do – you’re going to sell a lot more of it, whatever ‘it’ is.”

For the most part, the demographer states rather bluntly, your success depends on the size of your market. And that, in short, is what Gronbach will talk about during his keynote presentation. Not only will you not want to miss this presentation, “Charting the Course through Demographic Change,” you can’t afford to miss it. Register now for the 2017 VIBE Conference taking place in San Diego, CA, from February 27 through March 1.

There’s no way any bar can carry every spirit on the market, not even close. Some that focus on certain spirits (tequila, Scotch, bourbon and gin come to mind first) do make exhaustive efforts to keep up, but they are the outliers. Most bars look to the highest volume brands, throw in a few local favorites or bartender must-haves, and leave it at that.

On-premise spirit sales in the US are outperforming beer and wine, and are being driven by Cognac, Irish whiskey, tequila, and single malt Scotch, according to new data from Nielsen. But the report points out that, based on that booming value and volume, bars and restaurants aren’t shifting their inventory to the brands that offer the most potential right now.

The overall figures reveal that spirit sales in bars and restaurants across the US have undergone steady growth, with volumes up 1.7% and value up 2.9% for the 52-week trend through mid-August. Over the same time period, beer dropped 3.2% in volume and 1.3% in value, while wine sagged 1.6% in volume and 0.6% in value. Cognac led the growth, reporting an impressive 31.1% in volume growth and 36.8% in value. Irish whiskey followed, up about 10% and 11.4% respectively, while single malt Scotch whisky was third, up 4.4% in volume and 12.5% in value.

“The latest numbers confirm the long-term trends at play in the on-premise, especially as usage moves from habit to treat occasions,” said Scott Elliott, SVP, Nielsen CGA. “From the latest data it shows that whiskeys, tequila and Cognac/brandy are still under-spaced in the average bar or restaurant given their value-contribution and trend direction.”

Most bars and restaurants are slow to shed brands and inventory, while always looking for the next big thing. But sometimes the next big thing is a whole lot of small things. While most of the Irish whiskey growth comes from the monolithic Jameson, there’s plenty of money to be made in trading customers up to the growing number of brands of Irish that are now available in the US. Cognacs are finally starting to get some cocktail activity, but again, most bars rely on the power of Hennessy, the leader in this country, rather than looking for brands they can promote and market on their own.

Tracking food and beverage sales by day part is a time-honored restaurant practice to ensure that operators get the most out of the busiest times and know where to concentrate their traffic-boosting efforts. At the upcoming 2017 VIBE Conference, consultant George Barton will focus a panel of operators during a presentation entitled “Get Your Day Part GROOVE On-Track.” An old hand at chain restaurant beverage practices from his years with TGI Friday’s, Barton will be looking to explore best in class deliverables and what it takes to continuously drive beverage revenue during key day parts, especially Happy Hour and Late Night.

VIBE: Where do you see the current state of Happy Hour in the chain environment?

George Barton: I’m seeing everything, all across the board. I spent 35 years in chain beverage when trends were fairly distinct but now I’m seeing nothing consistent. So, I expect our panel will be focusing on things like how different people are making Happy Hour work with food and beverage today.

VIBE: Did Happy Hour just die out?

Barton: I don’t think Happy Hour ever left, but folks are definitely looking at it differently. I’ve been a long-time proponent of what I call the three basics of Happy Hour: vibrant point of purchase efforts, getting the right features in place, and having the right amount of labor in place. But today I see concepts with 9, 10, 11 different features, features from the well, 7 or 8 craft beers and wines… This isn’t keeping it simple and they are simply going too deep. Then there are those who do the simple 5 for $5, or 7 for $7, or some variation including both food and beverage, but I’m not seeing much consistency.

The holiday season is just around the corner and with it comes a calendar of festive event bookings. 

Events boost profits for nightclubs and bars during this time of year. Holiday parties offer the perfect opportunity to attract bookings with beautiful décor, fun themes and a seasonal bar menu that will keep guests remembering your establishment. More importantly, crafted cocktail creations with trending flavors presented in stunning glassware inspire guests to return all year long.

“The holidays are a busy time of year, especially for any bar, club or restaurant that specializes in events,” said Susan J. Dountas, director of foodservice marketing for Libbey Inc. “To distinguish your establishment and keep your space booked, a memorable presentation is key. Drinks featuring seasonal flavors, festive decoration and served in premium glasses will impress guests. They will be sure to remember their evening and spread the word to their friends and family.”

The Right Glass for the Right Drink

To elevate the beverage experience at holiday events and keep guests raving requires choosing the right glass for the right drink. The Master’s Reserve® Collection by Libbey® is American-made legacy craftsmanship that creates a glass to heighten the beverage experience. The Collection was designed to appeal to all of the senses. Its optical purity and purely radiant shine make any drink look stunning. The colors of a seasonal punch or a garnish in infused water shine through like no other glass. The precise balance of Master’s Reserve in the hand lets your guests feel the luxuriousness of the glass and quality of the drink while its resonating ping is music to their ears. Most importantly, the shapes of Master’s Reserve are carefully crafted to enhance flavors and aromas.

