You’ve got a soft date on the schedule.
No promotion. No budget to build one. Just a night you’d rather not look at.
So you start brainstorming a giveaway, a theme, something to manufacture a reason for people to show up.
Stop.
You don’t have a promotion problem. You have a demand problem — and the fix isn’t creating new demand. It’s finding demand that already exists and giving it a better place to happen.
The real reason most promotions are expensive
Think about what a typical promotion actually costs you.
You pay a manufacturer to make the thing. Then you spend money and attention convincing fans to care about the thing. Two expensive jobs stacked on top of each other.
Here’s the thing: the best promotions skip both.
They latch onto behavior fans are already doing on their own — no manufacturing, no convincing. Episode 178 walks through two of them.
Idea one: host the fantasy football draft
Fantasy football is enormous, and draft season is happening right now — through August and into early September.
Those twelve guys who’ve been drafting together since college? They’re doing it in a garage, a basement, or a Buffalo Wild Wings with a table that’s too small. Whether your building is involved or not.
Give them a better room.
One baseball team opened its suites for drafts at $400 for 20 people. Boise State ran five to eight suites at $900 each, added a draft board, and tossed in a complimentary game ticket. The Baltimore Ravens included draft boards and locker room tours — and sold out.
Steal the Boise State move.
Without the ticket, they just rented a room and everyone goes home. With it, 20 people now have a date on your calendar. That’s the difference between a one-night rental and future attendance.
Idea two: run a fidget trading meetup
If you don’t have kids, stay with me.
Pull up Google Trends and type in “fidget trading.” The line has gone almost straight up over the last several months — hockey-stick growth.
Kids are organizing meetups to trade fidgets, squishies, and the viral dumplings. Stores are hosting it. Chick-fil-A is hosting it. It’s baseball cards for a new generation — same instinct, new toys.
And it’s already happening in your market, in parking lots and food courts, without you.
What does it take on your end? Not much. A trading board and a space. Build the board in Canva in about 20 minutes with your logo on it, or have ChatGPT draft one, then print it locally. Promote it to families. They bring the fidgets. You bring the room.
Why both of these actually work
Neither one requires you to talk anyone into anything.
The fantasy league already exists. The fidget trades are already happening. You are not creating demand. You’re giving something that’s already happening a better place to happen.
That’s why they cost almost nothing.
The one marketing move that decides it
This is where teams lose their minds — and the sale.
Sell it with the buyer’s words, not yours.
Don’t say “suite rental package.” Say “host your fantasy draft here.” Don’t say “family activity night.” Say “fidget trading meetup.”
The guy who runs the league isn’t searching for your inventory. He’s searching for the thing he’s already trying to pull off. Match his words and the room sells itself.
Then make it easy to book: price visible, inclusions listed, one button. Keep it simple.
Listen to the full episode here.
What to do this week
- Pick one soft date on your calendar with no promotion attached to it.
- Choose the fit: fantasy draft nights if you have suites or private space; a fidget trading meetup if you want a family play.
- Set a clear price and inclusions — copy the $400-for-20 or $900-per-suite benchmarks as a starting point.
- Bundle a specific game ticket into the fantasy draft package to turn the rental into future attendance.
- Write the offer in the buyer’s words and put it behind one simple booking button.