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November 20, 2023How to create an atmosphere in your pubs – and grow your sales as a result…
The atmosphere is a central component to the success of a pub – with many pubgoers ranking it as more important than the beer, the food or the prices. So why is it so often underlooked, and how can you build an atmosphere that is a draw, not a drag, to your pub….
When designing an atmosphere, you must look at all the senses to help create a more ambient experience at every touchpoint. It’s important to have a clear idea of your target market and the feelings you want to portray to your guests. Do you want to make them feel relaxed and cosy, or is it all about a faster-paced trendy environment?
So, the design of your atmosphere depends heavily on your location and the clientele that will be visiting your pub. Therefore, as every pub is different, we can’t give you an exact step-by-step guide, but we can consider the key design elements that factor into creating the perfect ambience for pubs.
That’s why we’ve divided this article into the key senses to help you build a better environment:
Smell: The Most Important But Underated Sense ...
Whilst you don’t need to overcomplicate things, scent is often a serially overlooked key component in designing an environment. This fact is especially true considering the sense of smell is the strongest of the 5 senses and is the one most tied to memory and emotion. 75% of all emotions come from scent, and humans are 100x more likely to remember something they smell than something they hear, see or touch (Harvard Gazette, The Marketing Society, Discovery Magazine).
Therefore, you should create a ‘scent objective’ for every space in your pub or bar. Whether that’s the smell of freshly cooked food to help drive food sales, or a welcoming fresh scent as soon as you walk into the venue, it’s worth considering how this will impact your customer experience.
Sight: What You See Is What You Get.
Design is also an essential component to driving revenue and footfall to your pub or bar. You should have a target clientele and an overall ‘feel’ for the space you are trying to create. To create this feel, you want to focus on a few crucial components like lighting, colours and layout.
Lighting & Colours
The lighting of your venue is essential and should be a key consideration when designing the space. Harsh, stark lighting creates a clinical atmosphere, which fails to help people relax and wind down.
However, an adequate amount of light is shown to improve mood and boost energy levels – so it’s important to find a balance between a romantic ambience with dimmed lighting and a bright, warm feeling.
Not only this, but you should also consider the different light fixtures used and how they contribute to the overall design of your venue. Combining this with the overall design can help craft a unique pub experience, which will keep your customers coming back.
Colours are also used for creating the right atmosphere – warm shades tend to work well in restaurants as they are welcoming and enhance appetite. Warm white lights tend to give off a yellowish glow, which is great for low, ambient lighting, which creates intimacy around seating areas while still performing some illumination. You must pick a colour palette lending itself to your theme whilst matching the mood you’re aiming to create. In general, lighter colours will make rooms feel brighter and more spacious, whilst darker colours lend to sophistication and intimacy.
Layout
Layout is also essential when designing your space. How crowded do you want your customers to feel? Do you want to create a bustling, lively environment, or would you rather create a more spacious sophisticated environment?
You also want to try and match the design with the function of your building. You want to make it easy for customers to access the bar.
Seating positioning is also really important. Your customers need to feel comfortable to stay for longer. The seating will also impact what your customers see – which should be considered.
Sound: Music to your ears ...
Music is also a powerful tool to engage customers, with 81% of consumers saying that business background music lifts their mood and 71% saying it creates a better atmosphere. Similar to your lighting, your music should change depending on the day and type of customers that turn up.
When it comes to your music, you also need to consider the sound of music and where your speakers are to produce the right sound levels. You should ensure that there is sufficient sound outside as well as inside.
As with everything when creating an atmosphere, it’s important to cater to your pub's customers. If your customer base is younger then make sure your music choices match this.
This blog was just a quick guide on some key components for designing an ambient space that attracts customers. The key is to adopt a customer-centric approach – what space would your ideal customer archetype like to relax in? By focussing on serving a certain group your pub space won’t be designed for everyone. But by trying to cater to all you cater to none.
Those were the key components for creating a truly great atmosphere … which one do you think is most impactful?
