Do you, yes you reading this now, have any experience of running a pub? Have you any familiarity or understanding of the countless administrative and logistical complexities inherent to running a successful, or even just barely functioning, pub? Almost certainly not. But should that prevent you from being given the keys to a pub to run, under your own steam, for approximately 48 hours? Of course not.
If you would like to take on this challenge to see whether you can take charge of a drinking establishment and successfully prevent it from being looted; raised to the ground or set on fire, then this is the perfect opportunity for you.
Guinness are running a competition for Paddy’s Day weekend were they will be providing one person with the keys to a pub, the Joseph McHugh pub in Liscannor, Co. Clare.
If you would like to spend a weekend ferreting around refilling small, display wicker baskets with Scampi Fries; if you would like to ensure that each table in a pub is stocked with a suitable supply of individually portioned sachets of condiments; if you would like to ensure that each customer is adequately using a coaster so that they do not damage the wood surfaces in the pub then why not enter their competition? To do so, all you have to do is visit this page on their website.
Should you still not be sold on the idea of taking on the potentially onerous task of running a pub for 48 hours and are wondering exactly what the competition entails, flock hither. Entry into the competition simply requires you to share a photo of yourself and some friends ‘enjoying a get together with friends’ on Patrick’s Day. You must share the photo on social media along with the hashtags #GuinnessGetTogether and #Contest to be able to enter. Once you’ve done this, head over to their website to enter your contact details.
While this may seem like a bizarre, though enjoyable, prize it follows in a long tradition of companies providing prize-winners an opportunity to run an establishment they almost certainly lack the requisite qualifications for*.
- In 2003, SuperQuinn allowed a competition winner to write and produce a new track for Samantha Mumba. The track was never released after the prize-winner was unable to figure out how to use the recording studio’s mixing desk and only managed to record audio of Ms. Mumba arranging a private tour of the Dead Zoo on one of Ireland’s first Blackberry phones.
- In 2010, Banshee Bones promised the keys of a sewage treatment plant to a competition winner for 72 hours. The top prize was claimed by an 8-year-old from Ballina who caused the discharge of 20 metric tonnes of untreated human excrement into a nearby river, resulting in some 10,000 fish deaths.
- Now defunct car retailer, Michael Dunphy Automobiles, ran a competition that allowed the winner to run a local crematorium for a week. The competition winner was quickly relieved of their post after asking the relatives of their first cremation whether they wanted the deceased ‘well done or rare?’.
