Making Your VIP Presentations Hit Just Right

The bottle service presentation has to be one of the most important elements of the VIP experience.  The whole club stops, eyes turn and the hero of the moment watches as their  occasion is the only spectacle.

Yet, all too often, what goes on behind the scenes more closely resembles the comedic hit and miss as a mother duck tries to cross a busy road with her ducklings.  The group assembles early and waits as the props are constructed; they light the sparklers and head for the table. The performance is wild and everyone is taking photos but wait… where’s the bride-to-be?  She was there a minute ago.  Everyone stops. Awkward. They regroup and head for dispense to try again.

Done well, a great presentation will invoke jealousy and competitiveness from egos around the room, determined not to be outshone. It will reach Instagram and TikTok feeds globally and, most importantly, reinforce that buying a table at your place was a good decision.   Having this kind of impact means careful planning and execution.

Here are a few tips we’ve gleaned along the way on presentation best practice:

One size does not fit all.

Just like booth location or bottle size, presentation impact matters. A bigger spend, should equate to a bigger impact. There’s something about VIP experiences which stimulates our inherent competitive nature. With presentations, each table has the opportunity to out-do those that went before.

It might be tempting to assume that a personalised sign and dancers are good enough but you should try to think about the show as a product of it’s own.  When considering your packages or table minimums, consider the ways that you might differentiate between spend tiers.  For example, it may be the number of staff involved, the props, the AV display or the time spent on the process. Presentation tiers should be distinctive enough that a mid-tier party asks how they get that special extra.  If price were no object, each should leave the party wanting the next level up.

Have a protocol around timing.

Mis-timing your presentation can be a costly exercise: a presentation takes several service staff off the floor during a period when guests are arriving and early service expectations are being set.  If the show hits while the guests are on the dancefloor or in the toilet, you’ll likely have to regroup and repeat.  All the while, other guests wait impatiently to order.

In order to get this right, you need to have protocol for timing your presentations that is both understood by your server and your guests. As an example, you might choose to anchor the presentation to the first arrival of mixers at the table, leveraging your busser to confirm suitable timing with the manager and guest during a routine interaction.

There are of course other ways you could organise this that better suit your workflow, but the most important thing is that all members of the team observe and apply the procedure and timing consistently.

Preparation & visual organisation is key.

Delays are the enemy of profit here: they impact guest experience, slow down service and prevent upsells, so having your VIP offerings and artefacts organised is imperative.

Be sure to take note of the booking contents and presentation before the doors to the club open.  If your packages are pre-selected, then allocating space (eg. a section or shelf) to pre-store bottles and a label designating tools that need to be used is helpful. This will allow your team to move with pace and avoid the inevitable panic when you can’t find a particular bottle.

If your bottle purchase decisions are made at the door or table, try to arrange your presentation tools in the groups they go out in.

Finally, if your presentation tools require battery power, make sure they begin the night charged!

Presentations as a sales tool

Remember that the presentation is not just for the table receiving it.  It should be a marketing exercise for your lower paying booths and empty tables.  After seeing a presentation, your servers should expect that guests and other booths will ask “Can I have one of those”?

Effective servers anticipate this question, building hype about what the next level up might mean and drawing attention to higher value shows.  what They should be briefed in upsell and presentation tiers and already know how much more their table needs to spend to one-up that table.

"You guys should build a feature for this"

Yep, we heard it.  We, too, have watched in horror as troubles with coordination, communication and timing get the better of some great venues and couldn’t take it any more.  

We’ve developed a new presentation feature to help nail your show every time.  Using DQ, your servers, management and dispense can coordinate the presentation process in real-time, without the back and forth.

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