AV Guide: All to play for in the World Cup

Football can increase your footfall so it's time to review your big screen offering.

You might have noticed there's a little football tournament called the World Cup coming up. England are playing and have the best chance of winning since 1966 (or so the pundits say). What's more the kick-offs are at sensible times - mostly late afternoon and mid-evening.

As far as turning this opportunity into profits goes, your pub should be facing an open net. Like many, you might be considering upgrading your big screen equipment, or maybe investing in it for the first time. Coveniently - or possibly confusingly - there will be plenty of suppliers knocking on your door trying to sell you their kit.

You will want to make sure your investment pays its way, that the equipment is robust enough to stand up to the rigours of a pub environment, not just for this World Cup but for many football tournaments and other events to come.

Bear in mind that the latest home entertainment systems, which have really only appeared in substantial numbers since the last World Cup, are your competition this time around as much as the pub down the road. With widescreen television sets available for around the £100 mark, the public have become used to watching better quality images than ever before. For many pubs, those old-fashioned big screens, little better than the type your dad used to show his holiday slides on, just won't do any more.

The chances are that if you don't have a modern projector or plasma screen, the next pub along will have, and trade will gradually migrate there and leave you behind.

Technology has moved on apace, though. This will, for instance, be the first World Cup where plasma screens will be affordable for the average pub. Reputable, established big-screen companies, too, are more than happy to help pubs find the best solution and support the investment in equipment.

One of these, Smartbox, offers licensees a big-screen projector and plasma package, plus content that can help the kit pay for itself. Programming is interspersed with advertising and promotions that can provide a whole new income stream for the pub. It is also helping licensees with their marketing. The company is to begin publishing a tabloid newspaper called Box from April to promote screen broadcasts to pub customers and is putting together a supplement for the licensee, with advice on how to make the most of the World Cup.

It is also including special World Cup pages on its website - www.smartboxvision.com - from where a fixtures wallchart can be downloaded.

Screen positioning​

Smartbox marketing and creative director Larry Logan has plenty of advice for publicans on the best use of a big screen system. "First decide where to put your screen," he says. "This depends on what kind of approach you want to take. If you want everyone to be able to see the match no matter where they are in the pub, we can help there, or if you just want a quiet corner reserved for sport, we can do that, too."

Larry says that getting the screen positioning right can increase a pub's footfall by three or four times. "We know some pubs don't want that volume - but they are few and far between," he adds.

Smartbox recommends that licensees position at least one of their plasma screens behind the bar. One advantage is that customers don't miss any of the action while buying a round, so they don't have to wait until the half-time rush to buy their drinks.

What might put licensees off investing in screens - as well as the initial cost and the anticipated bills from Sky Sports - is that they don't necessarily see their business as a sports pub.

Tenants with Greene King Pub Partners are lucky here - the company has negotiated two-month plasma and rear projection TV rental deals so licensees can show matches using the latest technology without having to commit to a 12-month contract.

One supplier, Hot AV, has even broken new ground in giving pubs the chance to hire a plasma screen according to how much it's used, so if you like you can just pick the England games and only pay for the time the screen is switched on.

You could find, though, that the coming World Cup is a good time to reconsider your approach to sports. Even if you don't want to be seen as a football pub, selective use of your screens can be a money-spinner, perhaps as a way to boost takings from that empty function room.

Of course, not everyone wants to go down that route. But the key to making this investment pay, as with every other area of your business, is to not only do it, but to do it well.