Not quite sure how to do this and I am not trying to do anything other than be helpful to the hall owners.
I play for one maybe two hours a day on my GCIII that is tournament level equipment. I have well over $20,000 in construction and equipment just for my pool room / bar. In halls I would be a B - B+ player. So that is the perspective from which I am speaking.
In general, I do not go to halls because most halls do not have equipment comparable to mine. However, I like friendly, sporting competition and that is difficult to come by when you play at home and only infrequently go to a hall. I would like to go to a hall once or twice a week to compete with others but often don’t for many of the reason noted in previous posts, equipment, kids, bangers, music, etc. When I do go it is for tournaments and I do not take my spouse to most of these places as the crowd is too rough.
People with their own equipment are relatively well off compared to most hall players. They have upwards of $5 – 10,000 in equipment, rooms, etc. so they are worth attracting into your establishments and will spend money for “extras.” What kinds of extras? Like many of the people here I would show up and pay a premium for quiet rooms, good competition, and reasonably serious players.
A cover charge once a week with some sort of reasonably professional and polite round robin playing (short tournaments) on one night and “longer” tournaments on other nights would dig me out of the house, especially if I could bring my spouse or professional friends and colleagues. Perhaps a league that was oriented towards serious players who had exclusive use of the room for the evening would work. Unlike golf, friends and family are in the immediate area when the pool is played so it is or could be more social than a golf club.
Depending on what was available I could see spending $100.00 in an evening on dinner, pool, a drink or two. Action on the side is another matter. A place where my spouse could also attend and sit at a table with other spectators who simply enjoyed a quiet but exciting evening would lead me to spend even more.
To do all of this I think it would require identifying a group of serious players and this would be accomplished with some sort of monthly “open house” arrangement that enticed the serious home player into the club. I personally know at least three or four people with characteristics similar to those described within a 15 mile radius of my house located in our backwoods area (we are 50 miles out of Pittsburg). There are more serious players, I just don’t know them. In essence, something like a country club atmosphere for serious players could get a substantial amount of money out of my pocket.
In my family and my extended family, playing pool is a major pass time with average incomes well above the median income in the country. You simply need a way to entice these people into your establishments. BTW, Jillian’s and similar popular “nightclub” places are not of much interest as pool playing is not the major attraction. In essence, there is a “country club” set of players who could be enticed out of their homes under the right circumstances.
And we play for money too but usually with others that are not only serious about pool but polite and courteous.
k: