This list has been gathered from our customers and collected from the internet. It is in no particular order and designed to let you quickly scan through and connect different ideas.
Understanding what you can do is half the battle.
For a more in-depth article, see 70 Event Ideas for Cafe and Bar Managers
Karaoke Nights
Sports Fans — host a Super Bowl party
Wall of Fame — a customer wall of frame for winning or recognition. This could be based on “completing” the beer menu, related to your monthly dart tournament, local “Guinness Records”, and interesting local achievement.
Wall of Fame “Walk” — if your bar is situated near a walking trail you can have a wall of fame for the time it takes to walk (made easier with GPS tracking but ideally set to the bar managers stop-watch timer). see Killarney Gap of Dunloe as an example.
Open Mic for musicians
Wine Tasting
Beer Tasting — you can turn a simple beer flight into an event by setting a time during the week and welcoming those interested.
Marathon Celebrations — catering for long-distance
Pop-up Catering
Friday-Long-Lunch — a purpose made 3 course meal for businesses in the local area to enjoy a more social long lunch. This competes with the concept of social team building activities and other more exepensive options. The Long-Lunch, allows for businesses to regularly have a social aspect built into the week for their employees.
Friday-Late-Lunch — slighly similar to a long lunch. The late-lunch is designed for after the Friday lunchtime rush and includes a beer or two to connect the time between Friday lunch and Friday after-work drinks and keep patrons sitting.
“X” Groups — connecting professionals that work in different departments together. This can be combined with a ‘Friday-Late-Lunch’ or Happy-Hours concept to have a once-a-month “X” Group catering for a specific group.
designersXengineers — graphic designers and software engineers….this is a large subgenre with many other specific subgroups. eg. “Frontend and Backend Developers”.
X-Drinks — to encourage intermixing between groups, you can offer a free drinks vouchers (or 2-for-1) that can only be redeemed by the “other” X group. It’s optional if you ‘police’ this or not.
paintersXwriters — painting in cafes and bars are increasing thanks to the likes of Yaymaker and private hosts organizing painting classes.
Folk-music
Open musician night — works well when you have a traditional style bar with space.
Open Jazz Night
Pop-up Craft Brewers /Tap Takeovers — enabling your bar to be a space for pop-up craft beer
Board Games
D&G Board Games
MTG Games
Table Games — pool tables, air hockey
Astronomical and Meteorological Events — if you have the outdoor space…
Paint and Sip
Beat the Bartender
Film Night * — a licence will be required
Support Local Teams
Intro To Local Team — short 20–30 minute talk about the local team for ex-pats and non-locals to learn and begin their journey to support the team. e.g. Breakers NZ Basketball Team (if you are based in Auckland!)
Social Board Games
Shuffleboard
Treasure Hunt Bar Crawl — partner with other bars and provide a printed map with tips and hints.
Local Scavenger Hunt — don’t partner with other bars, and provide a printed map with tips and hints that lead back to your bar.
Photo Scavenger Hunt — the end goal is a collection of photos of local interesting sights.
Klask
DAGZ — https://www.playdagz.com/
Dart Tournament
Shove Ha’Penny — https://www.mastersofgames.com/rules/shove-hapenny-rules.htm
Beginner Dart Games — tips and strategies for beginners
Foosball
Salsa Night — typically a class followed by a ‘night club’
Salsa Night “Open Night” — simply Salsa Music with space for people to dance if the mood is right.
Disco Night
Paint Night — https://www.yaymaker.com/
Bar Crawl
Bunny Hop (Bar Crawl) — https://www.instagram.com/bunnyhopcrawl/?hl=en
Karaoke Night
Eating Contests
“After Party” — related to when group of people do outdoor activities and need a place to end the activity in a social way.
5k After Party
Mindful After-Party
Cookout
BBQ
Cookoff — if you have the space to allow for competitions (food licencing and regulation notwithstanding)
Plantbased Cookoff — plant-based vs. real meat cookoff
Truffle Cooking Class and Lunch
If you are interested in using events to help increase repeat customers and reduce the effort of organizing an event for your cafe or bar, then you might be interested in Gohono.
We have launched a ‘Social Groups Platform’ for Cafes and Bars — and we increase customer retention by connecting cafe/bar customers that share similar interests.
I (based in Barcelona) and my co-founder (based in Germany) are building www.gohono.com — we help cafe and bar managers reduce the risk of organizing events by first connecting their customers.
Gohono is a new way for cafes and bars to engage their customers. If you are interested in a free 3-month pilot program, please visit www.gohono.com .
