We’ve seen competitive socialising and mini golf venues go from strength to strength despite the challenges the pandemic has brought. As customers start filling up venues to the rafters once again, we’re sharing our top 10 mini golf design tips for creating a bar experience that keeps your competitive socialising customers yo-yoying back.

1. Be super smart with your use of space

For mini golf design in large spaces, it’s important to balance intimacy with grand scale. We did this at Swingers DC by making sure that it always feels as if exactly the right amount of people are inside. So it works dynamically with just a handful of people on a Monday lunchtime or rammed to the rafters on Saturday night.

By creating a variety of public and private bar and dining spaces, each with a unique design, the venue can cater to groups of all sizes.

Small space? On the other side of the coin, you can still (probably) get a mini golf course and a bar or two in there, you just need the right design. At Pop Golf in Boxpark, Wembley, London, we had the challenge of creating an effective mini golf design in a tiny venue. Using a radial layout, we looked to arcades to inspire the design and stacked the holes next to each other. Building the sound lounge on a mezzanine level, allowed us to make the most of the tall ceilings and maximise hosting space.

2. Don’t neglect the details

Customers will experience every touchpoint while they’re in your venue so make them count and make them memorable. From the graphic design of the menus and posters to the brand colours, be identifiable and consistent and make sure your choices are on-brand.

Pop Golf ‘put ethically minded, independent drinks and snacks suppliers at the top of the menu’ choosing to stock brands like Flawsome! – who turn wonky fruit into wonderful juice with a solution that’s fairer for farmers. This makes the drinks offering super relevant to their Gen Z and Millennial audience who value sustainability. Choosing drink suppliers that are appropriate to your audience is a win-win.

3. Be daring

So what’s driving Millennials and Gen Z to seek out the newest Competitive socialising experience? They want something fresh to put on their feeds and stories? They want to do something memorable with their loved ones that they haven’t experienced before? These make a case for doing things differently – especially if you want to appeal to a younger audience.

At Swingers DC, by playing with scale, making things slightly too big and slightly too small, the journey is that much richer. The unusual feature of the Clocktower which ties the Clocktower Bar and Clocktower Course together is bold and punchy whilst at the same time drawing on traditional influences. An abstraction of a grandfather clock made by serene laser cut metal channels with concealed LED lighting, guests must putt past the pendulum to complete the course.

4. Be adaptable

By choosing designs and materials that can be expanded and contracted, your venue can be adapted to suit a variety of occasions. Have an especially large group wanting to pre-book? No problem, if the main bar can be expanded at the drop of a hat.

At Swingers West End, London, the Bandstand bar area is versatile and can easily be adapted and expanded. This allows the owners to change the experience throughout the year and as the business grows.

*Photos of Swingers West End by Ed Reeve (Edit Photo)*

5. Make the music count

Thinking of leaving music curation as an afterthought? What you play (or even what you host) can enhance your concept and can be another way to make your brand memorable.

At Pop Golf, their music-first ethos is bolstered by forward-thinking playlist curation from industry experts showcasing the best new tracks, and exclusive content from up and coming acts. In collaboration with Middlesex Sound, the ‘Sound Lounge’ bar area provides a high-quality audio experience in-between rounds, and reactive audio technology adds wizardry to gameplay, set to blow minds not ears.

6. Be pandemic (and capacity) savvy

In building a new venue now rather than having to adapt an existing space, we can design it to be optimal for a post-pandemic era. The customer flow, including how they interact with the bar and dining areas, can make or break capacity (pandemic restrictions or not) so it pays to get this right from the onset.

We always approach new projects from a commercial as well, of course from a design angle, so we can help advise on how to maximise returns based on your square footage while still ending up with a killer concept. And if the dreaded restrictions return, the venue layout can be stress-tested to ensure it still thrives.

7. Be interactive

Are your customers marketing your brand? If not, find a way to make them want to and you’ll reap the rewards.

At Swingers’ London venues, customers can snap and share their winning moments direct to their socials via podiums. Have customers shout about your brand and have fun in the process!

*Photos of Swingers West End by Swingers*

8. Be sustainable

Choose to use recycled and sustainable materials in a contemporary and fun way and the planet (and your customers!) will thank you. In developing the Topgolf US bars, we chose to use at least 30% recycled and/or sustainably sourced materials such as eco cork, reclaimed wood and recycled plastics.

9. Think ‘concept’

When selecting food and drinks vendors, why not select with your concept in mind? For example Pop Golf stocks cocktails by lollipops and Flawsome! juices whose bright branding compliments the aesthetic of the venue design. Stock shelves become a part of the look rather than out of place.

At Junkyard, they’re able to use their design ethos to bring in more object variety with weird and wonderful thrift store finds nestled amongst the drinks.

10. Happy staff = happy customers

So, you’ve launched your new competitive socialising venue, things are going well, you’ve had some fabulous reviews back from the launch party your PR agency threw, the place is booked up for at least the next month, the waiting list is growing (check) and you’re now planning your global expansion… Until…. you check trip advisor and Tracey from the front desk seems to have really worked Angela’s birthday group into a bit of frenzy when they were turned away due to a double booking. And Chris didn’t seem to appreciate receiving the wrong food order twice after waiting an hour. Sometimes it’s all in the details and by looking after your staff (so they’re happy and not overworked) you can keep running a smooth operation and generate glowing 5-star reviews in your sleep.

How? Have a great, well-designed space for your staff, so they feel like superstars too. Be choosy and make sure your staff match your brand ethos.

Get in touch about your mini golf design or competitive socialising concept

Need help with your leisure hospitality project? Fast becoming the go-to design agency for competitive socialising projects from mini golf to darts to indoor cricket, at Zachary Pulman Design Studio, we offer a 360-degree design service to see you through from concept creation to design to build and launch. Explore our recent projects and get in touch to chat about how we can execute your stellar project.

Back to all Stories

10 Bar Design Tips from the Mini Golf Design Team behind Swingers Crazy Golf