Across every venue I have worked with, the pattern has never once broken: the posts that are purely promotional do worst, and the posts about the place itself do best.
Not sometimes. Every business, every time.
Here is the version that makes it obvious. Imagine a friend who, every time you run into them, starts shouting about their current offer. Buy one get one, tonight only, use code BOGO. You would start crossing the street.
Now imagine a second friend who talks about things you both care about, shows you something you found interesting, and makes you want to keep talking. You would go out of your way for that one.
Your followers make the same choice about your page. The scroll is the street crossing.
People have learned to skip advertising without deciding to
The average North American sees somewhere between 4,000 and 10,000 ads a day, and on social it can feel like every third or fourth post is one.
Human beings adapted. The pattern recognition is instant and unconscious: this is an ad, keep moving. It does not matter how good your offer is if it never gets read.
So the goal of an organic post is not to be more persuasive. It is to not trip that reflex in the first place.
Show people having a good time in your building
For location-based entertainment I always recommend the same thing, because it works and because you already own it.
Show your customers enjoying themselves. Real people, real groups, in your actual room. What you want is somebody scrolling past to think that looks like a great night, and that they should take their friends before they miss it.
That is a much stronger sell than a discount, and it does not read as advertising, because it is not making a claim. It is showing evidence.
Getting enough of this footage consistently is the practical hard part, and it is most of what content work means for a venue.
You still need to promote, just not only
Do not read this as never sell anything. You are not growing an audience to make friends. You need calls to action, and you need people to know when the event is and what it costs.
The mix is what matters. Mostly authentic content that people want to see, with promotions slipped in regularly enough that nobody is surprised by them. When the majority of the feed is worth following, the occasional promotion gets read instead of skipped, which is the entire return on doing it this way.
Dave & Buster's is the largest account in the industry for a reason
If there is one in your city you probably resent how much of the market they take. They also, demonstrably, understand social media better than almost anyone else in location-based entertainment.
Scroll their feed. It is people having fun, families and friends, food that looks good, and the occasional promotion. That is it. A company that size does not land on a formula by accident, and it is available to copy for free.
Barcade is the same lesson at a size you can actually reach
Barcade's feed is mostly the cool things you can try at their locations, with subtle promotion woven through.
I point at them as well as Dave & Buster's because the objection to a big chain is always that their budget makes it work. Barcade's does not. The approach is the same and it works at both scales.
The test before you post
Go back to the two friends. Would somebody want to engage with this, or would they cross the street?
If it is the second one, that is the post to cut. Do not be the first friend.