Presence Kit for Venues
Run a phone-free hour.
For cafés, pubs, libraries and community rooms. One hour a week where the phones go in the middle of the table and the room gets louder in the right way. Everything here is free and prints on the machine in the back office.
- 1Pick a quiet hour. Tuesday early evening works. You are not replacing your busiest hour, you are filling an empty one with regulars who talk.
- 2Print the poster below for the door and window, and a Phone Parking table card for every table. The café template is written for you.
- 3Give every table something to do. A Noticing Cards deck and a few placemats. Or run a Table Quiz round from behind the counter.
- 4Offer one thing. A free refill, a biscuit, ten percent off for tables that keep the pact. It costs almost nothing and it gives people a reason to explain the hour to their friends.
- 5Do not enforce it. Nobody is told off. The signs ask, the room does the rest. If a table wants to scroll, let them. They will notice they are the only ones.
- 6Tell people in the room, not online. The poster, a chalkboard, a word from whoever takes the orders. It should feel like a thing that happens here, not a campaign.