Why our pubs need to feed the experience junkies

One noticeable shift is the move away from the joy of ownership to the joy of experience. Take music as an example. Not so long ago, music lovers built great collections of vinyl, and later CDs, displaying and alphabetising their library, which inevitably included cherished special editions and rare imports.

Today’s music lovers (at least those under 30) have nothing physical to show off and demonstrate their music preferences, save for the digital contents of their computer and iPod hard drives — much of which may have been shared rather than purchased.

Instead they seem to value more the fleeting experience of live music — and pay eye-watering sums to attend concerts. They pay to be in the moment and create memories they capture and display to their friends on social media. Instead of impressive record collections, Generation Y has busy Facebook and Twitter accounts boasting of the places they’ve been and things they’ve seen.

What’s interesting about this trend is it seems to be the opposite of that experienced by pubs. Why can’t our industry replicate the success of music and festival promoters, and attract hordes of experience junkies spending hundreds of pounds to savour the moment?

Maybe so much of the country’s pub estate is too safe, conservative and bland — and fails to create experiences the next generation demands.

There are pub brands, and some independent licensees, who know how to do it. Visit the Lass O’Gowrie in Manchester, our reigning Great British Pub of the Year, if you want inspiration.

Attendees at our recent Freehouse Business Club shared all manner of great event ideas, including: book clubs, comedy clubs, cup-cake parties, farmers’ markets, film screenings, football-score prediction competitions, F1 weekends, Mardi Gras carnivals, medieval banquets, murder mystery nights, pie-making contests, public speaking competitions etc.

And, of course, the pop-up pub is a phenomenon in keeping with the times. It creates a buzz, and a social-media frenzy that often has people queueing five deep at the bar.

We say our biggest competitor is home entertainment — The X Factor and Strictly on TV and cheap supermarket meal deals — and maybe that’s true. I hope so, because it can’t be that hard to come up with something to beat that ultimately disappointing night-in offer — and I write as someone who watched an overweight former soap actress stomping round the ballroom last Saturday night, before flinging my remote to one side and heading to the pub, where my evening improved immeasurably. Even if I didn’t tweet about it every five minutes.