Day and night rates for a game club: when they pay off and how to set them

Day and night rates for a game club pay off when demand changes noticeably through the day: a lower price brings guests in during quiet hours, and the full price protects revenue at peak times. It comes down to three decisions: the boundary hour, the size of the price gap, and a review after a month. Each is covered below with a worked example.

Why one price doesn’t fit every hour

Guests don't arrive evenly. During the day most people are at work or school, and tables sit empty. In the evening friends meet up after work; tables fill up and sometimes there is a queue.

A single price is wrong for at least one of those situations:

• set for evening demand, it looks expensive during the day and tables stay empty;
• set for the daytime, it undercharges evening guests who would have come anyway.

Two rates turn that difference into pricing. Not every club needs them, though. If your load is flat all day (say, you only open in the evening) or tables are always empty, hourly pricing is not the issue. Fix the flow of guests first.

Choosing the boundary hour

The boundary is the hour when load changes noticeably. Find it by observation, not guesswork: for two weeks, write down how many tables are busy at the start of every hour. In ClubTime the owner can watch the club live from another phone, so you don't have to be on site to do this.

With two prices there is only one boundary, so decide which problem it should solve:

• Empty daytime is the main problem. Put the boundary where evening load starts (for example, 18:00 or 19:00): a lower day rate, the full rate in the evening and at night.
• Day and evening are fine, but the club is busy close to midnight and the night shift costs more to run. Then the boundary goes later (for example, 23:00) and the night rate is higher.

Two more rules:

• Match the boundary to the moment load rises. Too late, and some busy hours sell at the low rate; too early, and quiet hours stay empty at the high rate. A round hour is easier for guests to remember.
• If you can, line the shift change up with the boundary. The day shift report then roughly shows day-rate revenue, and the night shift report shows night revenue.

How big the gap between rates should be

Three things set the gap:

1. The floor is the cost of a table-hour. The day rate should not drop below the share of rent, electricity, wages and equipment wear that falls on one hour. How to work that out is in pricing a billiard table.
2. The gap must be noticeable. Nobody switches to daytime for 5,000 UZS off a 60,000 UZS hour; you just charge less to people who would have come anyway.
3. The gap must not be extreme. If the night rate is far above the day rate, evening regulars feel overcharged and look for another club.

You can check in advance whether a discount pays for itself. A table-hour is one table busy for one hour. For example, you sell 4 table-hours a day in total between 12:00 and 18:00, at 60,000 UZS:

• now: 4 × 60,000 = 240,000 UZS;
• at a day rate of 45,000 UZS, matching that takes 240,000 ÷ 45,000 ≈ 5.3 table-hours, about 5 hours 20 minutes;
• if you sell 6 table-hours: 6 × 45,000 = 270,000 UZS, or 30,000 UZS more than before.

So in this example the discount cuts revenue unless daytime load grows by at least a third (from 4 to 5.3 table-hours). Whatever the extra guests spend at the bar comes on top.

Table types and VIP

If you have standard and VIP tables (or a private room, a newer console), each type needs its own price. In ClubTime you group tables into types and set a price for each type. For example:

If the VIP table fills up first in the evening, you can raise its night rate. If it sits empty during the day, bring its day rate closer to a standard table so guests try it.

Filling quiet daytime hours

A lower price alone is not enough: guests have to hear about it and have a reason to come.

• Who is free during the day: students after classes, shift workers, remote workers, teenagers on school holidays. Reach them where they are: near places of study, in neighbourhood Telegram groups, on the club's page.
• Daytime events: a tournament, a session with a coach, a group visit from a workplace. ClubTime takes bookings up to 14 days ahead with a time and a name, and blocks overlapping bookings.
• Prepaid daytime play, for example "2 hours upfront". The timer is set for a fixed time or amount, and the app warns before it runs out.

Other ideas are worth testing too: a weekday-only offer, a short happy hour, a separate weekend price. Turn each into a written rule and explain it to staff; a verbal promotion creates confusion at the till.

Sessions that cross the boundary, and telling guests

The right rule: the part of the session before the boundary is billed at the day rate, and the part after it at the night rate.

For example: the day rate is 50,000 UZS/hour, and from 23:00 the night rate is 70,000 UZS/hour. Guests play from 21:30 to 00:30, 3 hours in total.

Billed entirely at the day rate, the session comes to 150,000 UZS and the club loses 30,000 UZS. Billed entirely at the night rate, it comes to 210,000 UZS and the guest rightly objects to paying 30,000 UZS extra. With a paper notebook, charging the whole session at one rate during a rush is an easy mistake. ClubTime bills a session that crosses the boundary at both rates automatically.

Guests who know the price upfront don't argue:

• Put a price list at the entrance and by the till, with the hours of each rate: "Day 10:00–23:00: 50,000 UZS/hour. Night from 23:00: 70,000 UZS/hour."
• If a session will cross the boundary, say so at the start: "After 23:00 the hour is 70,000."
• Hand out receipts; a detailed bill answers most questions. ClubTime prints receipts on Android via a Bluetooth thermal printer, and on Windows and Mac via any printer.
• Announce price changes at least a week ahead. Regulars don't like surprises.

Review after a month using reports

A new rate can't be judged in a couple of days; guests need time to get used to it. After a month, compare with the previous month:

• Daily revenue, by day of the week.
• Revenue by table: are the tables that sat empty during the day working now?
• Shift reports: if shifts line up with the boundary, day and night revenue show up separately.
• Bar revenue: are the extra daytime guests buying anything?

Then pick one of three options: keep the rates, move the boundary by an hour, or change the gap. Change one thing at a time, or you won't know what worked. Allow for the season too: summer and winter, exam periods and Ramadan all shift load regardless of price. Which numbers to track month to month is covered in key metrics for a club.

In short

• Two rates make sense when load differs clearly by hour; find the boundary through two weeks of observation.
• Keep the day rate above the cost of a table-hour, and make the gap big enough for guests to notice.
• Before discounting, work out how much daytime load has to grow.
• A session that crosses the boundary is billed in two parts, each at its own rate; tell guests at the start.
• After a month, check the reports and change one thing.

Try day and night rates, table types and reports in ClubTime free for 15 days, with every feature and no card required: download the app.