Product Update
Pricing & Yield
Booking Flow
“We’re not short of demand. The problem is what happens after someone books.”
That line, from one of the operators in the room, set the tone for our first Roundtable. It was an invite-only morning with senior operators from competitive socialising and immersive experience venues. No presentations, no pitches, just an honest conversation about what’s actually working. Here’s what stood out.
Booking data is not demand data
Most operators work with supply-led data: what people booked when slots were available. What people wanted before supply shaped the response is largely uncaptured. If your reporting only shows what sold, you’re missing the sessions people would have booked at a different time, price or group size.
Group size is eating margin silently
Small groups filling slots designed for larger bookings is a hidden form of revenue dilution. Several operators have manual workarounds, but they rely on someone noticing and don’t scale across sites.
Show the price earlier
One operator saw a 5% conversion uplift from surfacing their cheapest price earlier in the booking flow. Customers find it anyway, so showing it upfront simply removes a drop-off point.
AI is a means, not a message
The room was sceptical of AI as a headline. The more useful view was practical: natural language as an interface for outreach, personalisation and workflow automation, with customers never needing to know it’s there.
Capacity without conversion
Most venues aren’t short of demand. Weekends fill, weekdays are inconsistent, and the gap is converting existing capacity into revenue, especially midweek.
First visit versus every visit after
You pay to acquire a customer once. Everything after that is commercial leverage, yet most venues underinvest in repeat and referral relative to acquisition.
The common thread
Almost every point above sits between “someone wants to come” and “someone comes back”. That’s where the revenue is leaking, and it’s the part most booking systems weren’t built to see.
We’ve pulled all six themes into a one-page PDF below. Our next Roundtable is on Thursday 19 November. It’s invite-only and deliberately small. Request a seat here.
