Hospitality marketing calendar 2027: UK dates for pubs and restaurants

The 2027 hospitality marketing calendar for UK pubs, bars, restaurants and cafes runs from Dry January and Burns Night, through Valentine's Day (a Sunday), Mother's Day on 7 March and Easter on 28 March, into a packed summer of sport and an autumn Rugby World Cup, and ends with Christmas and Boxing Day bank holidays on Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 December. Every date below links to the source I checked it against.

#How to use this calendar

Pick one or two big moments a month, mark when you need to start posting, and fill the weeks in between with your normal content.

The "start posting" column in each table is my recommendation, not a rule. I work on three rough lead times:

• Bookable occasions where people reserve a table (Mother's Day, Valentine's, Christmas, New Year's Eve): four to six weeks, and eight to twelve for Christmas
• Walk-in occasions (Pancake Day, St Patrick's, Halloween, a bank holiday weekend): one to two weeks
• Sport: a first post as soon as the fixture and kick-off time are confirmed, then again in the week of the match

Dates for sport come from the organisers, and some of them (kick-off times especially) will be confirmed nearer the time. Check before you post a time. If live sport is a big part of your trade, the guide to promoting live sport in your pub and the piece on planning around major tournaments go further than this calendar can.

#January to March 2027

January opens with New Year's Day on Friday 1 January, a bank holiday across the UK, and in Scotland 2 January falls on a Saturday, so the substitute bank holiday is Monday 4 January (gov.uk bank holidays). The whole month is Dry January, run by Alcohol Change UK, and Veganuary, so it's the month for your low and no drinks and plant-based dishes (the Dry January guide covers it properly). The FA Cup third round is on Saturday 9 January. Burns Night is on 25 January every year, a Monday in 2027, and a Burns supper with haggis, neeps and tatties is an easy midweek booking.

February is busy. The men's Six Nations opens on Friday 5 February with Ireland v England at 8.10pm and finishes on Super Saturday, 13 March, with Italy v Wales, England v Scotland and Ireland v France (fixtures from the IRFU). Pancake Day is Tuesday 9 February. Valentine's Day is Sunday 14 February, the same afternoon England play France at 3.10pm, which gives you a choice: a romantic set lunch or dinner, the match, or both in different rooms. Say clearly in your posts which one you're doing.

March is the month to get organised early. St David's Day is Monday 1 March. Mother's Day falls early, on Sunday 7 March, and it's the day after Wales v England in the Six Nations, so your Saturday and Sunday will want very different posts. The Cheltenham Festival runs from Tuesday 16 to Friday 19 March, with Gold Cup Day on the Friday. St Patrick's Day is Wednesday 17 March, a bank holiday in Northern Ireland. Then Easter: Good Friday is 26 March and Easter Monday 29 March (Easter Monday isn't a bank holiday in Scotland), and the clocks go forward on Easter Sunday, 28 March. Lighter evenings arriving on a bank holiday weekend are a good excuse to open the beer garden.

#April to June 2027

April is calmer after Easter, until the racing arrives. The Randox Grand National Festival runs from Thursday 8 to Saturday 10 April, with the Grand National on Saturday 10 April. The Women's Six Nations starts the same day and is played on Saturdays until 15 May, with England v France in the final round. St George's Day is Friday 23 April, which makes a St George's weekend easy to sell in England.

May has two bank holiday weekends: Monday 3 May (early May) and Monday 31 May (spring). The football season finishes in between. The FA Cup final is on Saturday 22 May and the Premier League's final day, with every match kicking off at once, is Sunday 30 May, which puts it in the middle of the spring bank holiday weekend. If you've got more than one screen, that Sunday is worth planning for.

June is when summer sport starts stacking up. The Champions League final is on Saturday 5 June in Madrid. England host Australia in the men's Ashes from Friday 18 June, when the first Test starts at Trent Bridge, and the women's Ashes Test is at Headingley from 24 to 27 June (ECB fixtures). Father's Day is Sunday 20 June, day three of that first Test. The FIFA Women's World Cup in Brazil runs from 24 June to 25 July. Wimbledon starts on Monday 28 June and runs to Sunday 11 July, according to the All England Club.

#July to September 2027

The first weekend of July might be the busiest sporting weekend of the year. The Tour de France starts in Scotland on Friday 2 July, with stage one running from Edinburgh to Carlisle, and stage two goes from Keswick to Liverpool on Saturday 3 July (Cumberland Council). If you're on or near the route, plan for roadside crowds and breakfast, coffee and takeaway trade in the morning. The British Grand Prix is at Silverstone from 2 to 4 July on the provisional 2027 F1 calendar. The Lord's Ashes Test runs from 30 June to 4 July, and Wimbledon is in its first week. Pick your screens carefully and tell people which events are on where.

