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LBX Collective
The LBX Show #22 - Vegas Adult-only Venues Unveiled, and more from AEI 2025
Sponsored by Intercard!
On this week's LBX Show BW and friends dive into the latest developments in location-based entertainment, exploring cutting-edge venues in Las Vegas and highlighting innovations from Amusement Expo 2025.
• Touring adult-oriented entertainment venues in Vegas with Barry Zelickson from Fun Across America: Play Playground and Swingers
• Examining The Muni in DC – a golf simulator venue with exceptional mid-century theming
• Updates on Zero Latency's Space Marine VR and their new Threat Lethal gameplay mode
• Qbix partnering with Cineplex to bring immersive enclosures to The Rec Room
• Top Gun arcade cabinet from Raw Thrills generating buzz despite some accessibility challenges
• New competitive refreshment games: Soda Slam vs. Icee Slush Rush
• Review of Blue Motion Games' massive Cannonball Jam and Desert Strike attractions
• Wild West Shootout 2 from Coastal Amusements offering a refreshing non-alien/zombie theme
• Global expansion of competitive socializing venues: cricket simulators, mini-golf, and batting cages
• Trend of "parachuting" entertainment options into existing facilities like hotels and stadiums
Join us next week for a new segment with Justin Michaels from Intercard, where we'll explore redemption tips to improve your venue's layout and offerings.
Tuning you in. Now to the LBX Show with your host, brandon Wyeth, brought to you by the LBX Collective your community to connect, engage and inspire.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, welcome everybody to the latest edition of the LBX show. This is number 22 for March 30th, and I'm your host, brandon Wiley, and we've got a great show lined up for you today. You know I'm going to start with a guest gab with special guest Barry Zelikson. He's from Fun Across America, he's the executive producer over there and also just an all-around good guy, good friend of mine, and he's always involved in a lot of different things. Also just an all-around good guy, good friend of mine and he's always involved in a lot of different things. But specifically, we're going to be talking about our chance to visit a few venues in Vegas. While we were out there for Amusement Expo and so super excited about that, we went and checked out Swingers and Play Playground, and so we'll dig into that and we'll review those. Then I joined Arcade Corner with Adam Pratt and we continue our discussion from last week's show, but we're going to dig into some of the unique pieces we saw on the show floor of Amusement Expo, aei 2025. And then, finally, I joined Kevin Williams on Open and Shut. We discussed the top 10 trending openings, all right. But that being said, first we're going to dive into some news you should know, all right.
Speaker 2:Well, the first thing I want to talk about with News you Should Know is our LBX Academy. We have this coming up here and this is April 14th to 16th, so it's coming up in just a few weeks at Ready Carding. It's at the Colony in Dallas, texas. We keep adding more and more great speakers, so we now have Beth Stanley, we've got Clint Novak, we've got myself, and then we also just added Salem Tine. He runs EVA. It's a big VR venue, and they have massive expertise in group sales, and so this is obviously the focus of the LBX Academy. For those of you who don't know, it's how to grow your revenue through group events, and so he has enormous amount of operator experience and I'm so excited to have him added to the faculty just recently. So, anyway, that is the LBX Academy, and all right.
Speaker 2:So the next thing I wanted to share here is this new place. There's a new place opened. It's called the Muni and it's in DC and there's, you know, frankly, it's a golf simulator place. They also have some augmented reality darts, so there's nothing super interesting about that. I mean, this is a golf simulator venue, except for what they really did with the overall theming and that's really what I wanted to call out here, is it just? It just looks fucking awesome.
Speaker 2:So they tried to go with this mid-century municipal golf course feel. There's a massive bar as well and you know you can play golf, obviously, but you can also do soccer and other football stuff. You know, on the simulators, like a multi-sport simulator, but it's really themed around golf, but this is their main entrance and lobby and then you know, like they just have I'm scrolling down to some of these pictures it just has a great mid-century feel to it. They've done a great job with all the theming and the selection of the furniture and the wallpaper, like the plaid wallpaper. I mean it's right there. I love mid-century modern architecture and that feel.
Speaker 2:And so, again, here we'll just look at this is one of their golf bays, and this is the other thing I liked as well is that their golf bays were really private. It's not like you just have some of these golf simulator venues like Five. Iron Golf is actually one of those, although they do have some more private venues like VIP venues or areas bays, but they're just kind of like lined up, and so here you feel much more like this is your space to be in. You can play darts while you're also doing golf. I love that they've got the bags like holding, like all these old bags holding the clubs there on the left-hand side. So anyway, just the finishes are really well done.
Speaker 2:And, you know, here's like this is the place we were just looking at. Look, there's like a whole lounge area behind where you could be playing golf and like you could also be hanging out here. So obviously major made for group events. Here's another one of their bays with, you know, again, darts and then a whole lounge area, good selection of furniture, and I just absolutely love what they did here. Really made it feel like you're right from the mid century. So anyway, that's why I just call this out is. I thought that these guys did a really good job theming out everything. Obviously you have to have tvs in there and they're not. You can't find like old tvs, um. So anyway, that is the muni in dc and the, and so anyway, that's what I wanted to cover here.
Speaker 2:The next thing I wanted to talk about is, uh, space marine vr. So those of you who are familiar with Zero Latency, zero Latency recently released this new version, or this game called Space Marine. It was first launched in September of 24. If you were at iAppa, you potentially had a chance to go and check this out, so I had a chance to go and play and it was a phenomenal experience. Well, they've actually added a new version of gameplay, now called their Threat Lethal, and so this is their Space Marine VR, and now there's a new level called Threat Lethal. It's still focused on group gameplay and there's a trailer available online and it's now rolled out to all of the Zero Latency venues. It went out on March 12th. So if you have Zero Latency and you don't know you have this, well you do now, but if you don't have zero latency, definitely go and check it out. It's a phenomenal experience and, again, this is really their toughest and most competitive game mode to date, and so for those of you who are really interested in that type of gameplay, want to go check it out, but zero latency just keeps throwing things out there. So that's on zero latency front.
Speaker 2:And then we've got Cubix. So those of you are familiar with InnoWise and just their immersive enclosures we actually talk a little bit about this. This goes into the Monkey Park in Japan. Cubix recently went in there and we talked about that on Open and Shut with Kevin Williams later on the show. But they also but they also just recently partnered with the rec room, which is a cineplex. They're they're the big giant, leading entertainment media company in Canada, and so they are now located. They're, they're putting two of their venues you can see here's actual installation into the rec room in the, the cineplex.
Speaker 2:Uh, basic entertainment installations and uh venues. So, anyway, congrats to Cubix. If you haven't had a chance to play a Cubix uh arena, highly recommend, you know, highly recommend it. It's a phenomenal experience and, uh, it's great to see that they're getting out there and into other venues.
Speaker 2:All right, well, that is a little bit of news you should know, coming up up. We've got a few more great things. So here we go, leading the way for over 30 years. Catch the system from Intercard, increase customer spending, guest satisfaction and boost revenues by up to 30%. Intercard is so proud to be serving the amusement industry and if you aren't already part of their global family of customers, they hope you will become one soon. All right.
Speaker 2:So I had a chance to spend some time with Barry Zelikson. He's the executive producer of Fun Across America. He's also an FEC of the World brass ring winner from IAPA for his old he's now sold it but his big thrill factory FEC that he has in or he had in Minnesota and he does a bunch of other great things like making sourdough and all that other great stuff. But anyway, I had a chance to sit down with Barry and we, you know, we went to a couple of venues, as I mentioned earlier in Vegas while we were out there, and so, anyway, I just highly recommend spending some time with him. But we're going to go and do a little guest gab and, just as a reminder, he's with Fun Across America.
Speaker 2:If you're not familiar with that, you can go to funacrossamericacom and check out all their videos that they do. They go around and they travel around and visit different venues and so he's usually behind the camera. He's the executive producer and so you know he's he's every once in a while you can see him in one of these videos, but he's very knowledgeable about all this stuff. So we had a great conversation, all right, awesome. Well, barry, welcome to the LBX show. This is not your first rodeo, but it's good to have you here.
