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HOME | email | 877-725-6967 | Submit a Twister | Restaurant Links | Articles | BalloonHQ.com Enjoy entertainment at select family restaurants featuring a Balloon Art Twister ARTICLES Running Your Business: How To Effectively Use Live Entertainment in Bars and Restaurants By Phil Johnson Using live entertainment in your business can be a real boon. When it's done right, you'll see your customers coming more often, staying longer, and enjoying themselves more. Of course, that means more profit for you and your business! As a performing artist traveling from venue to venue, playing bars, clubs, restaurants, and more all over the western US region, I see a lot of things that work and a lot of things that don't work. As an owner or manager of your own establishment, there are things you should know to really make live entertainment an effective addition to your plans for success. I work in a variety of types of shows from straight band gigs, to standup comedy, to cabaret type shows. And the same basic principles apply no matter what kind of show you're thinking of putting on. 1. Don't mistake live entertainment for a marketing plan. Before you even think of entertainment, the rest of your marketing plan should be in place and working. What makes your business unique? What kind of advertising are you doing? What PR work are you doing? What kinds of specials, discounts, and deals are you offering your customer? Your business should first be functional without entertainment. Live shows are an added attraction to keep people there longer so you can sell them more food and drinks. A common mistake is thinking that just by adding a live show, more customers will arrive. And then, to expect the performing artists to populate your business with their fans. While it's ok to expect the artists to help with promotions and such, you've got to do your part too. As artists, it's our job to promote our art, not your venue. During that gig though, the two objectives match up and it needs to be an evenly divided job. If you're not going to do anything to bring customers in, don't expect the artist to fill your room either. Even if your business is specifically designed around live entertainment (i.e. a comedy club or concert hall) you are still responsible for making sure that your business is functional and can draw customers on its own, regardless of who's performing. When you can make that happen, the performing artist's work will just add to that and create an even better show As an example, the Improv Comedy Club in San Jose, CA will draw anywhere from 30-100 patrons on any given night that don't even know who's performing! The customers know that the Improv is going to give them a good comedy show and so they trust them with their dollars. The venue does its job of getting the word out that they have quality shows and they've become to "go-to" place for comedy in town. If you've got a restaurant, people should be coming for the food and staying for the entertainment. Don't be like a place I recently played that only had a comedy show so they could sell food to the comedians. Needless to say, nobody made money that night. Frankly, most performers won't, or don't know how, to promote their appearances. Many of us do, and when you find us we'll make the process easier. But the majority of performers won't be much help in bringing people in. The more attractive your business is to start, the more you'll be able to overcome the promotional deficiencies of the performers. 2. Use appropriate entertainment for your business. This seems like a no-brainer, but you have no idea how many times I've seen (and been hired for) completely inappropriate entertainment bookings. If you've got a quiet little bistro, don't book a loud rock band. If you're doing a dinner show, don't book dirty comedians. Nobody wants to hear genitalia jokes over their meal. If you've got a raucous bar, don't book a poor solo singer-songwriter who will get lost in the din. One of the best ways to pick entertainment is to ask your customers what they want. (Shock!) Brainstorm a list of possible entertainment ideas from comedians, to magicians, to cabaret performances, and different kinds of bands, and ask your regular customers what they'd like to see. If your customers just want to hang out and talk to each other, they probably won't want a show that they'll have to pay close attention to. Nor will they want something too loud. Try something background. On the other hand, if they're looking to be actively entertained, then find something interesting for them to look at and listen to. You have to know what you want your reputation to be. The best jazz restaurant in the area? The punk rock coffee shop? The place for magic and Mexican food? If your customers know what to expect, you can create new kinds of "appropriate". 