Hey guys,

I just bought a company that basically provides events and marketing ideas to bars in Ann Arbor to try to pack the bars on Sunday-Thursday nights. What we already have is Trivia Night every Wednesday which packs the bar to where there's a line out the door on Wednesday nights, and also Bottomless Thursday where you buy a cup for $10 and get unlimited Dos Equis from 9-close.

I'm wondering if you guys have any ideas that you've seen work on other campuses, or anything that you think could work to drive up traffic on weeknights.

just your run of the mill mug night...buy the mug for 5 bucks, it can be filled for 2dollars. somethign to the extent of 3 beers per mug


.50cent bottle night/5 dollar cover charge. Bring your friends buy multiple cases yada yada

I know some bars promote karaoke/mario kart on the wii and other things along with these beer specials

Bar trivia is good. I'm in a college area and we've been playing a lot of bar golf lately.

Some things I've seen around the University of Minnesota:

Beer Pong Nights/Tournaments With some sort of trophy to the winners, something that the winners can keep and brag to other people/friends about winning the tourney etc

Bladder Buster: A bar that does this has a bar upstairs and the only bathrooms down stairs, 25-30$ gets the group of 4 unlimited cheap beer until someone in the group has to go down stairs to use the bathroom

Karaoke night is pretty big at one of the bars around here, college kids want to act like some singing superstar

Ladies nights are huge also, the ladies drink free beer/rails from 9-11 or something which brings out the ladies which in turns brings out the guys and packs the bar

Simply having cheap drinks can also boost traffic a lot one of the most popular bars has 1.50 beers/rails from 9-12 several nights a week. College students are cheap, they like good deals

That's all I can think of for now. Good luck.

I can't believe I forgot karaoke. doh

where in ann arbor can I get unlimited dos equis from 9-close bc I am there

BTB Cantina every Thursday night from 9-2. It's on Church and South U. Right above Charlie's.

Here in New Zealand we have this event called pub poker in various bars around the country. These bars agree to these 'pub poker' coordinators to host free poker tornaments within the bar, and the coordinator provides chips and poker table tops aswel as running the event (announcing blind levels, registering players, assisting problems etc.) this is held at these certain bars one day of the week, the city im in has it at atleast one diferent venue everyday.
The event is free to enter so its more attractive to get people into the door, and if you buy a drink/snack/meal whilst playing you get additional chips. you can also enter a raffle and win more chips as a prize. This is how they get money to fund the event and makes it worthwhile for the bar to accomadate. Winners of each event win a NZ$50 bar tab and get points that are put up on a leaderboard for the venue and region as well as their national status.
This mostly just attracts people who want to have a bit of easy-going fun after work and is nothing too serious especially after a greater interest in poker over the years.

one of the places here has different shot + beer combos for like 6 bucks... its like a shot of tequila + corona, red headed slut + yuengling, etc.

Your company's website is well designed. I've used the beer database before, it's especially handy.

Someone has complained to me that people are cheating at the trivia night with iphones/laptops that sorta thing.

A poker league is always cool, but Charley's doesn't seem like the right type of bar/atmosphere to host one of those.

The stix or whatever they're called at Charley's is one of my favorite foods. Those things are so damn good.

be very careful with the bladder buster stuff, some people try to hold it in too long and it can be dangerous, terrible idea for a special

in the UK what quite a few of the studenty bars do is contact the uni society heads and bribe them to set up socials at their bars - works really well if you get the right society on board. Generally they just offer discounted drink, free shots and pay the committee people like £1 a head.

do bottle service?

Sidetracks in Ypsi (more of a sit down restaurant) has a happy hour 7 days a week where it's $2.95 drafts and half off all liquor, needless to say the place is packed 7 days a week