Speaker 4:Well, Brandon, great to be here.
Speaker 2:Had more fun being with you in Vegas, though but good to be here too. Yeah, yeah, no, that was awesome. That was so much fun going around and checking out a couple of different places. We went to play playground and then we went to swingers and, yeah, we'll take a look at some videos. But just in general though, what was your, what was your impression of amusement expo? And we'll get into the things in general, like how you know, how did you enjoy your time at amusement expo?
Speaker 4:I really enjoy it. I mean to be and, again, as I mentioned when we talked, that's my first amusement expo I actually walked the floor on. I'd been there to speak a couple of times, but never to actually walk the floor and it was just great. I think the and I think the key note difference of, obviously, when someone to go to, like IAP or something like that, it's just the time you have with people, the one-on-one time and the networking was was really well done and and, like I said, even stepping into foundations for better. I mean it was a huge crowd, so I mean of what who they had going in, so I mean it's just a lot of positive energy at the event. So I was very happy that I was able to get there and spend some time and then, of course, being able to break away in the evening to go check out these places, was, was was the key highlight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So the first place we visited was play playground and this was in. We should have done is had some pictures of like. Actually I might have a picture here somewhere, but a picture of like where it was in the Luxor, because we did not find it easily.
Speaker 4:No, it was, and I think I would say that overall, on both these locations, be fair. I mean they do not do any justice to trying to help these operations, you know, be successful. I mean they were both very challenging to find, not easy to locate. I mean to be fair. I guess when we did ask or find someone to ask, they at least pointed at us in the right direction. But especially Play Playground, that signage was there, just wasn't signage to find it.
Speaker 2:No, no, I mean. So we walked, we walked up, and you know this is the like when you think okay, well, you dummies, you didn't notice it. Actually, what's interesting is like we came in on an elevator from the second, from the first floor, up to the second floor, which there was no signage on the first floor at all of, uh, of this. The second floor even existed inside the luxor, um, but we come in and we come in off the elevators. We'd like walk right past it because it's on our right behind us actually. So it wasn't until we walked through the whole top floor. We're coming back around like where is this place?
Speaker 4:we finally saw this big giant play, but again, had we not even known, like we knew I mean a simple sign just as you come off the elevator to, with a directional would have been, would have been wonderful. But I guess, to be fair, I guess we got to see the whole what else was offering on the floor, but yeah, I mean, there was some, like you know, the mummies and the Titanic experience and some other stuff there.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so that was the, that was the entrance and then the. I guess we'll come up here and so we walked in, was awesome is like. Well, barry, first of all, you're just excellent at getting personally guided tours, apparently, of the general managers of these spaces without any advanced notice.
Speaker 4:And again, obviously it did go seamlessly for us that night but to be fair, and I think you would say the same, at both locations their managers were top notch. I mean, these people went out of their way not only just to welcome us and tell us about the place, but to step away and give us a tour. I mean you, I mean, listen, I've been to many locations and you just don't find that very often. And again, like you said, there was no advanced. We didn't call an advanced. They didn't know who we were. I didn't show any identification.
Speaker 2:We didn't validate who we actually said we were.
Speaker 4:Certainly you know, had the conversation, what we were there for, what we wanted to do, but I mean, it was like not only, oh, go in and take a look, it was here, let me give you a personal tour. And on and on and on and I got to say it was extremely impressive. And again, that was the same at both locations we visited.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this first, you know, play playground was we got a tour from Giovanna and we didn't get her last name and we wouldn't say it anyway here on this program, but she was incredible and super passionate about the experiences that they're delivering here and so, you know, just play this in the background or we talk about it, but I'll say that this was one of the most. First of all, all adults was 21 and over, so there's no kids in here.
Speaker 4:So that's a big difference between this and any other. And one caveat to that what Giovanni had told us is that they had just started doing a 16 plus, as long as they're accompanied with adult, from noon to six. So they were expanded their audience a little that they were just going to start. So that's a little deviation, but again still had to be accompanied with an adult.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you know it was a you know again like just seeing the adults rolling around playing each of these games. It was an interesting model as well. So it had a little bit of a feel to a place I visited in London with Kevin Williams and you know where you have a card and you get X. You get X number of plays of each of the different games and the different experiences, and so you know it gave people a chance to try all of them, but basically you're inside of a giant board game or like a bunch of different board games I don't know if that's the way to describe it no-transcript.
Speaker 4:I've not seen you know they were built for themselves and what they've did of this facility. I've not seen you know they were built for themselves and what they've done. And so I think that's the other piece. You know, when you've seen so much and to be able to go into one location and see so many unique experiences, but yet there's a familiar element to them, because they're games that you knew.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now let me. I'm going to go and see if we can hear her. So unfortunately I didn't have her mic'd up for this, which I regret in hindsight, but let me see if I can go back. And because I was supposed to just be a fly on the wall, but let me go back and see what she was saying, because I clearly felt like there was a reason for it. Okay, so she was explaining the pricing model there. So for the price of general admission, you have the opportunity to play each game once, and then what I thought was interesting is you can recharge the card and if you don't use it, you can come back and use. You can continue to use it. So it's not like a you know one and done. It's a little bit like a game card you would have at an arcade.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and again, same with. You know their bar set up and and you know just every place to engage and sit as a group and in games on the tables. It was just really well done from a social, interactive um environment yeah, yeah, we didn't get a chance to actually try the cocktails.
Speaker 2:Um, this was one of the most infuriating little uh yeah, skip that one but anyway, I thought it was interesting tooPay like everything that they developed was custom, so they created all of their own products, versus using something out of the box and like rebranding it or whatever.
Speaker 4:So all of their games were custom developed which is probably what drives up, and their merchandise store was all branded merchandise and stuff that was relevant and, like I said, said just really well done yeah, yeah, this is awesome.
Speaker 2:So this was play a playground and, um, you know this, I don't know if this is like a little looks like a, you know, maybe dinner or something or food, but that was definitely unused compared to the uh, you know, compared to the bar, actual bar there. But, um, yeah, so that's play playground and then, uh, you know, after playing playground, we walked over. It was we could actually get there from the, um, you know, from the actual uh, looks are over and we're trying to remember, was it mandalay bay?
Speaker 4:does that work? Yeah, I think yeah.
Speaker 2:so we went into mandalay bay, we went to Swingers, and so Swingers was a well, it's a mini golf venue, but I'd say it's a little bit more than that. So what was your first? You know overall, what was your impression of Swingers as we were walking in manager and their, their, their staff was tremendous.
Speaker 4:I mean the same same experience we had at play playground. I mean I don't know, you know, maybe because of all the attractions in in vegas they step up to that level, but they were just amazing with the time they gave us. And again here we had time to sit down and food. So they they threw, you know, allowed us in. And all this experience, you know, for two guys just walked in and say let's see the place. So, um, first, right, I mean they, I mean they obviously spent a lot of money, as you know, on this location, but it it is. I mean I would go and hang there. It was the experience and the I hate to use the quote vibe that they created there was amazing. I could just sit there, eat, drink and watch the activities without even engaging, even though all the theme courses, everything were, you know, were amazing and I'm sure really fun to play. But it was, you could just like said, it was such an inviting environment, it was great to be there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely the food. Yeah, I just played, so you know you can hear the music that's going and I'm talking, apparently, about something, I don't know what exactly, but anyway, so this was. You know, it was again a phenomenal experience and you know I'll just play another video here, that kind of runs. I think this might be from the second level.
Speaker 4:And also this was you know again, I played Playground Runners 2, but this was a retrofit from a nightclub you know had been before. So I mean you know they built this specifically to fit in an already existing environment with the multilevels and to make that all work, you know had to be incredibly challenging and they just did a tremendous job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, four courses, so two, two courses upstairs that were backed back to back with each other, and then you know, and then another two courses downstairs, but absolutely gorgeous courses, the, the, the quality, one of the most, I would say, argue like the highest quality mini golf course I've ever seen and again not, you know, going more towards.
