November 10, 2026

Toggle Time: Session 2 - A Masterclass in Filling Stockings and Tills

A masterclass in filling stockings and tills 🎄

The festive season brings in the majority of a venue’s Gift Card revenue, and the operators who do best see every sale as a chance to meet a new guest.

Session 2 of Toggle Time brought in two of our Professionals. Alan Armstrong of Spaceman Marketing introduced the invisible guest, with easy ways to get to know them before January. Andre Johnstone of Upside London, the man behind Wagamama’s leap from £300k to over £3m in Gift Card sales, followed with ideas to drive more of them this Christmas. Grab a cuppa and a notepad!

▶️ Watch the webinar

Five takeaways from the session ✨

👀 Meet the invisible guest

Take a Christmas party of twenty. Your booking system gives you the lead booker, and a few more might log into the Wi-Fi or browse your website, but most of the table stays invisible. Alan’s fix is to give them a fun reason to share their details. A QR code on the table leads to a quick branded game, the guest wins a reward, fills in an Airship Form, and a Toggle Voucher lands in their inbox within seconds. Make it redeemable in January and February and you’ve got a reason for them to return when you need them most.

The results speak for themselves. Stack Leisure picked up 15,000 sign-ups across four venues in four weeks with a spin the wheel game last Christmas. London Cocktail Club saw a 72% rise in December data capture with a game on their cocktail menu. And Queens, the bowling alley in London, lifted its email click-through rate from 0.5% to 4% with one gamified email.

🛍️ Give your shop a refresh

Your Webshop should make as good an impression as your venue does. Alan suggests looking at it through a customer’s eyes, or asking a few friends to have a browse and tell you honestly what they think. He’s been reworking his clients’ Webshops ahead of the rush with new imagery, clear categories and a ruthless cut of the products that simply don’t sell. He also suggests packaging Experiences for more than one person, like a wine and dine for two or a cocktail masterclass with a friend. Champagne for six is a favourite of his. A bottle pours six 175ml glasses anyway, so selling it for six turns it into an occasion rather than a free bottle. Every extra seat is another guest through the door.

🤝 Look beyond your own shop

Andre’s big one: B2B. Much of the Gift Card market now flows through employee benefits, reward and recognition schemes, cashback programmes and multi-choice cards, where the recipient picks the brand. If your venue isn’t listed, you can’t be chosen. Foodie Favourites is a quick way in, putting Toggle operators on a card sold through Blackhawk Network at Tesco, Waitrose and John Lewis, as well as online at one4all.com.

🔁 Breakage is a false economy

Unspent balances might look good on paper, but guests redeeming a Gift Card usually spend more than its value, and every visit is a chance to win a regular. Andre’s advice is to build a redemption strategy: keep expiry Reminder Emails switched on, offer short extensions, and pay special attention to your VIPs. Toggle can send them for you automatically.

🃏 Black Friday with a twist

Andre also shared a few ways to make your offer stand out. If you’re selling Secret Santa cards, keep the discount hidden so the recipient never feels they’ve been given a bargain. Look out for guests buying for themselves, as they’re often your biggest fans and worth getting to know. And if you want something more exciting to talk about than a £20 Gift Card, try a mystery bonus. One of his most successful promotions was a prize draw for free food for a year. It feels hugely generous to the winner, but because you’re only covering the cost price of the food, it’s much cheaper to run than it sounds.

Helpful resources

A few Toggle Academy guides to get you started:

Want some help putting any of this in place? Our team are on hand, so give us a shout.

Next stop: Toggle Time Session 3: Put January on the cards, Tuesday 17 November at 10am. Register here

Not on Toggle yet? With just 13 days until Black Friday it’ll be tight, but there’s still time to get up and running!