Most cafes have dead hours — and learning how to rent your cafe for filming is one of the more sensible ways to fill them. Tuesday mornings. Wednesday afternoons. The stretch between the breakfast rush and the lunch crowd where you’re essentially paying staff to wipe the same section of counter for forty-five minutes.
Content creators have the opposite problem. They need interesting spaces, they need them soon, and they’ll pay by the hour to use them. Photoshoots, TikToks, YouTube videos — the various things that constitute “content” in 2026 — are exactly what your quiet hours are built for.
It’s less dramatic than it sounds. Here’s what it actually involves.
The phrase “filming location” tends to conjure images of film crews in hi-vis vests, catering trucks blocking the road, and a location manager nervously asking if you’d mind moving that lamp. That’s not this.
Shoot sizes vary. A short social video may involve one person and a phone; a brand campaign may bring a crew, lighting, products and several hours of setup. Ask for the brief, headcount, equipment, access needs and total time before deciding whether the booking suits your cafe.
What they’re specifically looking for in a cafe or bar:
If your venue has any of those things, you’re already most of the way there.
Income depends on your agreed rate and completed bookings, not simply on offering slots. As an illustration, three completed one-hour bookings at £25 would generate £75 in gross hire revenue. After Creator Spots’ 12% owner fee, £66 would remain before any other costs or taxes. This is an example, not an earnings forecast: demand, cancellations, staffing, cleaning and disruption to normal trade all affect the result.
That’s not life-changing money. But it’s also not nothing, particularly if those hours would otherwise be dead. Over a month, it starts to look more interesting.
According to the Ofcom Media Nations report and DentsuX’s analysis, YouTube viewing continues to grow year on year, with online video now driving the UK’s entire commercial media sector — which means the pool of people creating content, and needing spaces like yours to do it in, is only getting bigger.
The higher earners tend to be venues that photograph well and have flexible availability. A bar with interesting décor that’s happy to take bookings on Monday mornings before it opens will get more traction than a cafe that only offers one slot a week at an inconvenient time.
To get a sense of what a finished listing looks like, take a look at The Orchid Room in Margate — one of the first venues on the platform.
This is the bit most venue owners actually want to know, so let’s deal with it directly.
The concern is usually some version of: “What if a creator turns up with a load of equipment and upsets my regulars?” It’s a fair thing to wonder. The answer is that it very rarely plays out that way, for a few reasons.
Agree whether the shoot needs exclusive use or can operate alongside normal trade. Ask for the full crew size and equipment list, including lights, stands, props and power requirements. A quiet trading slot is not necessarily quiet enough for dialogue recording, and a small shoot still needs a safe plan for customers and staff.
Third, you set the rules. When you list on Creator Spots, you confirm your own availability windows. If you don’t want bookings before 10am or after 3pm, you say so. If you want to block out weekends entirely, you block them. And if you’d rather start slowly — with a couple of slots on a day you’re normally closed — that works too. Some venues find it’s the easiest way to trial the whole thing while limiting disruption to regular customers.
Agree arrival and supervision, off-limits areas, furniture movement, customer privacy, setup and pack-down, cleaning and noise limits. Put the approved arrangements in writing before confirming the booking.
For a full breakdown of what the platform asks of you and how bookings are managed, take a look at how it works for venues.
Creators find your listing and send an enquiry. You approve the date, project and arrangements before the booking is confirmed. Creator Spots charges owners a 12% fee on all completed bookings, deducted from the booking amount. Payment arrangements are confirmed before the shoot.
You don’t need to chase payments or handle invoices. You don’t need to be present for every booking unless you want to be. And you’re not tied to any minimum number of slots — if you want to trial it with one morning a week, that’s entirely fine.
If you’re curious about the scale of what creators are producing, the TikTok Creator Academy gives a reasonable sense of how seriously people take this — these aren’t hobbyists mucking about, they’re building audiences and working to a brief.
The practical effect is that your quiet Tuesday morning, which was previously costing you money in staff time and coffee, can generate additional income when suitable bookings are completed. Allow for the time and costs of hosting each shoot. The main adjustment most venues make is letting us know when they need to block out a slot — for a private event, a delivery, or just a day off. A quick email to hello@creatorspots.co.uk is all it takes.
Not much. Here’s the short version.
That’s genuinely it for the initial listing. Once you’re live, Creator Spots handles the booking, the payment, and the reminders. You don’t need to build a new process around it — it sits alongside whatever you’re already doing.
If you’d like to see exactly what happens after you register, the how it works for venues page walks through every step in detail.
The research suggests that most venues in Thanet are already open to the idea of hosting creators — the gap has always been knowing who’s open and how to book them. Creator Spots is essentially a way of making that mutual interest visible and getting both sides into the same room.
Or the same cafe, as it were. This isn’t only a cafe opportunity, either. Gym owners can fill the gaps between classes, and homeowners can hire out a characterful room by the hour as a photo shoot location.
If you’d like to see how your space could look as a listing, list your spot here and someone will be in touch within 48 hours to get you set up.