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.
Content creators — the people making videos for TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and brand campaigns — usually turn up with a camera, a ring light, and perhaps one other person. The session lasts one to three hours. They want a table with good natural light, an interesting background, and a bit of privacy from passing foot traffic. That’s the bulk of it.
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.
This depends on your hourly rate and how many slots you’re willing to offer. Most venues on the platform set their own rate based on what feels right for their space — typically somewhere in the £15–£25 range per hour, though you’re free to price higher if you believe your venue warrants it. A venue that offers three quiet-hour slots per week — say Tuesday and Wednesday mornings — can reasonably expect to earn between £45 and £75 in additional revenue those two days, without touching your regular trade.
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.
First, creators typically book during your quieter hours — that’s when the light is good and the background is clear. They’re not trying to shoot in a packed Friday lunch service. Second, most shoots involve one or two people, not a crew. The camera is usually a phone or a small mirrorless camera. The “equipment” is often just a tripod.
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 with zero impact on regular customers.
The only thing worth thinking about in advance is whether you’d like creators to check in with a member of staff on arrival, and whether there are any areas of the venue that are off-limits. Mention it in your listing description and it won’t be an issue.
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, choose a date and time from your available slots, and pay upfront through the platform. You get notified of the booking. They turn up, create their content, and leave. Creator Spots pays you after the booking is completed, minus the 12% platform commission.
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, becomes a modest but reliable line of income with minimal effort on your part. 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.
If you’d like to see how your space could look as a listing, list your venue here and someone will be in touch within 48 hours to get you set up.