Oktoberfest: How to Use POS Data to Prepare for and Measure Your Event’s Success

September presents one of the biggest money-making opportunities of the year for beer-focused hospitality businesses: Oktoberfest.

If your brewery is hosting an Oktoberfest, there’s plenty of time to brush up on your polka dancing. But to ensure your business cashes in on the big crowds, you need the right brewery POS data.

Below, you’ll learn how to use key POS data to prepare for Oktoberfest and measure your event’s success.

Pre-Oktoberfest: Preparing Staff For Success

Staffing the right amount of people and filling all of the necessary roles shouldn’t be a gametime decision. Your historic POS data is here to help!

Hour-By-Hour Report: This POS report breaks down your traffic trends by the hour, so you can identify when your brewing business is typically the busiest.

Look back at past events you’ve thrown to estimate what size crowds you can expect and when. These data help you staff the taproom with the right amount of servers, so you can guarantee guests get high-quality service.

Employee Performance Report: A standard service model may not be in the cards for your team or your guests for a blowout Oktoberfest. That means it’s time to divide and conquer your processes. Let’s spitball what kinds of out-of-the-box roles you may need to fill:

• ID checkers: Beertenders can move faster if they don’t have to check IDs. Expedite the ordering process for everyone by having an ID checker at the door handing out wristbands or stamps.
• Ticket or token sellers: Save your bar team even more time by streamlining payments with drink tokens or tickets. (Our friends at Cabarrus Brewing Company had great success hosting a money-free Oktoberfest event a couple of years ago: Guests purchased tokens that could then be exchanged for beers. Instead of handling cash or cards at the bar, the Cabarrus team simply took tokens and poured!)
• Pop-up bartenders: Pop-up bars are proven tab size boosters traffic mitigators. Offering multiple ordering stations ensures that no guest goes thirsty and no bartenders get overwhelmed. A mobile brewery POS system supports this service model.

Here’s where the data come in: The Employee Performance Report identifies which team members bring in the largest tab sizes, sell the most merchandise, and more. Now you can assign speciality roles based on where each person is most likely to excel—the Tab Size Superhero should probably man your pop-up bar, for example!

Post-Oktoberfest: Key Event Takeaways From Your POS Data

Last call has passed, and the last yodel has been yodeled. Now it’s time to look back at your brewery POS data to measure your Oktoberfest success.

Average Tab Size Report: Curious how long each of your guests stayed? And what percentage of people ordered food? These details and more can be found in the Average Tab Size Report, which can help you glean helpful takeaways for your next taproom event:

• Train staff to upsell: If average tab size is lower than you anticipated, it may benefit your team to be trained on upsells. Provide talk tracks for how to effectively sell that two-liter boot, or require servers to offer every departing guest a six-pack to go.
• Make ordering easier: Had you hoped to sell more pretzels? Perhaps guests were focused on drinking, and they didn’t want to face another line for food. Next time, experiment with QR-code ordering for food to reduce friction for your beer-laden guests.

Revenue to Labor Cost Percentage: You were careful to staff your taproom with the right number of folks, but did you earn more money than you spent on servers? Your Revenue to Labor Cost Percentage will tell you.

Diving into these numbers will set up your bottom line for success for the next event. In the meantime, you can experiment with different service models.

Sales By Item Report: This handy report is well worth reading in the aftermath. Besides showing total sales for each menu item, you can filter by variables such as a discount code, to see if marketing it on your Instagram was effective.

Cheers To Your Brewery’s Best Oktoberfest Yet!

Your brewery POS collects all this helpful data, so you should use it to your advantage! A cloud-based POS system lets you access it all in real-time from anywhere.

So, is your brewery POS providing the insights you need in an easy-to-use dashboard? Chat with an Arryved Growth Specialist to learn about the most trusted POS in craft!