How to Run a Venue. #Metrics

If you’re still stuck in the dark ages and you haven’t started tracking your revenue and expenses to the dime, you’re either overspending or leaving money on the table. You might think to yourself, the venue is doing just fine, and you’re absolutely right… JUST FINE. Who the hell wants their business to be “just fine.” Anyone who has run a venue knows that we’re not operating on high margins and we’re not walking away with a ton of money per event. Every nickel counts, whether it’s coming in or going out.

This brings me to... Metrics!

Data & Metrics go hand in hand. Here’s a quick example:

“At the Black Keys concert last night, we had a drop (i.e. attendance) of 10,000 people and we made $100,000 in Food & Beverage.”

Data

Drop        10,000

F&B Gross    $100,000

Metrics

F&B/drop    $10   

Lesson

When we do a Black Keys concert, people are going to spend around $10 per person in Food & Beverage

Think of Data as the individual stats and Metrics as the information gained from those stats. You’re always going to find lessons when you collect data and track your metrics. The fun part comes when you start analyzing more and more… was the above concert during the week, were your credit card machines down that night, did the concert start 45min late, and so on.

Think of all of the questions you can raise once you start tracking this stuff...

• How many F&B staff members did you have on that night? Too many or not enough?
• Did you overstock your inventory or did you run out?
• Did you need to serve the latest Cold Brew Coffee or was that a bust?

Now imagine if you started collecting data on all of your events and across all of your revenue and expense line items, you’d be making some spot on decisions!

If this sounds like too much work or if you need some help getting this up and running, we’re here to help, contact us at [email protected] or call 323-207-5099.