The cricket carries on through July. The men's Ashes continues at Edgbaston (8 to 12 July), Southampton (21 to 25 July) and The Oval (29 July to 2 August). Wimbledon's last weekend is Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 July. The 155th Open is at St Andrews, with the R&A giving the dates as 11 to 18 July. Monday 12 July is the Battle of the Boyne bank holiday in Northern Ireland, and the Women's World Cup final is on Sunday 25 July at the Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro.

August is bank holiday month. Scotland's summer bank holiday is Monday 2 August, and England, Wales and Northern Ireland have theirs on Monday 30 August. With the big summer sport over, it's a good time for your own events: a beer festival, a barbecue, a late summer menu.

September is quieter for the calendar and important for the business. The Ryder Cup is at Adare Manor in Ireland, with competition from Friday 17 to Sunday 19 September, and Ireland shares the UK's clocks, so play is in normal daytime hours. I'd also launch Christmas 2027 packages in September, to catch the organisers who plan ahead, and the Christmas party bookings guide covers what to put in them.

#October to December 2027

October brings the Rugby World Cup in Australia, from 1 October to 13 November, with ITV as the UK broadcaster. The matches are played in Australia, so expect most UK kick-offs in the morning or early afternoon. Check ITV's schedule and think breakfast and brunch screenings. October is also Sober October, another Alcohol Change UK challenge, so bring your January low and no range back to the front of the menu. The month ends with Halloween on Sunday 31 October, which is also when the clocks go back, giving everyone an extra hour on the Saturday night.

November starts with Bonfire Night on Friday 5 November, a natural night for warm food and drinks after the fireworks. The Rugby World Cup final is on Saturday 13 November in Sydney. Remembrance Sunday is 14 November; I'd keep posts that weekend respectful and skip anything loud or promotional on the Sunday morning. St Andrew's Day, Tuesday 30 November, is a bank holiday in Scotland.

December 2027 has Christmas Day on a Saturday. The Fridays before Christmas are 3, 10 and 17 December, with Christmas Eve on Friday 24 December. Because Christmas Day and Boxing Day fall on a weekend, the substitute bank holidays are Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 December across the UK, which gives people a four-day weekend to fill with walks, lunches and sport. New Year's Eve is Friday 31 December, and New Year's Day 2028 falls on a Saturday, so its substitute bank holiday is Monday 3 January 2028. For the planning side, see the New Year's Eve marketing guide.

#2027 bank holidays in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

These are the official 2027 bank holidays from gov.uk.

England and Wales (8):

• Friday 1 January: New Year's Day
• Friday 26 March: Good Friday
• Monday 29 March: Easter Monday
• Monday 3 May: early May bank holiday
• Monday 31 May: spring bank holiday
• Monday 30 August: summer bank holiday
• Monday 27 December: Christmas Day (substitute day)
• Tuesday 28 December: Boxing Day (substitute day)

Scotland (9): Friday 1 January, Monday 4 January (2 January substitute day), Friday 26 March, Monday 3 May, Monday 31 May, Monday 2 August, Tuesday 30 November (St Andrew's Day), Monday 27 December and Tuesday 28 December.

Northern Ireland (10): Friday 1 January, Wednesday 17 March (St Patrick's Day), Friday 26 March, Monday 29 March, Monday 3 May, Monday 31 May, Monday 12 July (Battle of the Boyne), Monday 30 August, Monday 27 December and Tuesday 28 December.

If you run venues in more than one nation, plan the August bank holiday twice: Scotland's is four weeks before everyone else's.

#Turning the hospitality marketing calendar into a posting plan

Turn the calendar into dated posts, starting with the months that matter most to your trade.

For most food-led places that's March (Mother's Day and Easter), December and the bank holiday weekends. For sports pubs it's February to March and the summer. Put those dates in first, with a start-posting date for each, and write the bookable ones as proper campaigns: an announcement, a menu or price reveal, a reminder, a "few tables left" post when it's true, and a thank-you afterwards.

Then fill the gaps. A calendar date every week isn't necessary, and the regulars will get tired of it. Your weekly specials, a quiz night, the new guest ale, a photo of the Sunday roast coming out of the kitchen: that's what most of the year's posts should be. The pub social media ideas post has a month of those.

Plan six weeks at a time, so there's room to react when a fixture moves or the weather turns. If that's the bit you never get round to, Venuesmith can take a sentence about what's coming up ("Mother's Day lunch on 7 March, Six Nations on the big screen, Easter weekend in the garden") and turn it into a six-week plan of posts that you edit and approve before anything goes out.