Halloween, to many, is more important than the other big fall and winter holidays. As such, it’s crucial that your Halloween, All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints’ Eve, or Dia de los Muertos (November 1 to 2) promotions go off without a hitch. There’s nothing scarier than putting time, labor, money and other resources into an event, only to open to your doors to a most terrifying vision: nobody in line.

To help you avoid such a horror, we present you with the following inspiring Halloween promotions. Cheers!

Haunted Homecoming & Forbidden Ball

When it comes to parties, Las Vegas nightclubs tend to go huge. Light located inside the Mandalay Bay will be celebrating Halloween for four days, starting on October 26 with Haunted Homecoming. DJ Mustard will provide the soundtrack, and he’ll do so on October 28 as well. J. Cole will be the host on October 29, and Disclosure will perform a special DJ set on Halloween itself. Of course, no promotion is complete without a catchy themed hashtag, and Light has certainly come up with a great one for Halloween: #Lightmare.

Stranger Things Halloween Weekender

Veterans Day is Friday, November 11. That means you have plenty of time to plan and execute a promotion honoring our veterans. After all, this important national holiday is about recognizing those who have served in our armed services. Our current political climate may be troubled, divisive and mired in vitriol, but we should all be able to set aside our differences and say thank you to those who have served our country irrespective of politics.

Whereas Memorial Day is a somber acknowledgement of service members who made the ultimate sacrifice defending our freedoms, Veterans Day can be celebrated more like other bar holidays. Take, for instance, the Ybor for Heroes’ annual pub crawl. This crawl is an annual celebration of the Marine Corps’ birthday (they’re 241 years old this year!) but is open to all veterans, as well as their friends and families. Three venues in Ybor City (a neighborhood located in Tampa, Florida) will be hosting the crawl, which includes dinner, cocktails, desserts, music, auctions and raffles: Gaspar’s Grotto, The Bad Monkey and The Lion’s Den Cigar Lounge Ybor. So, consider planning and participating in a similar pub crawl for Veterans Day (or, if you prefer, on November 10, the USMC birthday). If flying solo is more your thing, there’s no reason you can’t create a promotion honoring veterans that includes food and beverage specials, live music, raffles, and giveaways.

Speaking of food and beverages, several restaurants offer free food items or even meals to veterans on Veterans Day. Some of these promotions are general (free breakfast or entrée) while others are a bit more specific (free entrée under a certain price point, free dessert, free appetizer, etc.). The parameters are up to you. Known for your chicken wings? Offer veterans a portion in a size of your choosing for free with military ID. Have a well-curated craft beer selection? Get with your reps to see if any of their offerings have patriotic names and offer specials on those. A little creativity will serve you and the veterans in your area well.

Finally, Veterans Day offers you the opportunity to give back. Perhaps you, a manager at your bar or nightclub, or some on your staff are veterans. Without a doubt you have veterans living and working in your community. As temperatures drop now that we’re in autumn and winter is approaching, putting together a coat drive or other charity event is an excellent way to serve your local veterans. If you need assistance planning such an event there are several veterans services and other charitable organizations you can contact for help.

We should honor our veterans each and every day, and we should all go out of our way on November 11 to stop and say, “Thank you for your service,” to those who have served.

The return of one of the greatest fighters of this generation, Manny Pacquiao will help fill your business with enthusiastic customers Saturday, November 5th. Hosting pay-per-view events is a fantastic way to showcase your establishment and increase per table spending.

Legend and eight division world champion, Manny Pacquiao returns to action November 5th when he takes on WBO Welterweight Champion Jessie Vargas. This event will be telecast live on pay-per-view from the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, NV. Pacquiao is looking to regain the belt he lost to Floyd Mayweather last year, while Vargas is expecting to make a changing of the guard with a win over "The Pac-Man."

Also on the card, Filipino star Nonito Donair defends his WBO World Super Bantamweight title against undefeated Jessie Magdaleno. WBO World Featherweight Champion Oscar Valdez, who has 18 KOs in 20 fights, battles number one ranked contender Hiroshige Osawa. Kicking off the event will be former Olympic gold medalist Zou Shiming going toe-to-toe with Prasitak Papoem of Thailand.

Your customer service representative can help you with ideas and materials to promote boxing in your bar or nightclub and ensure you are ready to make the most of your fight night experience.

Saturday, November 5th 9 pm ET / 6 pm PT

Dallas bar customizes everything to make most drinks accessible to those with allergies or intolerances

Josh Hinton has an easy way of dealing with the food allergies and intolerances that his customers come in suffering from: He makes everything from scratch.

“We offer a customized experience so we can switch out one of the ingredients, if it doesn’t work for a customer, and replace it with something else,” says the owner of Pepper Smash located in Dallas, Texas.

This includes:

But it’s not just about customization; substitution also plays into the bar program here. This boutique bar offers several gluten-free versions of all the most popular spirits, including rum, tequila and vodka. “Some of them are more expensive but my philosophy is you charge accordingly,” Hinton says. “If a bottle costs me more, I charge more. Customers are conditioned to know this is going to cost them more.”