Speaker 4:You know, thematic as opposed to electronic. It wasn't, like you know, like a putt shack where it's all electronically scored and all those things. It's carded and you know, you go along and play and it's just very well themed. It felt like a nice course, not just holes being placed in a room.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, and all of the finishes. I mean, even when you look now, granted, this is it's fairly new, so it Now, granted, this is it's fairly new, so it hasn't been open very long. So we'll say that this is. You know, it's like going and getting in a new car. Everything looks great and smells great for a while, until it's been driven for a while. But, but the grass coming up to the edges, the, you know, there was no gaps. There was no it just in general, everything was very well constructed.
Speaker 4:And again, this is another 21 plus venue.
Speaker 2:They do not let anyone under 21 in the facility. Yeah, this was a great place. You can continue to order cocktails while you're there, and then you know, and they come and take your order. That's the other thing, you don't have to go up and grab it.
Speaker 4:Their staff comes up to take you know, take your order, bring it to you, which, again, it's the service. It is incredible.
Speaker 2:You know, here we see, even it's the little things like. There's no reason they had to create custom cups for the ball. You know when the ball falls in that has swingers on it. But they did. Every little place where you pick up clubs and balls are all themed as if you're in a little old country club.
Speaker 4:Well, and you take, like you said, take that to that to. You know they had an arcade which I'm sure you have some pictures of too, but you know they took it to the next level. They relabeled all their arcade games you know to to look the same and match it under their brand. I mean, I mean, these were not, these were not unique games. They're games they've certainly purchased, but they, they, they relabeled them all. So they all felt like they were part of the part of the venue yeah.
Speaker 2:So, speaking of the arcade, we'll go ahead and you know, just roll this video here in the background. So this was the you know little cup to win and you know everything in their arcade. So they call it the. They call it their carnival. But all the redemption prizes, as well as the merchandise that was inside the merchandisers, was all swingers branded. There was nothing like non-swingers branded at all. So, like you're walking out and you're winning prizes and what are you going to be doing? You're advertising with people while you're there. So, yeah, everything was super well done. We did have some frustration with the cranes, though.
Speaker 4:They aren't game people. Let's just say that they did a lot of other things great. Could use a little work on some of the playing, the operation of the games, but I'll let you take that in your rant section and I'll leave that to you, rich, who was the general manager who walks us around, and then gave us some, some free drinks and free food.
Speaker 4:Also gave us some game cards so we were able to go back and play, play here, and you know they were enjoyable they were fun and just to cut in there for a second, you saw when you went through, when that went over those games, you could see all those labels were, you know, reprinted to match each other. So I mean, you know again, they're obviously not unique games but from the whack-a-mole to they went over, they all have that same look on them, on the panels and the backdrop, which is incredible to take the time to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean even down to the, the, the actual panel, like, not just the back panel, you know it's probably an easy thing to switch out, but like the actual laminate that is on here is all branded with the swingers branding and their carnival branding, you know, all the way down to the ski ball and everything else. So yeah, again taking the time and the investment to do it, to tie it all together cohesively. So this is their redemption store, you know, and again, all adult type redemption, so you're not going to find any kitty type stuff but it's all branded for swingers. You know, relatively decent uh pricing on things, depending on how their payouts are. If it's anything like their crane machine, then maybe their payouts aren't super great, that's where they make it all back one of the swingers bear to put you know behind here.
Speaker 2:So yeah, but like I said it, just you know very well done.
Speaker 4:They had a nice winner circle, you know, behind here. So yeah, but like I said, just you know, very well done. They had a nice winner's circle, you know set up where you can, you know, automatically take pictures of your group and and how you come out of the scores. Like I said, a lot of attention to detail was really well done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly. So to that end, this was the winner's circle at you know there. So, as you're leaving and you can have again, I think the only thing I would have done for their purposes is to have a Swingers logo back here somewhere.
Speaker 4:And I was wondering if that was handled through their photo element.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe. Maybe it was built in Because it was so automatic and part of their system.
Speaker 4:that's what I thought too, and I thought maybe that's how they address it, because otherwise I'd agree with you, it's because it's all set up and it seems to be automatic. I would hope that's what they're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, so that was, that was, you know, a little overview of our visit. While at amusement expo, at swingers and play playground and Barry, next time we're, you know, in the same place together.
Speaker 4:We've got to go check out some other venues, because it was a great time and maybe we'll even get a chance to do it in advance so we can be a little more direct on where we're headed. But it worked out great. It was just a tremendous evening, so appreciate being able to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, awesome. Well, looking forward to the next time you're on the LBX show and we'll see you around next time.
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Speaker 3:Hey, welcome to Arcade Corner, and joining me this time is Brandon Wiley, of course, of the rest of the LBX Collective podcast. How are you doing, brandon?
Speaker 2:Good, good. Yeah, I'm excited to talk about some of the stuff we saw at Amusement Expo. Should be good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, definitely, and, and so that's exactly what we're going to do this time is just focus on amusement expo.
Speaker 2:Of course, we did have a chat with Kevin on that and Beth the last time, but this time it's just to focus a little bit more on all that, because there just wasn't enough time to talk about all this 40 minutes, and Because there just wasn't enough time to talk about all this, we've been for 40 minutes and we still could have, I think, gone for another 20 at least Just talking about some of the stuff we saw on the floor. We didn't really need to do much of that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, easily, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is going to fill up content for the corner for the next little while as you also get updates and such. But yeah, we definitely. I think it was a great show. I mean, I was a little shocked to see that the numbers were slightly under where 2024 was by about 200 visitors, because it didn't feel like that, like both days felt busy, and I think we discussed this in the other.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, and maybe it was just that they were on the floor for longer, so they just moved around, milled around and stuff and and they spent more time in booths like we did. We did talk about, like in talking to some of the vendors, the the buying interest was higher, so it seemed like better quality attendees and so because they're better quality, maybe they were just less looky-loos and like spending more time actually on the floor. I don't know, but it definitely did feel more active than past years, at least the last five years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, and several operators I talked to had mentioned just offhand that they had purchased equipment and that they were definitely in that buying mood as opposed to the dreamers or the window shoppers and such, which is what I've been for the past couple of years at these shows. But also, as we alluded to and discussed to some degree, was that there was just a lot more new product at the show that hadn't been at IAPA. And for a lot of us that visit both trade shows or sometimes there's like you were at EAG this year too and it's a little hard when you start to, when you're visiting all these trade shows close to each other, when they're just showing kind of the same thing and you just feel like you're going through deja vu. But at this time, particularly for AEI, just there was a lot more new product and new companies as well that came into the mix and so we can get into those.
Speaker 3:Now, of course, this isn't a new company, but Roth Thrills. I mean I was a little bit shocked when I first I was actually a few minutes late getting to to the show just went and had a breakfast with somebody and uh and. But anyways, when I got there I was still about 15, 20 minutes after the show had opened and the betson booth, which is rothrills, was just completely packed wall to wall with with bodies. It's like I was was going to start filming just to do a booth tour, which I like to do, but it's like this is impossible. I can't, because I'm just going to rub too close to people's personal bubbles.
Speaker 3:But, they definitely had stuff there that was just drawing a lot of attention, particularly Top Gun, which let's's see here. Zoom in on that really quick. The cabinet is based on the fast and furious arcade cabinet. I did have one commenter making a good point that it would be really cool to have something even more uh unique, like a super deluxe cabinet, that is say, like a cockpit, where you actually have a roof over your head. Um, I found out talking to george petro. That's the guy who designed the the blazing angels arcade cabinet and actually designed the top gun one as well. Um, but, uh, but, either way, something like uh, the suggestion was something like the star wars battle pod would be really cool for the top gun. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:As well. But yeah, I had fun with this one. You know, you just fly along, blow stuff up, and I was just a little surprised that there were some people I witnessed who weren't even shooting at all. But I mean, I guess to some degree I could understand. Sometimes there were targets on the screen where it wasn't obvious to me that they were enemies. That uh.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean it was. I mean it. Actually I didn't start shooting until, I mean, it took me only about 20 seconds, Right. So, um, it wasn't like that far into the game but I was collecting the coins and that kind of stuff, but then I didn't, or you know, but collecting the missiles and I didn't realize, oh yeah, I could be shooting all of this stuff that's down, and it wasn't super clear that some of that stuff was shootable, I guess.
