Oktoberfest: How To Use POS Data To Prepare For & Measure Your Event Success

September presents one of the biggest money-making event opportunities of the year for craft 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 success.

Pre-Oktoberfest: How To Prepare Staff & Products For Event Success With POS Data

Don’t let the outfits distract you: Your people and your products are the biggest determinants of Oktoberfest success.

Use Data To Staff Efficiently & Identify Speciality Roles

Staffing the right amount of people and filling all of the necessary roles shouldn’t be a gametime decision. Your POS’ historic 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 see what size of crowds you can predict and when. This data helps you staff the taproom with the right amount of servers so you guarantee guests have 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 processes need to be divided and conquered! 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 giving 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 and 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 data comes 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!

Data To Help Meet Guest Demand & Exceed Taste Expectations

Now that your staff is prepped, it’s time to guarantee your menu options and beer quality delight your Oktoberfest attendees!

Best Sellers By Volume Report: You can pinpoint which of your beers sell best by the ounce using this report. It not only informs production needs—you better be brewing it if guests are loving it—this data helps you decide which beers to offer at all. 

An event-specific menu is a good idea for Oktoberfest. The best brewery POS offers customizable, pared down menus for events for the sake of efficiency: It saves your service team time sifting through a long menu, and saves your bar team time pouring from a big variety of taps. 

Keg Turn Rates: Various reports from your brewery POS system can tell you about keg turn rates. Track what you’re brewing, what sizes of kegs you’re using, and how long it takes to kick.

This is great information to have before an event. Now you know if you should install more draft lines for any given keg! 

Sales By Item Report: This POS report gives a summary of sales broken down by item type, which helps craft beverage owners both plan production and flag off-tasting batches. 

Your data here is incredibly important from a product quality perspective. Humans are human and not every batch of beer is identical to the last. When a Sales By Item Report reflects a dip in sales on a popular pour, you can take that as a signal to check in on that particular batch.

Post-Oktoberfest: Key Event Takeaways From Your POS Data

Last call has passed and the last yodel has 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? What percentage of people ordered food, too? These details and more can be found in the Average Tab Size Report, and 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 2L boot, or require servers to offer every departing guest a 6-pack to go.
• Make ordering easier: Had you hoped to sell more pretzels? Perhaps guests were focused on drinking, and didn’t want to face another line for food. Next time, experiment with QR code ordering for food so you 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 your bottom line up for success for the next event. In the meantime, you can experiment with different service models!

Sales By Item Report: Yes, this handy report is something you should look back at in retrospect, too. In addition to showing total sales for each menu item, you can filter by something like 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!