Case studySocial media management, hospitality
One Reel, three million organic views
Purgatory Bar is a cocktail bar and escape room venue in London, retained since 2023. In the first five months of 2026 the account produced 4.1 million Instagram views and 561,000 interactions, with no ad spend at any point.
★★★★★ 5.0 on Google from 10 reviews
See the monthly plans or tell us about the venue. We work with brands worldwide, and onboarding runs about five working days from the first brief to the first scheduled post.
The client
A London venue in the most crowded market in the country
Purgatory Bar combines a cocktail bar with escape room experiences, owned by Darrell Johnston, who also owns No Escape London, and both venues appear on the reviews page. Both venues have been on retainer with us since 2023, which is the single strongest thing on this page: a client who hands over a second business is telling you something a testimonial cannot.
- Instagram is the primary channelThe venue's identity is visual, from the drinks to the interiors to the escape rooms. That suits short form video far better than it suits a paid search budget.
- All content produced in houseConcept, filming, editing, captions, scheduling and analysis. The same two people every month for three years, which is why the account has a consistent voice rather than a rotating one.
- Facebook runs as a secondaryMaintained rather than pushed. Spreading a venue audience thinly across four platforms performs worse than concentrating it on the one that works.
- No paid promotion at any pointEvery figure on this page is organic. That is unusual enough in hospitality marketing to be worth stating twice.
Results
Instagram, 1 January to 1 June 2026
All figures from Meta Business Suite for the stated five month window. Percentage changes compare against the equivalent prior period. The viral event in mid February 2026 drove most of the view and interaction growth, and it is separated out below rather than folded into an average.
| Metric | Value | Change | Monthly average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Views | 4,122,468 | up 2,100 per cent | about 820,000 |
| Reach | 2,900,000 | up 60.9 per cent | about 580,000 |
| Content interactions | 561,000 | up 2,900 per cent | about 112,000 |
| New followers | 1,900 | up 446.3 per cent | about 380 |
| Profile visits | 3,900 | down 59.9 per cent | about 780 |
| Views from ads | 0 | not applicable | fully organic |
Profile visits fell while views rose more than twentyfold, and that is worth explaining rather than hiding. A viral Reel reaches an audience that watches and scrolls on. It inflates views far faster than it inflates intent, and a page that reports only the flattering row is not a case study. Read it alongside the Snaptrip Group figures, where growth was slower and steadier, and the reviews page.
Questions
Answers about the viral result
No, and anyone saying otherwise is selling something. What consistent output does is raise the probability and raise the ceiling. Months of steady posting had already taught the algorithm what the Purgatory account was and who it should be shown to, so when one Reel resonated it had somewhere to go. The work makes the ceiling; the individual post is chance.
None of it. Views from ads across the whole five month window were zero, which is a row in the table rather than a claim in a sentence. Every view, follower and interaction reported for Purgatory Bar came from organic distribution.
Because a viral Reel reaches people who are entertained rather than people who are planning a night out. Views and interactions rise with the wider audience; visits and bookings track the narrower one. It is the honest limit of a viral moment and it is why a retainer is measured over quarters rather than over one post.
Posts appear in the first month and the account usually feels different by the second. Compounding takes quarters. The Purgatory viral moment arrived after years of output, not after a launch campaign, and any agency promising a viral result inside a quarter is describing luck as a deliverable.
Yes. Hospitality is one of the core verticals, covering bars, restaurants and entertainment venues, and there are dedicated hospitality packages in the shop alongside the monthly management plans. The hospitality packages sit in the shop alongside the monthly plans, and the case studies index lists the venues we can name.
Why it works
What three years buys that three months cannot
Algorithmic authority is earned before it is spent
An account that posts consistently is teaching a recommendation system what it is and who should see it. That understanding is an asset, and it is invisible right up until the moment a post catches, when it decides whether the reach stops at ten thousand or runs to three million. It is the least visible part of the work and the part that produced the number in the headline.
A second venue from the same owner is the real proof
Darrell Johnston runs both Purgatory Bar and No Escape London, and both are on retainer here. Nobody hands a second business to an agency out of politeness. It is a harder signal than any metric on this page, because it was a decision taken with his own money and without an audience.
What we would not claim
Not one figure here is a booking. We manage the content and we can report what the content did. What a view was worth at the door is the venue's data, not ours, and inventing an attribution model to close that gap would make this page less true rather than more persuasive.
See the wider roster on the case studies index, the plans on the social media management page, the UGC portfolio, or everything else in the shop.
Client reviews
What clients say, word for word
“Fantastic service. Been a client for 3 years now and have seen fantastic results, increased viewers, followers and viral videos. Copywriting was on point and has been used in magazines like Conde Nast, Timeout and more.”
Darrell Johnston, Owner, No Escape London and Purgatory Bar. Google review, 5.0.“Velena Lifestyle have been a breath of fresh air for our social media accounts. Their professionalism and knowledge have supported us massively.”
Sean Thompson, Head of Marketing, Snaptrip Group. Google review, 5.0.“If you want a self-starter with the ability to think strategically and minimize the time between ideation and creation, Velena is your go-to. She has done a phenomenal job with managing our UGC portfolio, curating and creating our content.”
Naila Abbasova, Enara Wellness. Google review, 5.0.Every review is reproduced word for word. Read them all on the reviews page.
Monthly plans
Social media management, done for you
Small Business Social Pack
£149 per month
12 static posts, 1 platform, content creation done for you
View Small Business Social Pack- Most chosen
Rolling monthly, 2 months notice, no setup fees. All plans on the social media management page.
Who you work with
One team, from the first brief to the last hand off
Velena Nikolova
Co-Founder and Creative Director
Velena leads the filming and the edit, so the idea and the execution never pass between strangers. A lifestyle creator with 13,000 Instagram followers, featured in Women's Health. More on the about page.
Dragos Nistor
Co-Founder and Business Strategist
Dragos runs the brief, the schedule and the delivery, and is on camera for couple and male led work. Named a LinkedIn Top Entrepreneurship Voice in 2024. More on the case studies.
Want the same on your venue?
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