One question often asked by those organising events is what is the best day of the week to hold an event that will get us the highest attendance and level of engagement from our guests? Best days to schedule hospitality industry events
If you're planning to open a restaurant, nightclub or cafe, or launch a gourmet product destined for providores, book your "soft" launch event for a Sunday or Monday. These two days are the "weekend off" for people who work within the industry such as venue managers, caterers, concierges, restauranteurs, chefs, and sommeliers.
Once you've launched your restaurant or gourmet food product to the industry, you can introduce it to the public via a gala launch on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday, which are, of course, the busiest nights for the hospitality industry.
Best days for media and public relations product launches
Although the optimal time to launch a product depends on your industry, most public relations events and launches are held at the beginning of the week on a Monday or Tuesday. This offers more opportunity for wider press coverage on the event as Wednesday is the deadline for most weekend newspapers and early week events are more heavily attended by TV and radio figures.
Scheduling your product launch for breakfast or brunch lets media figures attend at the start of the day, go through your product launch media information pack and ask you any questions before filing their stories later in the day.
The least popular days are Thursday to Sunday as you miss out on coverage in the first week and then you run the risk of your event becoming old news as it is less likely to feature up to 10 days after the event. However if you have a major celebrity appearance, these guidelines don't tend to hold as much as you'll still get coverage.
Best days for charity fundraising events
Charity fundraising events are best held on Wednesdays or Thursdays rather than a Monday, Tuesday, Friday or Saturday. Reasons include that attendee turnout will be greater during the week before people start to wind down for the weekend.
Many non-profit associations prefer a lunch time event when targeting a business crowd as this allows time for people to go back to work afterwards - and also, because lunch catering is generally less expensive per head. High ticket price per head fundraising events are often held in the evening in conjunction with a trade show or awards gala.
Best days for corporate events
The best days of the week to hold a corporate event are Thursdays or Fridays. Corporate events are often run on Fridays after work as employers prefer to get a full weeks worth of work out of employees without having a high rate of absences from hangovers etc mid week!
The least popular days for corporate events are Saturdays and Sundays as many staff have children or other weekend commitments, and also Mondays through Wednesdays as this is usually the busiest and most productive time of the workweek.
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