3. Book good acts rather than "anyone who draws". When performing artists approach you about a booking, make sure you listen to their demo recording (or video) to make sure that (1) they're good at what they do, and (2) that they're appropriate for your business. You will find some artists who will draw large crowds, but who aren't very good. It's a conundrum of the business, but usually these types of performers are drawing large groups of friends who would go see them play even if they blew taps on a kazoo. By booking acts that aren't good, you're going to alienate your customers and get a reputation for booking crummy acts. And the people that go to see those acts will rarely become loyal customers of your business because they only go see their friends play. We had a club like that in my area for a long time that most people called the "Practice Club" because they knew all the bands fresh out of the garage played there. Not coincidentally, the club was rarely profitable and ended up going out of business. Be picky about who you book. If you book good, appropriate acts and apply good marketing, you've got a winner on your hands. Quality over quantity wins every time. Of course, "good" is a very subjective word in the art world. That rough and sloppy garage rock band may be what you and your customers like. If so, book them and design your reputation around that. But if you're booking jazz, then make sure it's a good jazz group, and not a half practiced group of hobby players. Here's a good way to get your customers interested in the shows. Let them help pick the acts. Invite some of your best customers to come in after hours, or at some off-peak time, to listen to demos with you and help pick which acts they'd like to see. It will also get them to tell friends about the show since they feel more invested in what's going on. This is a proven strategy. 4. Don't EVER list the event as "Local Band Night". Or local "whatever" night. People expect to be entertained by professional performers. The term "local" to most people means "amateur", even if that's not true. Putting "Local Band Night" on your marquee is as good as putting "You might as well stay home because these guys suck Night." That's the connotation of the word "local". The same goes for "Amateur Night", "Local Showcase", "Unsigned Night" or any other similar terms. If you're booking acts that aren't up to par and you're warning your clientele of that by naming it "Local Whatever", then why are you even booking those acts? I think many business owners think that using the word "local" communicates that they're helping new artists, or being involved in the community. It simply doesn't. It means you'll have an empty room that night. And if you are featuring pro quality acts that don't have a big name yet, bill them as pros. Professionalism is the quality of the act, not the quality of the name. One other thing to beware of is using entertainment industry terms like "indie" or "unsigned". Most people don't know the difference between a band on a major label, and independent label, or releasing their own CDs. Moreover, they don't care. They want good quality entertainment. Period. 5. What about Open Mics? Open mics are a very specialized kind of event and they're certainly not appropriate for most businesses. I adore businesses that do them though, because they supply much needed stage time to new performers as well as pros looking to keep their chops sharp or try out new material. However, because of this, you're not usually going to get good quality entertainment. You're going to get new people who don't know how to perform yet. And you'll get pros that are doing new, untested, and often not yet good material. If you're going to host an open mic, you're doing it because you want to support and help develop artists in your area. And that's the only reason. Don't expect to make money with them. The artists are there to work out their stuff and most won't spend much money. Don't expect to get a large crowd of non-performers as "open mic" sounds pretty close to "local band night" to the average listener's ears. On rare occasions you'll find an open mic that develops both a good quality performance base and a collection of non-performers attending. These events are real gems, and if it happens you'll have a great, supportive event to look forward to. But still, don't expect to make a lot of money. I know of just one in my area that has this magic formula - top notch entertainers and a good size audience of non-performers. And the order counter is still empty most of the time. My advice, if you are one of those kind-hearted souls that wants to do an open mic to support artists in your area, is to do it on your slowest night of the week. If you've got no customers anyway, you may as well invite a bunch of artists in and gain their support for your room. Mondays and Tuesdays are fine. Most performers don't have gigs on those nights, particularly the pros. So you may draw in a more high caliber level of performer that way. 6. Don't expect acts to perform for free. Now, being a performer myself, I'm obviously a little biased about this point. But not paying performers is something that's rampant in any performing industry and one of the main reasons your events can fail miserably. Professional quality acts work hard and earn money. If you want to present pro level entertainment to your customers (and you should) be prepared to pay for it. Not paying your performers is like your customers saying they'd like their meal for free, and they don't care how much work you put into it. Being an artist is a full-time job. From writing to recording to