Pub Crawl Best Practices
MBA's meet the world of pub crawling head-on. Here's a quick take on what we've learned from the scores we've been on and/or planned in the past - many will recognize a definite B-School approach to the art and science of pub crawl planning. Lots of common sense-type stuff in here, but you'd be surprised how often people don't follow these seemingly obvious concepts. Note that many people out there have had hugely successful pub crawls that go against one or more of our Best Practices which is fine - this only represents the way we like to run our events, based on our own past (and sometimes, adverse) experiences. The Prime Directive: Probability of success and quality of events correlate strongly with the amount of planning done prior to the event. With pub crawls, the six P's are especially true - Poor Prior Planning Produces Pathetic Products (learned this from a third grade teacher). 1) Number of Bars: Minimum is probably six bars (anything less and it's no different than a typical bar outing) a practical limit for most people, assuming a bit over a drink per bar is around 12 bars. Ideal is probably eight to ten. Total time should be approx. 6-8 hours. Longer than that you start to lose people as folks tend to have more than one drink per bar since they're in the bars longer. Shorter than that, once again it becomes difficult to distinguish from a typical bar outing or you're running the two-minute drill" the whole game. A half hour to 45 minutes per bar seems to work best. There will always be people who think a 20-bar crawl would be a splendid idea, and that's okay - buy them lots of shots. 2) Distance Covered/Range: For walking pub crawls, around one mils total walking distance is probably ideal. Bus crawls are theoretically unlimited in range, but the farther apart the bars, the more time on the bus and the less in the bars. You can provide some beer on the bus to help offset this problem, but then you start changing your "pub crawl" into a "road trip". 3) Transportation: Walking is preferred to bus crawls because it simplifies logistics, and allows people to move at their own pace, as well as join/leave the crawl at any time. Adding a bus also creates/exacerbates your breakeven. An alternative is to add a "cab" leg to a far away bar, but this should be used sparingly as the crawl is already potentially an expensive event vs. a normal bar outing for most people. Also most locations don't happen to have large numbers of cabs just waiting for a 100+ people to suddenly show up. 4) Specials: Wherever possible, negotiate specials in advance with the bartenders/managers. This is also the ideal time to do a dry run of the crawl and prove out your route. Always get the name & number of who you spoke to and bring this with you on the crawl in case there's any problems or communications failure between management & staff at the bar. After awhile, you can build relationships with certain bars' management which can make the specials better and easier to get. Reward bars that treat you well with continued patronage. Vote with your feet on ones that don't. YOU are the customer. 5) Identification: The bars need some way to distinguish pub crawl participants from regular patrons so they know who gets the specials. This is reasonable. Tyvek self-adhesive wristbands are our favorite as easy to find and they're relatively inexpensive. Also, make it easy for the participants to identify the organizers so they can easily find you if they have questions, need maps/wristbands, etc. You can have fun with this (like wear special hats, interesting shirts, etc.). 6) Headcount/Size: Practical minimum is probably at least 30 people (especially if they're mostly good friends). Theoretically, there is no maximum, although from a practical standpoint, anything over 200 can easily become unwieldy and will probably overwhelm most bars assuming that's on top of their usual patron load. Either rightsize your bar selections to the anticipated turnout or, alternatively, break the group into smaller groups and hit multiple bars simultaneously (sort of like a "shotgun start"). 7) Marketing: Promotion is key to turnout, another seeming no-brainer. Maintaining a strong e-mail contact list is an extremely effective targeted marketing tool. Gather e-mails whenever possible, even at the events themselves. Encourage friends to forward your event announcements onto others (leverage the six degrees of separation). Having a website is also often very helpful as you can not only promote the event there, you can post pictures and stuff which will keep participants connected after the event. People who've had a great time at past events will often bookmark your URL. Most people welcome party invites, but you should still be sensitive to sending out too many e-mails as you don't want to spam your friends. And always allow people to gracefully opt out of your e-mail list if their definition of "too many" happens to be vastly different from yours.8) Themes: The crawls that seem the most fun (on top of just being an occasion to drink a lot) have a well thought out and cleverly integrated theme. Extra games at bars or tchotchke's (Santa hats, T-shirts, Mardi Gras beads, etc.) related to that theme give the whole event a lift. It is a balancing act though to do this without adding substantial cost or irritating complexity to the event.
9) Nametags: This is a social event. One way to encourage people to be social is have everyone wear a nametag. They're another thing that's pretty inexpensive, even in large quantities. It also helps those of us who forget the names of people recently introduced to us over 90% of the time, or who are introduced to a large number of people in a short time period, all while one is killing those badly-needed brain cells. And what seasoned pub crawler has not found him/herself in the potentially embarrassing situation of having talked to someone for over a half hour and completely forgotten his/her name?
10) Delegation/Succession Planning: It's always easier to share the workload of planning and running a pub crawl. And who will plan the event next year? No one can do this forever and no one likes to see their traditions die. Actively solicit friends and former participants to help plan the next one. Welcome with open arms people interested in helping plan current or future events. Some people love being in the spotlight and planning big parties. Finding them is a win-win for everyone.
11) Manage Your Money: Generally, pub crawls are viewed as fun events, rather than a profit generator, plus it is hard to make a profit as the bars themselves are transacting most of the business related to a pub crawl. It is usually preferable, however, to avoid a loss (especially a big loss) by doing things like funding excessive freebies yourself or having high fixed costs. If you have accessories, tchotchke's, etc., price them to recover your costs. Handling lots of cash in small bills is huge pain in the butt. It's okay to incur a small loss pretty much up to the cost of what it would cost you to otherwise throw your own party since this is in essence, what you're doing - hosting your own party for your friends and others. It's also cool if you can add a charity benefit spin, but once again, the more money changing hands the greater the hassle factor.
11a) Minimize Breakeven: If you run an event with a high breakeven cost, you expose yourself to a risk of significant loss if the event doesn't work out like you had hoped. This adds a lot of stress and grief to the planning process, which can be completely avoided by managing to the lowest possible breakeven (even if the event implodes, you don't add insult to injury by having to cover a big loss too). This is for fun - nobody needs that sort of grief from their recreation.
12) Have Fun: There's no point in going to all the hassle and expense of organizing your own pub crawl if you don't have a good time yourself too. Allow people who are having a great time at your event to thank you or even buy you an occasional shot or beer. Work the crowd and take time to meet your guests. Hosts having a great time spills over to their guests. That's what makes it all worthwhile and it's easy to forget this in the heat of battle.