Speaker 3:But you can blow up and destroy anything you wanted. Because I guess we get used to the idea of not shooting everything or having some restraint, or you don't want to hit friendlies or whatever. But for the impression I got from this one is it just doesn't matter, just shoot it. You know, if it's a human made structure, blow it up.
Speaker 2:And you can even hit some rocks and bridges and stuff too, but, um, it's actually, I think, for some of the rocks that kids was an auto shoot. So it clears a what clears your path for you, right, the? The one bit of feedback that I was actually was given enough times that they actually mentioned it to me off hand um, somebody at betson was that for left handers, it would be really interesting to have the joystick maybe in the middle and a throttle and a potentially a throttle on either side that could be used for somebody with left hand versus right hand. So it didn't really matter. So make an ambidextrous cabinet because, yeah, I mean, when you think about the fact that you're really controlling the majority of your flight with the right hand, you know, depending on how people are with their, their, you know, left hand or the right hand, if they're left-handed could make it more difficult. So that was one change um that.
Speaker 3:That I don't know if the change was going to be made, but anyway, it was something that was brought up now, and that would be more realistic too, because as far as I I mean, I've never been a fighter pilot or sat inside of a cockpit, but I think they do have it central yeah, as opposed to um there and and like really you don't need to have your hand on the throttle all the time. You have it there just because maybe it feels cool or something.
Speaker 2:I was basically throttled up the whole time anyway. The throttle isn't what mattered. It was where the joystick was, and if you're left-handed you have to reach all the way across your body to do it, or try to use your right hand.
Speaker 3:Right. And then I discovered early on when I started operating is that there are some people who play fighting games like that. They cross their hands, they call it dragon style, but I can't imagine doing dragon style on the on Top Gun would be very comfortable out of everything. But but overall it was one of the standout games of the show. Um, and just with some little tweaks and polishing, additional polish, because I know from talking to the roth real staff that they had already done a lot.
Speaker 3:One thing that surprised me is that they apparently tested it to play kind of like blazing angels, where it was off rails, where you could just fly around, essentially an arena, but apparently people just got lost and it wasn't very fun. So, uh, yeah, they made it more like a racing game in a sense. Uh, to that degree, and that wasn't the only new piece that they had. Um, I have this low quality gif here, uh, animated gif that shows the wizard of Oz as well, which is essentially the Monopoly roll and go concept, but it will vend cards.
Speaker 3:Now, somebody at Roth thrills had mentioned that they were looking at doing a version without cards, because I know there are some operators that are not really into that. But the cards are a way that are supposed to drive more play and can also earn more tickets for players, because you can turn them into the location and get more tickets for that. But obviously it'll be up to each location what it is that they offer. But two new games from Rothrills at their booth and then joining all their other stuff, including a new update to Minecraft Dungeons Arcade Series 4. Lots of cool things to see there that kept them busy. Got anything to add on them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I think it's timely having Wizard of Oz as IP for machine here. It would have been probably better to do Wicked, but I'm sure the IP costs on that are significantly different at this point. So you know the of oz will suffice it's record. It's recognizable enough. The question would just be is it recognizable enough for the younger audience, who are used to being wicked everywhere?
Speaker 3:uh, you know, right, right and and yeah, that must be that licensing cost it's gotta be the licensing but at the very least the game cabinet.
Speaker 3:the way that it looks, especially with that sphere in the middle, is just really nice looking and just that's enticing to want to go the card and roll the giant orb. So yeah, let's see, I'm kind of trying to keep it, I guess, a little more alphabetized here. We got Alan1, and that's a place where we had also met was over at their booth where they had debuted Soda Slam, which I so, with IAPA Baytech, had introduced Icy Slush Rush, and so I had to explain to several people. Slush Rush is actually based on an indie made arcade game by DSM Arcade called Perfect Poor. Perfect Poor is available. It's been out there for a short time but Icy Slush Rush was inspired by Perfect Poor's gameplay, which was just filling up the glasses as fast as you could. And then DSM Arcade and Alan1 got together and they created SodaSlam as a way to create a response to Icy. So it's kind of funny that you have these things kind of colliding there.
Speaker 3:Sodaslam completely different cabinet. One thing is that the taps are very different between the two games. The Icy Slush Rush taps are huge, but also you have to pull them back quite a ways. I was surprised that they have too much that far. Yeah, it's like I think you were saying like eight feels like 80 of the way it's not doing anything and that so it's like the final 20 is when it finally starts to pour and then you have to like, then you have to almost like release it, like go, you move your arm all the way back before you can even move to the next one.
Speaker 2:And yeah to to move at any level of speed. It's really tough with the icy Right, the slush rush, but I really love the paddle action on on this. It was really easy to get get a hang of. Not easy to do it like as it was, you know, ramping up, but easy to get a hang of and you could move back and forth the different colors very quickly right, right, yeah, because they were just so much more responsive.
Speaker 3:I like the tubes too because, like, as you're pulling down on it, it looks like it's filling it up with liquid um, and then, uh, they also had a missile command at the booth there. Although missile command, it was still very, very early. There wasn't much change to the software from the console version, but I've been doing some consultancy with Alan1, and I can guarantee that it's going to change quite a bit from what was seen at the show to make it a little bit more in line with the original Missile command, while also keeping certain things fresh and new.
Speaker 2:It was. It was enjoyable, though Even I mean obviously I enjoyed the original game, but it was definitely enjoyable.
Speaker 3:Sure and that was another surprise too is Alan one was the only ones at the show that decided to bring along some actual classics. So, like they had joust, they had missile command, they had asteroids, cause they have a facility here in utah that has, I would guess, 400 game cabinets and they're all classics, and so they just pulled from their collection there. Um, it's called the hanger and I have a video of it on my youtube channel, but it's super, super impressive. It took me like 30 minutes to just weave through the rows, but I mean, they have some super, super rare stuff, like like the cockpit version of missile command, of which only like 25 exist or something gosh, so uh, but anyways, they they're definitely. This was the biggest booth that they had ever done up to this point. It was bigger than that their iapa booth, um, and and so they're definitely growing in an up-and-coming player, as we mentioned, one of the new players in the industry.
Speaker 2:Um, that's nice to see some new blood there and yeah, I mean even starting to, to diverge from their atari partnership yeah so you know, I kind of this um sort of slam was surprised for me when I came up to the on one booth and I saw that I was like oh, this seems like a divergence from where their focus has been. I'm really trying to remake, or recharge, so to speak. Right, the Atari games.
Speaker 3:Right, right, and they do have other plans to be doing that or some other ideas with Atari, other ideas with Atari, but yeah, that's still a bit in the future. But yeah, they're. They've definitely been um showing, doing an impressive showing for a newcomer, sure, um, and I guess, uh, our next one isn't super new, but, uh, they're always bringing new products, as, uh, they're, they're very adept at importing things andusement Source International, run by Corey Haynes, who many people in the industry should know, and they had brought the Super Drill by Ace Amusement. They had several new redemption products, including a vacuum crane called Super Vac, but one interesting thing that they also had at their booth was they had some European made games from Kainoa SE, including the Coliseum Nova, which was the VR foosball. They also had the Whack-a-Light, and so previously, kainoa had been working with Bearing Games, but Bearing Games had shut down. Was it early last year, or maybe it was 2023? I can't recall exactly.
