How Independent Bars Can Land More Private Events and Corporate Bookings

A practical outbound sales plan to pitch private hire and corporate event packages to local businesses and event planners. No sales team? No problem!

On This Page

• Why slow nights at independent bars are a private-event sales problem
• How to build a target list of local businesses and event planners worth approaching
• What a private-event outreach sequence actually looks like for bars
• Why follow-up is where most bar owners lose the booking
• How to prepare your venue offer so it converts cold outreach into real inquiries
• How LemonLime handles outbound prospecting for independent bar owners
• FAQ

Why Slow Nights at Independent Bars Are a Private-Event Sales Problem

Tuesday 7 PM. 8 people in the room. Your staff is clocked in, the lights are on and the keg is tapped.

I have the capacity to host private events. Now I just need the demand for them to walk in off the street.

Picking up that kind of business often goes to the first bar owner who gets around to contacting you.

Private events can solve a big structural problem for independent bars – converting your off-peak inventory into guaranteed revenue. Often a bar’s best margin will come from a buyout on a slow night versus an open night on a busy Saturday. This is because the cost of service is fixed and you know exactly how much money you are going to make.

The gap isn't product. It's outreach.

How to Build a Target List of Local Businesses and Event Planners Worth Approaching

You don’t need a huge database of event venues. Create a short list of relevant companies within a 10-20 minute radius of your venue, and figure out why they would even hold a private event.

Start with three segments.

Local businesses with recurring event budgets: This may include law firms, financial services, real estate companies, technology startups and medical practices. They typically hold 1-2 client facing events per year and a number of internal events. A team of thirty people need a venue for their annual holiday party.

Event planners and corporate event coordinators. Search LinkedIn for "event planner" or "corporate events coordinator" filtered to your city. Repeat buyers. One relationship with a planner who likes your venue can send you four to eight bookings a year.

HR departments and office managers at mid-size companies: They are responsible for the culture budget. Employee appreciation events, onboarding social events and team milestones are all within their scope of work.

For each contact record a name, job title, company size and a reason why your venue is best for their next event or function. Most rejection statements can be thwarted with personalized reasons why your venue is a good fit for their organization – references to their team size, their industry or recent company milestones get results.

Create this list in a simple spreadsheet (even 50 qualified contacts is a good starting point).

What a Private-Event Outreach Sequence for Bars Actually Looks Like

Remember cold outreach for private hire is best kept short and highly relevant to their pain points rather than always referencing your space.

A workable sequence looks like this:

Day 1, First email. Two short paragraphs. The first sets out who you are and what you can offer i.e. private bar hire for teams based in the local area. The second attempts to reference a point of interest/relate to the company/individual’s role. The third line is a soft ask to discuss further, i.e. would they be interested in a 5 minute call to view packages.

Day 5, LinkedIn connection or follow-up message. It’s very unlikely you’d want to send the exact same email again. Use the opportunity to add some new value. Give some context about the kind of events you’ve been organizing lately, your current capacity and your geographical location in relation to theirs.

Day 10, Second email. refer back to first email and change direction. Start with what you can offer the recipient i.e. a special offer for the current season, a sample menu or a clear price guide to help them to visualize the event.

Day 20, Final follow-up. Keep it light. Something like: "Happy to send over a one-page summary if the timing makes more sense in a few months." This preserves the relationship for a future booking cycle.

Continue the sequence across all of your channels. Email alone won’t get the job done. LinkedIn messages and social messages are less intrusive than more email.

Why Follow-Up Is Where Most Bar Owners Lose the Booking

Here's the number that explains most lost deals: 80% of sales require at least five follow-up contacts, yet 44% of reps quit after just one attempt.

One email and silence does not constitute a sales process. It constitutes a coin flip.

The people who book private events are busy. An initial email from a bar they've never hired lands in a full inbox on a Wednesday morning and gets mentally filed under "check this later." Later rarely arrives unless you show up again.

This follow-up sequence is not aggressive. It is spread out over three weeks. It comes from several different channels. Each message is different from the others. That is not annoying. That is persistent.

Most bar owners are too busy to put aside time to learn how to run their bar, in addition to managing staff, inventory and the floor. Building and executing a four-touch outreach sequence for fifty contacts, and tracking where each one sits, requires consistency you simply may not have at 9 AM on a Thursday.

That's the part of the business worth solving.

How to Prepare Your Venue Offer So It Converts Cold Outreach Into Real Inquiries

Outreach gets people into the conversation. Your offer converts them into customers.

Before you send a single message, make sure you have these three things ready.

One-page summary for private hire. This can be a simple Google Doc that outlines your capacity, the nights you’re available to work, minimum spend etc. Add a few photos and that’s it! You can then attach this to the follow-up email or even just share the link.

Offer two or three package options. Provide the customer with a few different choices rather than a completely blank quote. This could include a cocktail reception package, a full buyout of the venue, and a semi-private section booking option at various price points.

Direct Booking Contact. Clearly state who guests can contact for direct bookings i.e. email addresses and telephone numbers. An inquiry emailed to a general email address that is checked only 2 times a week will often lose out to a call to the bar that receives a response within an hour.

Corporate buyers are notorious to move quickly. A local tech company is looking to book a team outing for next month. They email out 3 potential venues and you reply 3 days later, losing out to the competition.

How LemonLime Handles Outbound Prospecting for Independent Bar Owners

In many states, building a list of prospects, writing personalized emails, following up via multiple channels on a consistent basis week after week – that’s a part-time sales job that most independent bar owners don’t have to hire for.

LemonLime works as the proactive sales and marketing hire that fills it.

Study the venues where your content is being used and shared locally and continuously study the local market and your competition, as well as your own content. Using over 50 lead sources, targeting methods, and buying signals, job boards, LinkedIn activity, company sites, maps, funding announcements, and more, LemonLime identifies the local businesses and event planners most likely to book private hire at your kind of bar, then prepares personalized outreach for each one.

That outreach is prepared across email, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, X/Twitter, and TikTok, with LemonLime selecting the channel that fits the opportunity. Nothing goes out until you approve it.

Every morning at 9:00 AM local time, LemonLime delivers a relevance-filtered email with the work it's prepared. You review, approve, and send. The prospecting, the writing, and the sequencing happen without you building or operating anything.

Also, the Action Plan highlights several adjacent growth opportunities such as local PR, partnership with event planners and more. This is content to build on your website and social media channels as well as to use in your outreach work. And, again, all of this content can be developed as part of your on going daily work.

Setup your business name, website and current priorities within less than 2 minutes. No internal data connection required. LemonLime starts learning your business immediately, and the first delivery arrives the following morning.

Pricing starts at $999 a month with no minimum contract and a 100% money-back guarantee for any new customer who isn't satisfied. See how it works.