Rack 'em up
No screens, no apps, no hashtags — just a cue, a board and a cold one. The analog pub-games revival is one of the data's happiest surprises. Darts is up +99%, pool tables +83%, snooker +63%, pool bars +56%. South Africa rediscovered the games you play standing up, drink in hand.
The 60-second version
- 🎯 The pub-games revival is real: darts +99%, pool tables +83%, snooker +63%, pool bars +56%.
- 🎤 Karaoke bars (+31%) and bowling (+5%) rose too — social, analog, do-it-together fun.
- 🃏 The home version lagged: poker night −21% — people want the venue, not the lounge.
- 🍇 The Western Cape leads per person, with Gauteng close and KZN further back.
In an age of infinite digital entertainment, the comeback of the pool table is quietly radical. The games surging in our data are the oldest, simplest ones — cue sports, darts, karaoke — all sharing a glorious lack of technology and a single requirement: other people, in a room, having fun together. This is the anti-screen night out, and it's booming.
The revival
Analog games are back
The growth leaderboard reads like a list of everything a smartphone was supposed to replace. Cue sports lead, but the whole category of stand-up, in-person, social games is climbing.
Four-year change across pub and venue games.
The takeaway: Darts (+99%), pool tables (+83%) and snooker (+63%) lead the analog revival.
The common thread is venue-based, social, screen-free fun. These are the perfect "third place" activities — cheap, communal, and an excuse to be out with people rather than scrolling alone.
The cue-sport boom
Pool, snooker and the rise of the cue
At the heart of the revival sits the cue sport — pool, snooker and the pool bar. Combined, they form one of the clearest "going out" growth stories in the entire dataset.
Combined monthly demand for pool tables, snooker, darts and pool bars near me.
The takeaway: A strong, steady upward trend across the cue-sport category.
Note the "near me" framing — this is people actively looking for a venue to play at. It's demand for a place to go, not a table to buy. The pub with a pool table is having a moment.
The geography of the cue
Where the country plays hardest
Cue-sport interest is led, per person, by the same coastal province that tops so many "going out" categories — with Gauteng close behind.
A cue-sport basket — pool, snooker, darts, pool bars near me — per million people.
The takeaway: The Western Cape leads, Gauteng close behind, KZN a clear third.
It fits the broader "go out to a venue" personality of the Cape and Gauteng metros — dense, social, with a strong pub-and-bar culture that the cue sport slots perfectly into.
Average monthly search volume across cue sports, pub games and house games.
The takeaway: Cue sports and bowling anchor the category; home games are the smaller slice.
The map confirms the theme: the growth and the volume are both in venue games, not the at-home poker night. People want to go out to play.
| Venue games (rising) | 4-yr change | Home games | 4-yr change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Darts near me | +99% | Poker night | −21% |
| Pool tables near me | +83% | Giant Jenga hire | +4% |
| Snooker near me | +63% | Giant games hire | +10% |
| Karaoke bar near me | +31% |
The verdict
The third place strikes back
The pub-games revival is a heartening counter-melody to all the decline stories around it. While festivals collapse and content parties die, the simplest social formats of all are thriving — proof that what people actually want isn't spectacle or technology, but a cheap, easy, recurring reason to be in a room with friends. Rack 'em up: the third place is back, and it's holding a cue.
The most future-proof night out turned out to be the oldest one: a table, a cue and your mates.
- Source. Aggregated South African search demand for games & venue keywords, monthly, June 2022 – May 2026.
- Growth. First 12 months vs the most recent 12. Province figures normalised per million residents (Census 2022).
- Caveat. "Near me" terms reflect venue-finding intent; some niche game terms have small bases.
References & further reading
Figures are PartyTrends' own analysis of the search-demand dataset described above. Sources below corroborate the wider context.
- The New York Times, The return of the "third place". nytimes.com
- Statistics South Africa, Census 2022 — population context for per-capita figures. statssa.gov.za
- PartyTrends, The Experience Economy Myth — the broader return to pubs. partytrends.co.za/blog
- PartyTrends, The Battle of the Provinces — the provincial nightlife split. partytrends.co.za/blog
- PartyTrends, Near-Me Stats — live venue demand tracker. partytrends.co.za/stats