Speaker 2:I think it was just right before Amusement Expo last year the announcement.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so a lot of their stuff had gotten parted out. But Kanoa is a European-based company I can't remember which person they're from but so now it looks like Amusement Source International is looking at carrying their product, and so that's an interesting diversion. Another newcomer to the business is Attractions and More by Mark. Is it Roscoe? Sorry I got the last name wrong there, mark, but they were joined up with Birmingham Vending Company to show off several new products that they've also engineered with some Chinese manufacturers.
Speaker 3:Mark was telling me a lot about this iPlay eSport Boxer Combo, which I don't have video of that yet.
Speaker 3:I did grab some I just haven't had a chance to edit it together but very feature-packed boxing machine that also has the kicking part of it. It has online tournaments, it has a camera so you can see yourself and see the other player that you're competing with in a different bar, and all sorts of prize vending options, and so it was very impressive what he showed me as to how they had that engineered, and they even have imported a Ultraman, which is not very well known. I was talking with Saki of Raw Thrills and she was born and raised in Japan, and when I told her about this she was a little surprised. She's like does anybody know what Ultraman is here in the States? But I mean I certainly have just heard about it through the internet memes and such. But I mean I played the game and I was surprised with it, how good it was or how well polished it was for a water gun game kind of like Iceman and such and so- yeah, the responsiveness on the water hitting the screen is really good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And then graphics are very high quality.
Speaker 3:It has several elements to it, and so the responsiveness on the water hitting the screen is really good, yeah yeah. And then graphics are very high quality. It has several elements to it that you would expect to find in games that come out of Japan. There's certain elements of this that feel like Transformers by Sega, and so I mean, I guess, now that I'm looking at it, it almost looks like maybe the font was copied from Transformers by Sega. I don't know, but still, just for all these water gun games that we've seen over the years, this is one of the more polished ones that have come across, and so that was cool to see, and they also had another redemption version of an Ultraman game right next to it as well, and so it'll be interesting to see what those options are. Of course, there's the tariff question and what that's going to do to their pricing and everything.
Speaker 2:Where were those guys on the show floor? I totally missed them. I did not get a chance to play these games. Yeah, they were somewhere.
Speaker 3:They were not all the way into the back, but they weren't super far from the back and they, they actually weren't super far off from the main aisle, uh, I would say a little bit to the right of the main aisle, uh, there, um, I'm trying to remember who was around them because it was kind of I missed them.
Speaker 3:I was like you know, yeah, I would have, I would have liked to play these games, right, right, and it was one of those things where I think I was just there just maybe an hour or two before the show closed, cause I remembered that they were there and it's like crap. I got to find them and so it started kind of rushing around the show. But there was a couple of people that I unfortunately missed, like retro arcade, arcade remakes I missed, and, um, creative works and and a couple of others. But yeah, but fortunately, uh, assuming they are doing, they end up doing well, then we should hopefully see them at iapa too. Yeah, um, bandai namco amusements, um, just really quick, they didn't really have anything new or different from IAPA other than Gashapon. Gashapon is essentially Japanese bulk vending, and that is one that could do very well. I mean, for me, bulk vending does pretty well just as it is, but with Gashapon they use much higher quality toys and it's like $5 a pop as opposed to say $0.75 or $1.
Speaker 2:But the toys are like really high quality, and so I could see that doing well in the right location yeah, it's definitely higher end and they tend to be ip based a lot of the toys as well so it's not like just and you're going to find they're.
Speaker 2:They're all like specifically, and then they're collectibles like you want to get. You know there's four of a kind and in a, you know in one of the units and you want to try to get one of. You know each of them. So yeah, it's a growing deal for sure here?
Speaker 3:yeah, definitely, and then, uh, did you get a chance to see blue motion games?
Speaker 2:I did get a chance to see blue motion games and I got a chance to play both of their their machines uh, what'd?
Speaker 4:you think I'll reserve my I'll reserve my.
Speaker 2:I was just, let's just say I was disappointed, um you know. But like we go, let's go, let's cover them, and then I'll give some of my thoughts on them as well gotcha gotcha and so yeah they they were also kind of in the back there.
Speaker 3:They weren't super far from where attractions and more was at um. They were also close to papa shot, uh, the new papa shot elite um, which which they've added Ryan Cravens A lot of people will know Ryan Cravens' name in the mix of things, but Blue Motion, the one thing that really surprised me is because I saw renders of their games previously and the impression was that they were like the size of a coin pusher. But when I got there I was like holy crap, this thing is like 13 feet tall, and so it was almost like, say, meeting somebody who you've only heard their voice on the radio and what your impressions are.
Speaker 3:They're totally different in person and so it's kind of like that with Blue Motion Games, but they had Cannonball Jam and I think you've got a photo of that. Yeah, I'll throw that up here. This is the Cannonball Jam and I think you've got a photo of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll throw that up here. This is the Cannonball Jam, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which you shoot actual softballs at the screen, and I guess the gameplay could also be described kind of like the Ultraman or the Iceman sort of thing, where it's just waves of enemies coming at you and such, but it has actual balls I'd say soft balls, not ping pong balls that are hitting the screen, and so it's providing that force feedback and then, of course, like I said, just just the imposing size of this machine I think it's a hundred inch screen there, and then they have something that's a little like this one.
Speaker 3:The cannonball jam is more for redemption, redemption play.
Speaker 3:Then the desert strike is more video game based, and that one, this, this is kind of think of a trio tech super blaster, but just for this one game, and, and so I was hoping that there would be a little bit more content to it, cause there's only two levels on it. I mean, they did seem to go on for a little while there, um, I also felt that the graphics on cannonball jam were a lot better than desert chases, um, and I don't know if that's just because of the vibrant color that cannonball jam has to appeal to kids, whereas desert chase is seeming to try and fit more with a mad max thing, but also just like some of the elements of the graphics on desert chase seem to be a little aged, like maybe ps2, ps3 sort of levels, designs on certain enemies and such as, opposed to something more modern. But the motion effects looked like they were pretty good on that and the guns seemed pretty solid. I didn't get a chance to sit down and play it, but you said you did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I actually played it a couple of times because I wanted to actually sit in different seats and use different guns, because I wanted to see, because my first experience was actually not very good, um, and part of that was that I think I was sitting in the yellow seat, um, with the yellow gun and the for the first time and the, the the aiming was was off.
Speaker 5:So like you know I mean I wasn't.
Speaker 2:I played a few games so, but the aiming was off and so I would shoot and you see, like the yellow over here, and then I'd move over here, and then the yellow would be over here, right.
Speaker 2:So, like it just wasn't, I mean I had to like, just. I was basically just kind of moving my gun around now, you know, just trying to get things at the end of the day, and I moved from seat to seat and ran into the same problem in every seat. So I don't know if it's because of some of the lighting in the venue or if it's some other systemic issue, but it really was a frustrating gameplay for me. The other thing, and the only other thing I'll say about this one, is that people were getting up and like and now, granted, we're at a trade show, right then, nobody spent any money, they're on free play, but it did go on for a long time and people like just left, like they were done, um, and again maybe getting frustrated with the, the gameplay experience, but they were leaving like in the middle of the game.
Speaker 2:But there are, I mean, other elements. You're right, the gun was solid, the, the, the motion was, was really good. I like the wind and some of the other you know effects that you have there, uh, but you know, but the gameplay's got to be solid and it wasn't right right.
Speaker 3:Something for them to polish up how was the calibration on uh cannonball?
Speaker 2:so the calibration in cannonball was solid, um, you know, and part of it is like you know, you're hitting the actual balls like at the same time you can see there's you can like see a little bit here so the ricochets from the balls, because they are soft a little bit hard, like a squishy hard rubber and the ricochet and you can see it dinging up already the, the, the stuff and you can. There was some already marks and stuff. You can see through the glass on the on the screen.
Speaker 2:So I think, that's going to be a problem for sure that they're going to have to solve. Um, but I'll say you know, this was the graphics were much better. The only frustrating thing about cannonball jam was how long it took to kill one of their just regular not not even their boss, like just one of their regular it probably hit it with 10 balls before it went away.