The Nightclub & Bar Convention and Trade Show formed a new partnership with the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association (FRLA), sponsoring the Opening Night Party during the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show which took place September 27 through 29, 2016, at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.

Further showing support for the FRLA, Nightclub & Bar donated a Travel Package which included passes to the 2017 Nightclub & Bar Show which went up for auction at the FRLA Show on Sept. 28. All proceeds from the auction package will be donated to the FRLA Educational Foundation.

“Partnerships like this are extremely exciting, as they result in the top minds from the restaurant, foodservice, bar, and nightlife industries all coming together in one spot,” remarked Questex President and CEO, Kerry Gumas. “By bringing together such complementary industries, attendees and exhibitors have unlimited opportunity to take their business to the next level.”

“We’re proud to have the valuable support of the Nightclub & Bar Convention and Trade Show during this year’s Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show. This partnership will foster meaningful collaboration amongst the industry’s leading players, as well as inspire extraordinary innovations in Florida’s restaurant, lodging and foodservice industries,” said Carol Dover, President & CEO of the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association. “Florida’s already sterling reputation for unparalleled service and hospitality continues to exceed the expectations of our visitors and residents.”

To watch view a video of highlights from FRLA’s 2016 Marketing + Operations Summit, click here.

With nightclub and bar customers across every continent, the girls and guys at Cluboid are finding that their nightclub and bar management software is taking the industry by storm. So much so, that they are considering taking measures to slow things down a little. CEO Daniel Cooper says, 'We are looking into adding a queue system to on-board new customers due to massive demand. We knew the software was awesome when we launched, but boy this has spread quickly in the last 18 months. We can't wait to show customers the technology we are building for the future. It will blow people's minds.'

Since 2013 the Cluboid team have created leading nightclub and bar management software. With real experience in running nightclubs and bars to the highest standard, it enables them to hold a unique insight into the nightlife industry. Their Customers get instant access managing business no matter where they choose to work from, and the software boasts features such as nightlife CRM, bookings, ticketing, floor management, automated marketing, analytics, data collection, and beyond.

In the competitive and evolving nightlife market place it's good to have Cluboid on your side. After all, they are here to put power tools in the hands of nightclub and bar managers.

For more information visit www.cluboid.com.

Halloween kicks off the end of year holiday spree. It’s also a big party event where customers are looking for a way to celebrate. Here’s how you can make sure you capture the most revenue on Halloween weekend, whether you sell tickets to your party or operate as an extra-spooky non-ticketed venue.

[Ed Note: DrinkedIn has great marketing products for your bar such as smartphone based event handling]

FOR TICKETED PARTIES

1. Set up a pre-sale ticketing strategy

Pre-sale revenue is the best way to pay for your event before it even happens. The best way to pre-sell revenue is to create and manage an online event page, sell tickets to consumers right through the page, integrate the event with a mobile app for promoters to sell tickets directly from their device, and sync the events with a Facebook widget to sell tickets directly through your Facebook page and Facebook ads.

New Year’s Eve is the biggest event of the year, and it’s also the most competitive. That’s why it’s important to get a head start and plan out your event now so you can have a successful and profitable night.

Follow these 9 tips to ensure a successful New Year’s Eve party.

1. Publish Your Event Now

You need an event page, and you need it to be launched now. This gives you time to market your event and attract customers so they can start making their plans around your party. It’s important to have a section of your website or a specific landing page dedicated to your event. Simply having a sentence description on a third-party ticketing company’s website isn’t going to cut it. People want to know the vibe of your party, understand why they should attend, and get a gauge of what they can expect by attending. Plus, having your own page allows for greater SEO opportunities, allowing guests to find out about your event in search results.

It’s also important to make sure customers can buy tickets directly on your website and aren’t redirected to a third-party. Redirects oftentimes lead to cart abandonment, and you can lose out on that customer’s data. Work with a ticketing company that’s built for nightlife events and integrates with your site for the best experience and to collect the most data.

“We can predict what populations are going to do based on their age.” – Kenneth W. Gronbach

Tweet it: Let @KenGronbach bring you into his world of counting people at 2017 VIBE Conference www.vibeconference.com/register #Demography

San Diego – The 2017 VIBE Conference welcomes world renowned demographer, bestselling author and president of KGC Direct, LLC. Kenneth W. Gronbach as the keynote speaker for the annual premier beverage conference, taking place Feb. 27 to Mar. 1 at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina.

Twenty years ago Gronbach made an important discovery in the sales of Japanese motorcycles that led him to switch careers from retail marketing to demography. Since then, Gronbach has been able to forecast societal, commercial, economic, cultural and political phenomena with uncanny accuracy, advising businesses undergoing major changes.

“The study of demography and the study of demographic is an incredible and accurate tool for forecasting a company’s business,” Gronbach said. “Without it, you can’t know the size of the market that’s headed your way.”