Playbook
How to fill empty golf simulator slots
Bay time is the only stock you own that rots. A box of balls keeps until Tuesday. Seven o’clock does not, and the hour nobody booked is worth exactly nothing the moment it passes.
And the person most likely to buy that hour is not on Instagram, or on your mailing list, or anywhere near a laptop. They are twenty feet away, holding a seven iron, having a lovely time.
Why staff rarely ask the customer in front of them
In theory, someone walks over near the end of the session and asks. In practice they almost never do, and the reason is not laziness. It is that asking means interrupting a group mid-swing to talk about money, in front of their mates, with no polite way for anyone to say no.
A group asked out loud will default to no, because saying yes commits everyone else to another hour and another round of money. The same group, handed the same offer on a screen with a price on it, can have that conversation among themselves and decide in their own time. Nobody has to perform anything.
The cheapest customer for an empty slot is already in the bay
No coat to put back on, no journey, no decision to make about their evening. Just a slightly cheaper version of what they are already doing, offered at the exact moment they are enjoying it most.
Nobody has ever walked out of a good session thinking “I wish that had been shorter”.
When to send the offer
Too early and they have not decided they are having fun yet. Around twenty minutes from the end is the sweet spot, and it is worth leaving the code up for a few minutes after the buzzer, because packing up always takes longer than anyone admits.
The bit worth getting right: the code coming off the screen and the offer running out are two different moments. The screen has to go back to normal for whoever is in next. The offer does not, so give it an hour and let them decide in the car park.
How long should the extra session be?
Offer the shortest session that bay sells. Somebody four hours in does not want another four hours, their wallet does not want it either, and the bay would have to be free all night for the offer to appear at all.
Does discounting empty slots cannibalise full-price bookings?
The obvious worry: teach everyone to wait for the cheap hour and you have discounted your whole evening. It does not work like that, because the offer only ever appears for a slot that is still empty. Somebody who was going to book seven o’clock at full price books it at full price, and the customer in the bay never sees an offer for it. You are not discounting your product. You are pricing something that was about to be worth exactly nothing.
What a good conversion rate looks like
Small, and that is the point. Most codes are never scanned, because most people have a babysitter. The ones that are scanned cost you nothing to show.
That is roughly a bay’s worth of extra trading in a month, sold to people already standing in the building, with no ad spend, no email, and nobody having to be persuaded of anything.
Automated marketing for golf venues, in one campaign
It is a campaign called Extend Session, and it runs itself. You set the discount, when the code appears, and which spaces it runs on. When someone is near the end and the slot after them is free, the code goes up on the bay screen. They scan, they pay, the extra hour lands on your calendar as its own booking, and the bay simply stays unlocked. Nobody is found, nothing is checked in twice, and the first you hear of it is the money.
Anything staffed, themed or reset between groups stays out of it, because “another hour on the same escape room” is not a thing you can sell off a QR code.
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Frequently asked questions
How do I sell empty golf simulator slots?
The cheapest customer to sell an empty hour to is the one already in the bay. They are on site, they are warm, their coats are still off, and they have nowhere to be for another ten minutes. An extend-session offer puts that hour in front of them while they are still playing, at a discount you set, and lets them pay for it on their phone without finding a member of staff.
Does discounting an empty hour cannibalise full-price bookings?
Not if the offer only ever appears for a slot that is genuinely still free. Somebody who was going to book the next hour at full price books it at full price, because the offer never reaches them. You are discounting time that was about to be worth nothing, which is not the same thing as discounting your product.
How long should the extra session be?
Offer the shortest session that bay sells. Somebody four hours into a session does not want another four hours, and even if they did, the bay would need to be free all evening for the offer to appear at all. A shorter block is a smaller ask, it is far more likely to fit, and it converts better.
When should the offer appear?
Late enough that they know they are enjoying themselves, early enough that they can still act on it. Around twenty minutes before the end works well. Leave it on the screen for a few minutes after the session ends too, because the last thing anybody does is pack up slowly.
How do I get more bookings on quiet nights?
Quiet nights are rarely a demand problem you can fix on the night, so the cheapest win is to sell more to the people who did turn up. An extend-session offer does that automatically: it watches for a bay whose next slot is free, puts a discounted offer for it on the screen in front of the customer already there, and takes the payment on their phone. No ad spend, no email list, and nothing for your staff to remember at nine o’clock on a Tuesday.
What is automated marketing for a golf venue?
It means the offer goes out on its own, based on something that just happened in the venue, rather than someone remembering to send it. The clearest example is empty bay time: a session is nearly over, the slot after it is unsold, so an offer for that slot appears in front of the person best placed to buy it. Nobody writes a campaign, picks a list or presses send, and the offer stops existing the moment the slot is booked by anyone else.
How do I increase average spend per customer at a golf venue?
Three things move it: selling more time, selling extras alongside the booking, and selling the visit rather than the slot. Extra time is the easiest of the three, because the customer is already there and already enjoying it, and an automatic offer near the end of a session asks the question at the only moment it can honestly be asked. Checkout add-ons like club hire, food and drink do the rest at the other end of the booking.
Does this only work for golf simulators?
No. It works anywhere a group can simply carry on in the same spot: sim bays, driving range bays, pool tables, darts oches. It is a poor fit for anything staffed, themed or reset between groups, such as an escape room or a party package with a host, and you can keep those spaces out of it. Half the point is that the extra time behaves like a normal booking rather than a special case.
What is Extend Session in BookMyBays?
Extend Session is a marketing campaign built into BookMyBays. When a customer is near the end of their session and the slot after them is still free, a QR code appears on the bay screen offering that time at your discount. They scan it, pay on their phone, and carry on playing in the same bay. The extra time lands on your calendar as its own booking and reports like any other sale.
Related reading
- Booking abandonment: why customers drop out of your booking page
- How to add a loyalty program to your golf simulator booking software
- Golf membership models that work: sims, ranges and courses
Written by The BookMyBays Team. BookMyBays builds booking and access-control software for indoor golf venues, driving ranges and action venues. Every number in the diagrams above is made up, including the nice one at the end. Your bays, your prices and your Thursdays are the only benchmark worth having.
Spotted something out of date? Email [email protected] and we’ll fix it. Last updated 30 August 2026.