Speaker 2:And if I'm the only one playing and there's not four, four players, I would, I would, my, I would die very quickly because, um, because you know, I had to, literally had to shoot, hold it on on a, on a person wasn't a person, but you know, on a character for a good 10, like five to eight, ten balls before go away. Wow, so that was you weren't moving fast enough, right, like from from player to player, right, right right from enemy to enemy yeah, that's uh.
Speaker 3:I know that the term for that would be a bullet sponge and yeah, very frustrating. It's like bosses can be bullet sponges, but regular enemies should not be bullet sponges.
Speaker 3:And yes, I did encounter that a little bit on the ultraman game although I guess the ultraman game was more, it was overwhelming the player with, like, I was only playing by myself. You don't like too many, right? Yeah, there's just too many attacking you, whereas, like this is obviously being for meant for four players. But it's like the game should be, should be possible to adapt that, and so the game knows. If only one player's here, I am only throwing like two or three enemies that die fast at them, as opposed to 20 enemies.
Speaker 2:And, and you know know, even if you want to have 20 enemies, it's fine, but then just have them get hit with one ball or two balls, and that's it instead of. I mean, I was, it was. It was really frustrating to like have to gotcha, you know, hit them so many times before they would go away gotcha gotcha.
Speaker 3:That's good to know. And um, now on the, there was a game that was, I, I guess, somewhat similar to all this. You had a photo of that was over at the Coastal Amusements booth, and that is Wild West Shootout 2. Anybody who's been around for a few years would be familiar with the first one, which only had two players. What always appealed to me on this one was you know, old west game is not something we see very often anymore, and it's always nice to see something a little different.
Speaker 3:That isn't aliens and zombies and robots, and you know the normal fare, um, but the six shooter guns on the original and this are pretty cool because they actually snap back.
Speaker 3:It's like if, if you had a six shooter pistol as a kid I know I did back in the 80s, with the little blast caps, tiny blast caps in them, you know it actually the hammer on the gun actually pulls back when you pull the trigger and it snaps, and so, like, these have that same sort of element. It's not quite as loud, but it's still there, and so that's a nice, but it's still there and so, um, that that's a nice touch to it. Um, on this game, the only frustration I had with it was it was just it could throw so much on the screen at a time, like when you're shooting enemies. They would blow up and shatter in a satisfying way, but they would also throw up tons of numbers, like all the points that you're earning, and it's just like it's too much, is like needs to pull back on it a little bit so that it's not cluttering the screen up so much, and then that would be very satisfying. Yeah, but what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's the only thing I would agree. I mean, I really enjoyed this game, um and uh. Yeah, I probably played it two, three times, so not a whole lot, but I did really enjoy it. And and uh, but I would agree. Yeah, there's just there's a lot, so it can be very distracting if you're not very focused on Um and I think finally, by the end I was like not shooting the, the pedestrians uh, a bad tendency of doing, because I'm just like, oh hey, there's a body, I'm going to shoot it.
Speaker 3:Right, right, yeah, and um, and then I guess thinking of other new things or other gun games, now that I realize that there's a lot of shooter type games showing up at the show. There was the Cyberpunk 2077 Turf Wars game, which I think we discussed that a little bit in our previous recordings. We probably don't need to focus on that much, but that's been getting a bit of attention online just because of the ip. Um, another new new thing was the papa shot elite. Papa shot, of course, is a name that everybody knows, but they just haven't really been in the arcade scene for 20 years or so. But, as I mentioned previously, if you know ryan cravens or some of you probably might know his dad passed away years ago, bill cravens, who worked for capcom usa, you know ryan's working with papa shot and I played the papa shot elite. They were pretty close to where blue motion games was and that was really cool. Their new video basketball game that is also competitively priced against the other basketball machines out there, and then probably the other one to throw out there really quick.
Speaker 3:That was new at the show and also very popular was my, my DX by Sega Amusements and it's a game that's been out there in Japan and across Asia for over 10 years. But it's a game that's been out there in Japan and across Asia for over 10 years but it's finally coming to the United States officially, as opposed to just a gray import, and Sega is going to be fully supporting it. The just the one thing that was a little unfortunate is like I didn't want to play it because I felt very intimidated in front of those super pro players that they brought on. I mean, it's like on one hand, it's great to have those players because they show off how the game works, but for most operators like I don't think I saw a single operator give it a try, it was always just those players and maybe some Sega staff playing it.
Speaker 3:But it's just like after watching one of those guys just going crazy on that thing is just like, yeah, I can't, I don't want to look like a dope on that one. Yeah, and there's the photo of it. But I was also a little surprised by how price high the price is going to be on this one 31,000, I think was the MSRP. Now this is going up against Bandai Namco's Taiko no Tatsujin, which is another very Japanese style rhythm game that has a lot of anime music on it too. It's just the Taiko no Tatsujin is somewhere around 15,000. So about half the price or under half the price, and so it's-.
Speaker 2:For me, if we're talking about price and we're also talking about accessibility, the Taiko no Tatsujin is way more accessible for early, for like beginners, than the MyMyDX MyMyDX again. I mean, especially when you're watching somebody who's good at it, it's super intimidating. But it's an intimidating machine to walk up to in the first place as well and even just play when you haven't seen somebody do it who's really good, Right. Whereas, like you know something like this, you can work your way up in different levels and it's just banging and drums and you've got the rim shots in the middle of the drums and anyway, this is much more accessible for the cost and I think your repeat play for this Taiko no Tatsujin is going to be a lot higher than the MaiMai for your just regular guests, right, your MaiMai. You might end up building a really intense fan base, like DDR tends to have.
Speaker 2:This is going to be much more your regular guests, I would imagine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, I wholeheartedly agree, and so it'll be interesting to see how these two kind of hit the market. I mean, taiko no Tazujin is already available. It's just been very limited, and then my my is coming sometime later this year. I initially heard august, september and then it was thanksgiving um, so not really sure, but for certain, if you're interested in just seeing, going out and seeing one uh round one usa is definitely getting all those uh sorts of games, since they already have a very extensive rhythm game collection.
Speaker 3:Um, but for an operator like myself, I've been considering it, but in it it's one of those trade-offs. It's like do I want the crowd, because that can be beneficial, getting regulars, or do I want to appeal to the casuals that also might build a crowd? It's hard to say. Like, I have a maximum two and five DX plus by Bandai Namco and it's it's my number one game because it's built that crowd. But I've had other rhythm games that they've not had that same thing Cause I've had to compete with round one USA and most of the rhythm guys just go over there. But I know we're a little bit long here. Is there any other games you wanted to bring up for this time?
Speaker 2:No no, I mean this is a great review. So, yeah, this is awesome yeah absolutely.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I had a lot of fun at Amusement Expo. I mean, there have been Amusement Expo's I've gone to in the past where I felt disappointed because it's like, wow, I saw one new thing. It's like, did I really need to go and fly down to Vegas for that? And so this time there's just so much to talk about that it almost feels more like IAAPA. But overall, what that means for the business is we've got a lot of great options going into the summertime, just as long as you can add that to the budget and you want to offer something new. And that's another thing too.
Speaker 3:I should say really quick is that I like that we're getting a more variety. We're not just seeing like mostly I don't think we really mentioned any driving games at all and all of this. Now that I think about it, it's like Top Gun's not, and Popper Shot and the Blue Motion games and I mean I guess it's mostly shooters at this point. But you know, still there's a variety there. That's making it so that the game don't feel so monotonous, and that's a good thing in my book. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Awesome, all right, well, this was great.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah, I had a lot of fun. We'll have to do more arcade corners together at some time, but thank you all for watching. We'll see you on the next segment.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Catch the system from Intercard, increase customer spending, guest satisfaction and boost revenues by up to 30%. Intercard is so proud to be serving the amusement industry and if you aren't already part of their global family of customers, they hope you will become one soon.
