Pub event ideas that fill the room, and how to promote them

Quiz nights

A weekly quiz is a classic for good reason: it gives people a fixed night to plan around and a team to come back with.

• The regular quiz. General knowledge, same night, same start time, every week. Consistency is what builds the crowd.
• Themed specials. Once a month, try music, film and TV, sport, a single decade or local history.
• A local round. Photos of nearby landmarks, old pictures of the high street, or a round about the pub itself.
• A league. Keep a table across the season and finish with a final and a proper trophy.
• Guest quizmasters. A local teacher, the darts captain or a well-known regular, once in a while.

Keep prizes sociable, such as a meal for the winning team or a hamper from a local producer.

Live music and entertainment

If you're short of pub entertainment ideas, these all work in a pub setting and can be scaled to your room:

• Live bands on a Friday or Saturday night
• An acoustic session on a Sunday afternoon
• An open mic night for local musicians, poets and comedians
• A folk or jazz session where players bring their own instruments
• Karaoke
• A comedy night with a host and three or four acts
• A DJ for a party night or a bank holiday weekend
• Tribute acts, which can bring their own fans with them

Live music promotion that works

Good live music promotion starts with the act. Ask for their name exactly as they want it written, a good photo, a short video clip and their social media handles. Then:

• Add them as a co-host on your Facebook event. A Page can add another Page as a co-host, and co-hosts can invite people to the event too.
• Invite them to a collab post on Instagram. If they accept, the post appears on their profile as well as yours and goes to both sets of followers.
• On the night, post a short clip from the soundcheck to your stories, then a photo once the first song starts.
• Afterwards, thank them publicly and tag them, which gives them something to share with their own fans.

Match days and big tournaments

Sport can fill a pub, but only if people know what you're showing and when.

• The weekly fixtures post. Every Monday, list what you're showing, when it starts and whether the sound will be on.
• Big games as events. Create a Facebook event for each big match and take table bookings if you expect to be full.
• Match-day food. A pie and a side, a sharing platter, or a burger special that's easy to serve at half-time.
• More than football. Rugby, cricket, darts, snooker, Formula 1, boxing and the big race days all have followings.
• Pub team nights. Invite the local football or cricket club in to watch together.

When a major tournament comes round, plan it as a run of events rather than one-off posts. Publish the list of games you'll show, open bookings for the biggest ones early, theme the food, and put the house rules for busy games (booking, standing room, when doors open) in one post. Our guide to social media for bars has more match-day post ideas.

Themed nights

Themed nights give people something to talk about and a reason to bring friends who don't usually come in.

• Food nights. Curry night, pie night, steak night, fish on Friday, or a street-food night with a local trader.
• Tasting evenings. Meet the brewer, a local cider maker, or a gin or whisky tasting with small measures, food and plenty of water.
• Games nights. Board games, a darts or pool league, a chess club, table football.
• Decades nights. Music, food and outfits from the 70s, 80s or 90s.
• Community nights. A charity evening, a book club, a knit and natter, a dog show in the garden.
• Workshops. Wreath making in December, pumpkin carving in October, a cocktail-making demonstration with a mocktail version too.
• Murder mystery nights, with actors or a boxed game and a set menu.

Pub crawl themes

Groups often plan a crawl around a theme, especially at Christmas and for birthdays, stag and hen dos. Being a welcoming stop on the route is good business, and you can go further by teaming up with neighbouring pubs on a themed trail. Here are some fun pub crawl themes groups can pick from:

• Christmas jumpers, the more ridiculous the better
• Hawaiian shirts in the middle of winter
• Pick a decade: everyone comes dressed from that era
• One colour: everyone wears a single colour, head to toe
• Famous duos, dressed in pairs
• Old football shirts from the 1990s

Funny pub crawl themes tend to be the most homemade. "Tourists abroad" (socks with sandals and a bumbag) and "bad fancy dress" (the cheapest costume wins) are two of the best pub crawl themes, because anyone can join in at short notice.

Keep any trail you host or help plan responsible. Make it a trail rather than a race, build in a food stop, make soft drinks and low-alcohol options easy to choose, and never reward people for how much they drink. See the rules section below for why this matters.

Seasonal events

The calendar hands you ready-made events every year. Some favourites for pubs:

• Winter: Burns Night, Valentine's Day, Pancake Day
• Spring: St David's Day, St Patrick's Day, Mother's Day, Easter, St George's Day
• Summer: Father's Day, a beer festival or barbecue in the garden, garden games
• Autumn: Halloween, Bonfire Night, a harvest menu
• Christmas: Christmas parties, carol singing, a Christmas jumper day and New Year's Eve

For the dates and how far ahead to start posting, see a year of social media dates for venues and our Christmas marketing ideas for pubs and restaurants.

Check the rules before you advertise

Some events come with rules, and the time to check them is before you post. This isn't legal advice: each point below links to the official body, so check with them if you're unsure.

• Live and recorded music. The government's page on getting a licence to play live or recorded music explains TheMusicLicence from PPL PRS. PPL PRS says its licence for pubs and bars covers uses such as live performances, DJs, karaoke, open mic nights and music in your quiz. Separately, the government's entertainment licensing guidance explains when entertainment needs permission from your council.
• Showing sport. TV Licensing's page for hospitality venues explains when a pub needs a TV Licence, including for pay TV. Check with your broadcaster that your package allows you to show matches to customers.
• Bingo, raffles, sweepstakes and poker. These come under gambling rules, so check the Gambling Commission's guidance before you advertise one. Its pubs and clubs toolkit covers bingo and games such as poker in pubs, and says facilitating betting in pubs is illegal. Raffles and sweepstakes count as lotteries, so read its guides to running a lottery for your customers and running a raffle at a fundraising event before you post about one. They set out where tickets can be sold and, for a customer lottery, where the draw can be advertised.
• Facebook's own rules. Facebook's policies for Pages, groups and events say you need Meta's written permission to use a Page, group or event to promote online gambling, and that this also applies to games where something of monetary value is needed to play and forms part of the prize. Their examples include raffles, bingo and poker.
• Drinks offers and crawls. The mandatory licensing conditions ban irresponsible promotions, as the government's alcohol licensing guidance explains, and the Home Office guidance on mandatory licensing conditions gives drinking games as one example. Both cover England and Wales, so if you're in Scotland or Northern Ireland, check with your local licensing authority.

Promoting an event: a simple plan for before, on and after the day

Every event, from a quiz to a festival weekend, can follow the same pattern.

1. As soon as it's confirmed, ideally three to four weeks out. Create a Facebook event from your Page and post an announcement on Facebook and Instagram. Our guide on how to promote an event on Facebook and Instagram walks through each step.
2. Two weeks before. Give people a reason to come: who's playing, what's on the menu, what the prize is.
3. One week before. Post a reminder, and add a countdown sticker to an Instagram story so followers can ask to be reminded.
4. The day before and on the day. Post "tomorrow" and "tonight" updates on both platforms, then share stories as you set up: the soundcheck, the quiz sheets, the food coming out.
5. Afterwards. Share a thank-you post with a few photos (with permission), tag the act or the winners, and announce the next date.

For a weekly event, use the Repeat event option when you create the Facebook event (it repeats daily or weekly), then keep the posts fresh with a new photo and a line about what's different this week.