Pricing that works for your sports facility
One of the most important decisions when running a sports facility is how much to charge for the use of them.
There are a number of factors to take into account here, and quite often they conflict with each other. You want to charge a suitable price that can sustain your facilities from an economical point of view, but also a price that encourages sports participation and engagement with your local customer base.
Ultimately, this blog will not give you a pre-defined pricing strategy that you can copy and paste for your facility, but will give you the tools to take away and apply to your own unique situation. We will cover a wide range of considerations that will affect your own pricing structure, with real life examples from our most popular and successful Pitchbooking partners.
So what is possible with our booking software? How complex can pricing get?
Examples of common pricing rules that Pitchbooking can handle includes:
- Time of day customisation
- Day of week customisation
- Seasonal variations
- Membership based pricing
- Concession Pricing
- Payment method differential pricing
- Upfront payment discouncts
Where Do I Start?
The first point of call for an existing facility is to review your existing pricing structure. We recommend analysing your historical bookings to see what affect your existing pricing structure has on booking volumes. Are your bookings heavily affected by seasonality? Facility type / size? Or day of the week? Or time of the day? You should consider reflecting the ebbs and flows in demand by pricing appropriately to encourage bookings at times where demand is lower.
Start with a small percentage change in price, and if this is not having the desired effect, increase the difference until you hit a booking spread that you are content with. In our experience, we typically estimate that 3 months is enough time to see the effects of pricing changes.
For a new facility - engage with other sports facility providers in your local area. Having an understanding of what alternative venues are charging is the best starting point. Assuming that you are not direct competition, most facilities will be happy to share best practice and learning. At Pitchbooking, we have a strong understanding of pricing norms across the UK and Ireland - so our customers can speak to us for advice in the first instance.
Simplify
When we bring on a new partner facility onto our software, the most common situation we advise on is how to simplify their existing pricing rules, as opposed to creating further bespoke rules and optimisations.
Over time, facilities tend to add exceptions, 'mates rates', special dispensations and more to their pricing rules. What this leads to is uncertainty and administrative work in understanding the revenue generated by each facility. This is further compounded for customers who have multiple facilities, and a number of different sites on which they are based.
Absolutely have time / season based pricing. Absolutely offer concession rates to certain groups or long time customers. But beware entering the realm of 'individualised' pricing for every slot in your calendar.
Add Ons, Amenities, Special Events
Of course, many facilities offer more than just a booking slot to hire their pitch / hall / field / court or space. Perhaps you charge a fee for the use of floodlights or changing rooms. Perhaps an insurance fee, rental of equipment for use during the booking, or even an additional fee for special events like birthday parties or full day events.
These situations can all be handled within the Pitchbooking solution. Across our 1000+ facilities, more than 25% of these utilise one of the aforementioned pricing rules.
So, how can Pitchbooking help?
Get in touch with us and lets see how we can work together. You can visit our Solution Page and leave your details with us there, or drop us an email directly at info@pitchbooking.com