Speaker 5:Hey, a big hello to everyone. Good to see you, Brandon. I hope everything is okay. It is a rundown of not as many as last week, but still quite a few new openings, and we will jump straight into them. I think you know for those that are new to this, stop the video at the right point while you're watching it, but we're going to zip through at some speed, and the first ones that we'd like to talk about is our friends at Eva, well-known for their what I like to call their e-sports arena vr experiences, but I'm sure they call it in a different uh area there they have quite a few venues out there.
Speaker 5:They have about 40 installations. Not all of them are permanent, but uh, this particular one in germany is a permanent uh installation, brand new one, and it is uh. You is dedicated both as an e-sports environment, a large free-roaming arena, as well as some F&B for audiences to watch the experiences going on. That's pretty common now with the e-sports environments that we're seeing developed outside of location-based entertainment, that they're incorporating an F&B, an audience engagement. They're going for the stadia approach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean even to the point where, if you're watching here, I'll just share my screen real quick. But you've even got announcers that are there, there we go, so some announcer. It'll cycle through, but I just showed some gameplay there. But, yeah, you've got the announcers in the arena and then you've got your F&B in your bar. So yeah, the big crowd environment, so definitely an esports feel to it for sure.
Speaker 5:I'm interested to see how these venues survive the course of time, because esports is going through a bit of a change at the moment in popularity. It's still strong, popular, but it's how many people are going as audiences to the live events? But again, you know, 40 facilities out in the market can't be wrong, so we keep a close eye on either. Wow, yeah, I know there are more than 40 discovery zones too.
Speaker 5:So anyway, yeah, quantity isn't always a security, but let's leave it there. Vrec space this one again in Germany, again a virtual reality experience, again a large arena, but this one is from Universe. You've heard me talk about them before with the Pompeii experience and the Monet experiences, and this particular one is, you know, a VR experience that you walk through in groups. It can accommodate up to 30 users at a time for 45-minute experiences moving through. It is that kind of approach now where you're turning the VR experience into an adventure, a journey, and you're hopefully creating Cinema 2.0, as I like to keep on saying where you're generating an audience that wants to come back and try the next experience. This particular Hotel Dracula, however you want to pronounce it, is a kind of soft horror experience. Families can enjoy it.
Speaker 5:I'm interested in the video that they use in this particular one. People are putting on MetaQuest 3s when the facility itself is running HTC. I don't know what the reason is for that. The marketing team must have a reason, but anyway, let's carry on.
Speaker 5:And so we jump through and we go to tokyo, um x exa bar uh by uh tato tato, well known for the tato station amusement uh chain that they run over 100 facilities that they have in the islands there. Uh, the exa bar is their step into the competitive socializing environment, and this latest one that they've opened up in Tokyo, the second of the chain that they're starting, this particular one has self-service cast ale, so funny enough. Jumping back to what I was talking about last year in SoundOff regarding the customization of the drinking experience and allowing the individual to pick their own beer, this is the first kinds of examples that we've seen populated. We've even seen a retro bar in America go down this path of pour your own using a swipe card system, so you can control the beer and it also gives you a much longer dwell time, as it's found that this type of approach works better that way yeah, I, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I mean, I like that. The self-tap is good, it's nice, it's, it's convenient as a as a guest, but at the same time, um, I think, if I'm just asking for a beer, give me self-tap all day long. But if you, you're substituting in a cocktail experience, you know where I can go and actually get a mixed cocktail because you're just trying to go totally attendant-less, I guess serverless then that to me has gone too far. I still want the bar that I can go to.
Speaker 5:I think they still have the bar here, it's just that they have a wall dedicated to cast beer dispensing. So it's used as an attraction rather than a replacement. And I totally agree with you If you remove the service side of the hospitality experience, then you're heading for a fall. And, funny enough, next week when we're talking about a new opening, we can touch upon that example Again in the competitive socializing side.
Speaker 5:One of the earlier of the UK proponents of this electric shuffle the company is actually in the news that's behind this and we'll talk about this in SoundOff. Sound off, but they've just announced their next opening in the UK that will bring up their facilities up to eight, opening in June, and its latest electric shuffle is, you know, more of the same a little bit more patio area in the location that they're going to, which even in England we get some sun, so that's okay. And they've also gone for a little bit more of a minimalistic approach to the inside. Looking at the renderings that they've shared Now, brandon, you're familiar with the high level of themality that they have at the facility I took you to in Canary Wharf. That level of themality has been cut back or curtailed quite considerably in the next opening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, looking at these renderings and I'm severely underwhelmed. It has a feeling of like a most just like a little street cafe diner feel to it and not at all, like, you know, what we're used to seeing. I mean I'll just throw this up here on stage and I mean this is the bar the one in canary wharf actually which is just absolutely phenomenal expensive for sure, uh, but it also enhances the experience and it feels a little bit like you know, here's some of their branding um, this, this, this rendering feels a little bit more like that, that branding, than, uh, what they've got inside. So maybe they're making an overall brand shift. I don't know.
Speaker 5:We got information regarding what's happening with their rollout plans. They've also had some restructuring internally and I think the accountants have jumped straight in with both feet to try and come up with a price model that works regarding the fit out of their facility. One of those things about these kinds of chain operations the first flagship sites are wedding cakes and the last of the operation are usually cupcakes. But again, we need to see how this London facility bears up when it throws its doors open in June. This London facility bears up, when it throws its doors open, as we've been saying in the last open and shut, how we were beginning to see the copycats. Someone corrected me in how I should use the terminology here. These copycat facilities are popping up. What?
Speaker 2:were you saying before Pardon? What were you saying before oh? What were you saying before oh?
Speaker 5:I was dancing around calling them direct copies.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay.
Speaker 5:Being my usual Disney political self. Okay, now you're copying, and the individual that I was speaking to just said call a spade a spade.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And after he got off the floor I had to agree with him. The issues with Pucks here French again, paris opening. This is the second pucks that's opened. We've talked about the previous one before and this latest one, from the pictures that we have of the facility, looks exactly like one of the London Bridge electric shuffle facilities. The big difference here with Pucks is that they're not using gamified tables, they're using just conventional tables and they're focusing heavily on the live music and the cocktails components of their bar. I think that they will find that competitive socialising is more about the entertainment than it is just about the ambiance. But hey, this is Gay Parry, I'm willing to be proven wrong on that one.
Speaker 2:I think this is a case where obviously electric shuffle is their own. But they could have worked with a conductor for supercharged shuffle or shuffley or somebody like that. Even shuffley would have been okay to add a little bit of immersion, to not have to go full blown. But anyway, I'm just surprised they went with the standard shuffleboard here. I think they are going to find it's not going to be as popular.
Speaker 5:In competitive socializing, the explosion that we're seeing at the moment. We see two types of companies. We see companies that are hospitality-led either they're restaurateurs or bar companies that are jumping in or we see new companies starting up that have a mixture of hospitality technology and games. The ones from one side spend more time making beautiful bars and cocktail menus. The other side look at the gamification. I believe that competitive socializing has to live equally in both worlds and depending too much on one or the other will mean that you'll become a cropper or a victim and we will see that, I'm sure, in the next couple of months of who's standing. Still dependent on their audience, obviously. Another trend that we're seeing quite heavily is the sports or active entertainment competitive socializing venues, the ones using projection screens and ball launching systems or golf systems tracking the motion of the balls. And we see a brand new entrant not such a brand new entrant, brand new to the US market Tarkos Sports. They have about 36 facilities in Taiwan that are really aimed at the active sports. These are batting-ting cage kinds of approach. Hardly any gamification sorry, any competitive socializing to their gamified batting cage experiences.