marketing, the job extends to considerably more than the normal 40 hour week. The couple hours on stage is the fun part. You're not paying for the show. You're paying for all the behind the scenes work that makes the act good and a good draw. I know you wouldn't want to work that hard for no money. One of the familiar excuses to get out of paying an act is that it's "good exposure". Horse manure. That makes as much sense as me asking you for a free meal, and if it's good I'll tell my friends. Unless you're putting an act in front of hundreds or thousands more people than they would otherwise have access to, it's not good exposure. It's unpaid labor. If you don't pay performers, you're going to get the kinds of performers that will play for free… ie. bad ones. And, as we discussed, booking bad performers gets you a bad reputation, which gets you fewer customers. There are a variety of ways to pay performers, from flat guaranteed rates to a percentage of the ticket price, or a chunk of the bar money. Figure out what works for you, but make sure you treat your performers fairly. They'll do the same for you. In my own shows, I do a lot more work to bring people into a show I'm getting paid for than one I'm not. And if I'm not getting a performance fee, I'm going to spend most of my energy getting your customers to buy my merchandise so the evening isn't wasted for me. How much to pay is a very subjective matter. Negotiate with the act to see what's appropriate. Different types of acts have different rates, and everything is negotiable. 7. Should you charge a cover or sell tickets? That really depends on the situation. I like to have a ticket charge, but also be able to give away plenty of free and discounted tickets. People will jump when they're getting a deal. And think of it this way, the more they pay for the ticket, the less they have to buy food, drinks, and whatever else. Your business's job is to make money selling food and drink. If you're paying the artist out of that money, then everyone is on the same team to meet the objective and any ticket money is gravy on top. But it really depends on the situation. For instance, my audiences aren't big alcohol drinkers. So trying to make money on the bar doesn't make as much sense. Charging a cover or ticket price gets them to pay some money that goes to both the venue and me. However, in a restaurant, they'll buy plenty of food and it's more effective for everyone to let them spend their money on that. How much to charge again depends on the act and what your local market can sustain. Don't overcharge, but don't undercharge either. Sometimes a free or cheap show communicates that the act isn't worth paying for. Especially if you normally charge more for other shows. If you are going to do tickets, always have advance sales available. The more tickets you sell in advance, the less you have to worry about having an empty room on show night. Advance ticket sales are not hard to do, and you don't have to deal with the big corporate companies to do them. For extremely effective solutions to advance ticket sales check out GoldstarEvents.com and BrownPaperTickets.com . I've used both companies for my own events with great success. And, of course, selling tickets right from your business is very easy. Just print some nice looking tickets on card stock paper on your computer, and sell them directly to your customers. 8. Make sure to comply with local laws. Most cities have regulations about live entertainment. Cabaret permits and sound permits are common. This is particularly important if you'll be having amplified music of any sort. If you're just going to have a string quartet or standup comedian in the corner, you may not need any special permissions at all. But it's always best to check what your local regulations are and comply with them. I've seen lots of places fined and shut down for not doing so. Having live entertainment in your business is a very exciting way to take things up a notch. When you start with a strong reputation for food and drink, adding live shows will just make you more successful. It all comes back down to that marketing basic: Find out what your customers want and give it to them. They'll reward you with more dollars and more word of mouth! EMAIL Phil Johnson is a veteran performer throughout the western region. He can be seen solo and with his band Roadside Attraction in both music and comedy venues. WANTED by Twister: Restaurant to twist at weekly WANTED by Restaurant: Twister to entertain at my location Twisters looking to work a restaurant may email us. Include: Weekly days, times & cities you prefer. Restaurants looking to hire a twister may email us. Include: Weekly days & times you're interested in. for TWISTER SCHEDULES, select a location AL | AK | AZ | AR | CA | CO | CT | DE | DC | FL | GA | HI | ID IL | IN | IA | KS | KY | LA | ME | MD | MA | MI | MN | MS | MO MT | NE | NV | NH | NJ | NM | NY | NC | ND | OH | OK | OR | PA RI | SC | SD | TN | TX | UT | VT | VA | WA | WV | WI | WY GU | PR | VI | Other countries will be added as submitted Entertainer at a restaurant, but not a Twister? No problem, submit anyway. FunForKidsNight.com Coming Soon! HOME | email | 877-725-6967 END OF PAGE

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