4 Party Scheduling Tips for Your Family Entertainment Center

As you work to improve your Family Entertainment Center or event business, it’s important to continue adding party scheduling tips to your internal PlayBook.

After all: the world around us changes quickly! One minute business is booming and the next, everything has shifted. Thinking of ways to continually improve the party side of your business is critical to your continued success.

Let’s dive into 4 party scheduling tips that will help you to plan, host, and manage more efficient parties at your Family Entertainment Center.

Get more info here or click on the image below to download our eBook on Building a Playbook for Your FEC or Event Venue.

4 Party Scheduling Tips for Your Family Entertainment Center

The party scheduling tips in this article all center around one primary goal: effective and profitable parties. I’d like you to think about the party side of your business like building blocks. Alone, each block is simply a block. But together, the blocks make an incredible, strong fortress!

So, let’s build your party booking business.

Tip #1: Optimize Your Website

Let’s first lay the foundation for your party business—it all starts with your website!

A well-designed, mobile-optimized website is going to bring more business through your doors. 

• You’ll rank better, helping you to appear first in search results.
• Your prospects will know what attractions you have, and what party packages you offer, and will make it easy for them to book parties or purchase tickets ahead of time – no need to worry about scheduling parties when site visitors will do the heavy lifting for you!
• It will ensure that potential guests don’t click away and go elsewhere.
• It will pique their interest in your facility and make them more likely to share it with others.

As you consider optimizing your website, here are a few things to look out for:

Old or Outdated Code or Themes

If your website has not been edited recently and is 5 years old or more, it’s time for a refresh! Old code or themes can hurt your ability to rank in search results and will also make for a very poor user experience.

Hire a web designer or use a service like Wix or Weebly to bring your website up to speed.

Too Much Text, Too Many Pictures, or Too Many Colors

The design of your website matters. Our human eyes are very sensitive, and too much text, pictures, or colors may cause potential guests to click right off of your site.

Consider a more “modern” approach. A simple color scheme with lots of neutrals and one pop of color—like a white background with elements of light gray and one solid color (like orange, blue, or green).

Speaking of color, did you know that colors influence feelings and emotions? According to HelpScout, color psychology “is the study of how colors affect perceptions and behaviors. In marketing and branding, color psychology is focused on how colors impact consumers’ impressions of a brand and whether or not they persuade consumers to consider specific brands or make a purchase.”

The colors that you choose to use on your website will impact your guest’s perception of your facility, so keep this in mind as you’re working to improve it.

Remember: your goal is for potential guests to schedule parties and events at your facility. Make them want to book a party with you by providing a great experience from that very first click!

Tip #2: Make it Easy for Guests to Book Parties

Now that you’ve refreshed and optimized your website, it’s time to focus on party booking!

This one is simple: make it easy for your guests to book parties.

Easy means:

• Your packages and options are listed clearly and specifically on your website—no phone calls are required before someone books!
• You have an online booking module in place—again, no phone calls back and forth to get a party booked!
• Your guests can select their party of choice, select the day, provide their information, place their deposit, and hit book—all from your website.

If the steps of your party scheduling process are manual, you’ll want to remedy that immediately! Manual processes create inefficiencies in your business and make it easier for mistakes to be made. And no one wants that!

Tip #3: Collect Data During the Booking Process

The more data you can collect, the better. Data such as names associated with email addresses and birthday information will make it easy to re-market later. When it comes to party scheduling tips, data collection is a piece that will be crucial as you plan your marketing strategy!

Get more info here or click on the image below to watch our webinar on Using Data to Discover Business Opportunities!

The data that you collect through your online party booking system and your digital waivers will not only help to create a better experience for your guests and to re-market later—but there’s one more big benefit. Great data will help you to track trends. Seeing how many parties and events you booked in January and February will help you to plan strategically for the next year.

This information will also help you to fill gaps as you discover them. Perhaps you didn’t capitalize on some of the smaller holidays last year like St. Patrick’s Day or silly holidays like Pirate Day. Now might be the time to consider slotting in some new ideas based on what your reporting system tells you.

If you’re a new facility or you aren’t sure what to do with your data, we highly suggest downloading a copy of our complimentary 2020 Online Party Booking Study. This study shares critical information about how far in advance parties are booked, who is booking parties (hint: it's MOM!), and which months are highest for a party booking.

Tip #4: Use Checklists to Stay Organized

As you build out your top-party scheduling tips in your internal PlayBook, don’t forget about checklists!

Checklists are what will keep you and your staff on track during the entire party process. If you’re a PCS customer, you likely already depend on our checklist system that ensures you don’t miss a single thing for your upcoming events!

If you’re not a PCS customer, that’s okay! We have plenty of amazing resources to help you create checklists to help you to be prepared from beginning to end. Download the entire series below!

The Event Planning Series - Issue #1 "The Before"

The Event Planning Series - Issue #2 "The Party"

The Event Planning Series - Issue #3 "The After"

Improving your party scheduling and booking process is right here at your fingertips. We hope the resources mentioned in this article are helpful as you continue to grow and scale your business.

Like This Post? Leave a Comment Below!

Was this article helpful? Let us know in the comments below. We'd love to hear your thoughts!

NEW RESOURCE

Online booking is an opportunity to enhance your guest experience. That’s why in our newest resource, you’ll find three key tools that’ll help you drive traffic to your online booking page.