Pride Month is such an exciting time. You’ve got parades, rainbow flag decorations, and a real sense of community. One beautiful way to get involved as a business owner is to hold Pride-themed events. And if you need extra inspiration, why not brainstorm some Pride Month happy hour ideas?
Everyone loves a good happy hour, and this way, you can attract a crowd quickly. You create a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community and encourage an atmosphere of celebration. Of course, you get benefits, too, with the boost in brand awareness and profit. It’s a win for everyone and a great way to celebrate this Pride in business.
In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about happy hours this Pride. Get ready for definitions, benefits, and ideas galore. In less than 10 minutes, you’ll have everything you need to start your Pride happy hour.
What Is Pride Month?
Pride Month is a month-long celebration of the queer community each June. It takes place in June because of the Stonewall Riots, a series of riots and protests for LGBTQ+ rights.
In 1969, the Stonewall Riots took the USA by storm. At this time, homosexuality was shockingly still under classification as a mental illness. Tensions between police and the community grew, and eventually, riots rippled across the country. This was a huge turning point in the fight against homophobia and the battle for gay rights.
Shortly after the Stonewall Riots, the USA held marches across the country. This had a knock-on effect on other countries like the UK. Gradually, as time progressed, June became a designated month to celebrate gender identity. June is when we prioritize inclusive spaces and embrace the sense of community.
When considering Pride-related events, it’s essential to understand the history of Pride. As a business owner, you have an excellent opportunity to offer an inclusive space. So why not get on board?
3 Benefits of Celebrating Pride Month in Hospitality
So, why should you celebrate Pride in hospitality? Why is this a good idea for you and your business? In short, there are dozens of benefits, but we’ve whittled it down to the top three to consider.
Celebrating Pride is brilliant for brand awareness and profit. It also builds awareness of the endemic homophobia we still battle today. Here’s what you need to know.
1. Brand Awareness Increases
Event marketing is a tried-and-tested technique for boosting brand awareness. Everyone knows the power of a good event. You get people over your threshold that would otherwise not get round to — or even think of — crossing. This is a brilliant way to boost brand awareness.
You could run events like happy hours, open mic events, or (for a more serious tone) speakers on current issues. You can cater to whatever your target customers love, from partying to education, fundraising, and performances.
2. Profit Rockets
You will inevitably turn a higher profit by getting more people over your threshold. This is the case with all types of event marketing and is a popular benefit of this strategy.
Our advice is to think about how you handle that profit. Perhaps you could donate a certain percentage of profits to a fantastic LGBTQ+ charity. There are hundreds of incredible charities out there. Customers and guests will love the fact that a certain amount of their money is going to a good cause.
Most importantly, by celebrating Pride in your business, you’re using your voice and platform for good. The LGBTQ+ community still experiences discrimination worldwide. By using your business this Pride, you show your support and actively stand against homophobia.
You are encouraging one big, inclusive atmosphere. Perhaps you’ve even got a Pride playlist lined up. Having fun while taking a moral stand is the best thing ever.
5 Best Pride Month Happy Hour Ideas
Happy hours are great event ideas for attracting customers, and attracting more people is how to beat your profit margins. When celebrating Pride, happy hours are also a great way to go a step beyond displaying rainbow flags. They are about encouraging and curating an atmosphere of celebration.
Happy hours give you a chance to provide discounted drinks to those celebrating. You can also use pop culture and funky drinks to celebrate a community and gender identity. It’s a fun way to tackle a serious topic and signal that you’re a business that stands with gay rights.
So, onto the practical stuff. What are the best Pride Month happy hour ideas? Here are some ideas you are welcome to nick this June.
1. Themed Drinks
This is a popular option when hosting happy hours. How about a special menu of themed happy hour drinks?
You could make this as risque or vanilla as you’d like. You could name drinks after famous celebrities and historical figures who were prominent in LGBTQ+ history and culture. Or you could name cocktails after iconic pop culture songs. Use your imagination.
2. Pride Trivia
Pride trivia is a fun event that you can run alongside a discounted food and drinks service. If you have a competitive or education-focused customer base, this could be for you.
Prepare a series of questions and offer a prize for the winner or winning group. Every trivia event is best, with free-flowing drinks and fast-paced delivery. So get creative and start researching some tricky questions.
3. Book Club
Books are a beautiful way to celebrate all types of cultures and communities. The written word is an incredible way to capture different lived experiences and perspectives. Just because you are running a happy hour doesn’t mean you need a wild party atmosphere. What about a book club?
A book club is a great way to make coffee shop and cafe happy hours work. Or you could use your bar during the daytime as a place for book lovers to gather together.
To take it one step further, authors from the LGBTQ+ community may even be available for meet-and-greets. Start checking out reading lists and reaching out to authors of interest.
4. Host Parades and Parties
A Pride parade is actually really historic, as you know from our section on the Stonewall Riots. Why not host your own?
You could organize your own parade, providing refreshments at a happy hour after walking a route around your local area. Alternatively, you could host a Pride party with discounted drinks and food.
There are tons of ways you can advertise this. You can easily adapt things like social media post ideas for restaurants to attract attendees.
Last but not least, you could run performances alongside your happy hour. There are hundreds of different types of performances you could run. You could hire a comedian or specialist act or host an open mic night.
Pride is all about inclusivity and celebration. And what better way to embrace that than with a safe space for talent? Performance-style events are great fun and really establish your business as a positive place to be.
Beambox: Utilizing WiFi This Pride
Pride always attracts large crowds. If you run a bar or restaurant, this means more customers. To gain long-term benefits from this visitor spike, you will need to use a vital strategy: captive portal WiFi.
Learning how to create a captive portal is one of the most valuable things you can do. A captive portal is a pop-up web page that customers trigger when they try to connect to your WiFi. The only way they can move past it is to comply with a form. You create this form, requesting details and actions of your choice.
You could make this Pride-related, like asking guests to follow a gay rights charity on social media or enter a giveaway. You can also use captive portals like Pride to feed into your overall marketing campaigns and strategies.
For instance, you could ask customers for email addresses to feed into your overall email marketing campaign.
When customers enter their details, they flow into a secure database, which you can access later. It’s a fantastic way to monetize the boost in crowds.
At Beambox, this is our bread and butter. We offer all-in-one WiFi marketing software with a captive portal system for you to collect guest data. You can personalize your captive portal and start building your marketing strategies today. Start your Beambox free trial. Make sure you have the WiFi strategy to match all these Pride Month happy hour ideas.
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