Summer is on the way! Perfect for an Event! (no matter the weather)

For the winter-sports clubs, summer is the time to draw breath, take stock, and plan, plan, plan! - for the summer sports clubs it’s time to gear up and make hay while the sun shines always with one eye on preparing for the coming, leaner winter months.  

Making the most of summer is vital. Summer sports clubs shouldn’t lose sight of the opportunity to maximize their revenue while everyone is focused on their sports - rugby and football clubs need to make sure that they keep their eyes firmly on the juicy summer prize while their players are sunning themselves on a beach. 

Summer provides a unique opportunity to embed your club into your community’s event calendar – people want to be outside, having fun, and chilling out. Where better than the wide-open spaces and handy facilities available at their local sports club?  

Put simply, whether you’re a summer club competing on the field or a winter club planning next season’s campaign, summer events are a no-brainer – they can engage with your members, increase footfall and usage, drive sales, create a community bond and enhance your reputation with key stakeholders including local councilors to laid-back chillaxers! 

As with any event, there are risks. The Great British Weather has scuppered many a great idea. Sometimes, clubs fail to plan (and therefore plan to fail) and either don’t have enough stock or have too much left over. Perhaps people don’t take to the idea of the event and stay away? Maybe your vision doesn’t match the space you have available, or even what you think will be a winner doesn’t match with your local community’s idea of a cracking day out. The confusing morass of legislation governing events has meant you miss some crucial bit of health and safety advice. Possibly you can’t get the staff, because they’re also sunning themselves on the beach with your players, or out in the middle batting for promotion?   

That’s a lot of uncertainty! 

Below, we’ll give you the confidence to survive and thrive in the summer event world – to boost returns and do it safely and with confidence!  

What sort of event? 

What does your community actually want?  Conduct customer research, find out what your members would like to attend – they can be great sounding-boards for ideas that will resonate more widely. Giving them some suggestions and doing a poll could give you a good indication of what events will be supported, and which ones are not likely to attract significant attendance.  

Consider what events you have hosted in the past and which ones were successful. Those that were not successful, ask yourself that very searching question: what went wrong? What did we miss?  

Here are some ideas for summer events: 

• Wine tasting 

• Brush Party  

• Outdoor comedy club 

• Themed Events around UEFA Euro 2024 or other sporting events 

• Concert or music festival – not Glastonbury-sized, but a day of live music – if you’re brave enough, organise a Battle of the Bands and watch the sparks fly… 

• The classic beer and cider festival – try to make sure you focus on local – get in with the microbreweries in your region and leverage their support 

• Walking or cycling events finishing at your club – the perfect place for families to await the return of their loved ones, and the perfect reward for this thirst competitors 

• Themed Food Events. 

• Cater to the traditional audience with a gala dinner and dance 

• Pétanque evening 

• Golf tournament – embrace and exploit the mega-competitive nature of your members and feed their need for bragging rights!  

• Outdoor movie screening – the days of the Drive In Cinema may be gone, but thousands of people attend warm evening screenings of classic films – what will appeal to your members and supporters? Invictus? Or maybe Mike Bassett: England Manager before a crucial England game…! 

• Picnic – simple ideas are often the best! Can you think of something to add to really make it worth people’s while? Picnic-table service? 

• Barbeque competition – again, exploit your members’ competitive instincts and their passion for fire and meat – prizes for best barbeque & best barbeque sauce 

• Creative events such as pottery, painting, crafts etc. – for maximum impact, think of ways to link it to an existing event  

• Cocktail-making – maybe one of your bar staff is a budding Tom Cruise – or maybe a local pub is branching out – ask them to partner up? 

If you set your committee or membership group the task of coming up with event ideas, you’ll find even more opportunities that are spot-on for your club and tailored to your clientele.  

What do you want your event to achieve? 

Once you have decided on the type and theme of the event, you need to consider what

you would like to achieve from it. Is it basic fundraising? Do the admission charges just need to cover the costs, and you plan the profit to come from extra revenue from increased food & beverage sales? Are you simply looking at getting your members together to improve community spirit and increase engagement or are you trying to build your brand and raise your club’s profile within the community. Maybe a mixture of all the above?   

With most events held at sports and social clubs, the absolute bottom line is: DO NOT LOSE MONEY.  If ‘break even’ or ‘washing its face’ is a core requirement, you can reject speculative ideas that ‘might’ work out-of-hand.  What are the estimated costs for holding the event? How many people do you (realistically – remember the Great British Weather) expect to attend and what will you need to charge per person just to cover those expenses? Don’t forget to add a contingency: there are always additional costs that have not been anticipated in the planning.  

Can we actually deliver it? 

Next you will need to consider what manpower and skills you require to deliver the event. A good look around the club to identify potential volunteers that could support the event could really help in reducing the expenses. If you don’t have the team or the skillset available within your organisation, consider getting outside support, maybe even an event management specialist to relieve the pressure. 

Maybe – and this is a GOOD ‘maybe’ -- Club Consult can help! 😊  

Everyone wants their event to be successful and all of the attendees to have a great time and want to come back for more, but ultimately the event has to be safe and well-organised. For the team at Club Consult, the basic building block of a safe and successful event is the ‘Event Management Plan’ - especially if the numbers of attendees are going to be large (and we all hope they’ll be queuing at the door!).  

A thorough Event Management Plan should give a full overview of the event, highlighting any potential risks, the methods to reduce those risks and – crucially – who is responsible! 

Below is a list of some of the areas to be considered in your plan: 

• Access and exit points  

• Attendance and audience profile 

• Contact lists 

• The role of the organisers and the staff  

• Post-event clean-up – make sure the community remembers the event, not the mess left afterwards! 

• Security & barriers 

• Communication  

• Traffic Management  

• Medical & First Aid cover 

• Fire Risk Assessment 

• Emergency services 

• Risk Management 

• Incident Management 

The event plan should be specific to the event: some of the above may not apply to some activities, and one size does definitely not fit all! You will need to adapt, innovate and overcome – but you don’t have to do it alone… 

Club Consult has many years' experiences in managing events – we have delivered great times for tens of attendees and thousands of attendees. 

Bottom line – don’t waste the opportunity that summer offers – and if in doubt about anything, why not engage Club Consult? We can put your summer on track for success – contact us for a chat!