Speaker 5:But recently we've been getting to see in Taiwan these sites adding secondary and tertiary entertainment elements to them, and even looking at a little bit of F&B. Well, surprise, surprise, we have the first one open up in surprise, surprise, texas. Secondary and tertiary entertainment elements to them, and even looking at a little bit of F&B. Well, surprise, surprise, we have the first one open up in surprise, surprise, texas, in Houston, 20,000 square, and going into, funny enough, a former retail space convenience store and this baseball facility has 10 cages lined up launching the ball at the player. It is the traditional batting cage launching system with a little bit of gamification, not a lot of screen usage here. This is much more of an LED launch ball facility. But around the rest of the site we have some amusement machines, we have some interactive darts. So we have some competitive darts and we have F&B.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it looks like it's an interesting you know, it's basically a batting cage with, like digital screen. It's like a mix of like a sports simulator mixed with a traditional batting cage. It's interesting, a mix of of like a sports simulator mixed with a traditional batting cage. It's interesting. Um, you know. Again, I don't know how well it will do as a competitive socializing environment, but um full speed ball, full speed bat, so full weight bat, again real ball.
Speaker 5:all of the aspects that will raise questions about how unisex the appeal of this space will be. And really it will be for the Taiwanese company to either learn the lessons of what competitive socializing in the West really represents or they may have found a niche market that is perfect in Houston for this. We look forward to seeing which way the cards are dealt. Yeah, the next interesting concept for me is the parachuting of these entertainment competitive as well as LBE entertainment spaces into existing facilities. And here is an example of Walt Disney World, swan and Dolphin Hotel, a very prestigious hotel set up in the Orlando Entertainment Gulch, or hub, should we say there. And surprise, surprise, they've decided to parachute in a quite high level, lbe or FEC. It isn't a competitive, socialising environment. It is really fundamentally an arcade with the ability to have some bowling duck pin bowling or string bowling, as far as I could tell from the information available.
Speaker 5:Bowling or string bowling, as far as I could tell from the information available and about 20 or 30 amusement pieces there, mixture of video as well as redemption. I couldn't see if they were going to be running tickets. I couldn't really see from the schematics that we were supplied how much they're going to stick themselves into the full FEC blowout. But it is interesting that this isn't a Disney-developed concept. This is actually a concept thank you for that a concept developed by a company that has been retained by the hotel to parachute in this FEC, and this company in question isn't a stranger to this. They've parachuted FECs into other hotels within the area. So again, it'll be interesting when we're in Orlando to stick our nose in and have a look at this. From that I couldn't quite see if there is a redemption booth or if they've gone for a digital redemption counter, but there we have the midsize bowling, the amusement pieces and some video.
Speaker 2:But anyway, yeah, but there's definitely redemption here. The only thing I can't tell is if maybe right along this wall is either a redemption counter that you can't see because of the angle, or that is uh you know, organic sort of like um, you know, self-serve redemption, but yeah, the finishes are. You know the finishes look, uh they, they look nice, they're just. It's interesting that this would go into a disney hotel, but again, I haven't been in the swan and dolphin, so it might just be a more of an elegant resort.
Speaker 5:I would say this is very generic. They've also put in a screen in the corner. So where those seats are, where the photographer there, we go in that corner there. So this is going to be used for watch parties as well. So when there's sports events going in, I think you know I've seen this type of space be dropped into other chain hotels and they get very tired and very heavily used very quickly. So it's going to be very dependent on the company that they've spent hours upon hours coming up with a fantastic name for their space and we will wait to see if that approach to branding is going to be acceptable for the target audience that they're aiming for. Moving on and dropping competitive socialising into a unique space and we talked about, you know, our friends at Dugout, our friends at Dugout that puts their baseball facility system into a recent stadium install. Well, in the UK, in Hove, we see the first time that six is the cricket competitive socializing venue is now being parachuted into a cricket pavilion stadium.
Speaker 5:I'm not a great cricketer, so I'm not going to pretend that I've wasted the time watching a game of cricket. Now the complaints and the shouting will start. This one's an interesting one. It is quite a small installation but it is focusing heavily on the cocktail and private hire side as well as the gamified cricket experience. They have 16 sites out there now of the Sixes chain I also mentioned I think last two sound offs the Trinidad opening, which is owned as a different, separate franchise but still uses the same technology. I'm having problems with Sixes at the moment because their branding changes. If you go onto their website they say social and then if you go to one of the other sites, they say that it's a cricket entertainment experience. So I'm not sure which of the branding that they're going to stick with. Also, their text and their fonts are going through changes. But I know recently that they've received a investment, quite a large investment, to start an active rollout. So I'm sure this type of stuff is going to get nailed down pretty tightly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I would agree with you at least with regards to the branding their site. While I love the full video all on the top of, you know, above the fold is great, yeah, the font typing it, just it makes it feel like a kid's venue a little bit. It doesn't feel adult, it doesn't feel, you know, competitive, social and, yes, there are some kids there Like that's. What I actually would like to see is that kids can actually play this game. Again, we talk about accessibility for these types of venues, but the branding has a very kiddie feel to it and not at all something that is probably their target market.
Speaker 5:I would say it's soft. The original facility, the flagship facility that we kept very close eye on when it first opened, very close eye when it first opened, uh, they had gone for a kind of um cricket pavilion, heavy on the bar, uh, very male focused, and that has changed drastically. Uh, for the new branding that they've gone for and they're not so new now it's two years in and now they're going for the pastel colors. A lot more, I'm noticing, and a lot of their photos include a woman playing the game.
Speaker 5:So I think that they're trying to address some of their initial concerns. The one thing that I feel that they're missing out on is they still aren't gamifying or promoting the gamification aspect of this. It is an off-the-shelf golf, sorry. It is an off-the-shelf cricket simulator system and the company has also just launched the first of their facilities that is aimed at the rounders sector. So they have two versions now. They have the cricket system and they're testing a rounders or we would say, baseball light approach in the UK.
Speaker 5:We will have to wait and see, when they see some of the newer sites opening up, how they're going to approach the market.
Speaker 5:Again, our friends at Topgolf. Many people forget that Topgolf also has a golf simulation chain attached to it which is a direct competitor to X-Golf and Five Irons and would be surprised to know that there's over 117 of these venues dotted across North America Large, multi-place sites with 10 bays and even small ones with only two or three bays. This latest one that's going into a casino in California again is an example of the parachuting in a competitive, socializing component into an existing site and then jumping on and talking about our friends at Five Irons, Five Irons has entered India, like Dave Buster's and some of the other companies that we've been touching about. This diaspora is a very important affluent sector to look at towards entertainment. They are no stranger to location-based entertainment facilities out there. Anyone that's listened to my previous commentaries will know about Smash. They even attempted to try and come into North America, so we are looking forward to seeing how this franchise owner is going to roll out, and they're talking about quite a considerable number of five iron facilities opening up soon after this flagship's venue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is interesting. I mean, given I would have, I would have questioned at their stage of development, them moving into a market like India at this earlier stage, but given their franchising model, it makes sense. I mean, if there's a franchise or a franchisee who understands that, understands that market, understands the food, the F&B differences that need to be deployed there as well, you know, et cetera, then then that makes sense to go franchise for them to expand into this market. Otherwise, if it were corporate owned, owned operated, it feels like a little too soon to try to reach out into.
Speaker 5:India. They've jumped straight into the franchise model straight away. Last year they attended a number of the franchise conventions and they've already managed to find a franchisee that's going to roll out a number of these. I think they were talking about 40 facilities in Florida alone. Their franchisee was going to be purporting. They picked up one in New York and now they picked up one in India. I wouldn't be surprised if they're going to announce one for Europe very soon. I wouldn't be surprised if they're going to announce one for Europe very soon and then winding down, really and we have another example of parachuting in your entertainment into an existing facility Monkey Park in Japan, very well known, very Japanese, what I would call an attraction park, attraction resort this particular one has a dedicated section of its area set aside for standalone attractions that can be added to their mix.
Speaker 5:And they have done a deal with Innerwise, our friends with Cubix, not Cubox, sorry for the typo. The guys are going to beat me up over that one and they've dropped in their projection mapped enclosure system and I think it will find quite a good favor with this particular audience. I look forward to speak to the guys after they've beaten me up and hear how this is doing, because it's just thrown its doors open already.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is interesting and it looks like it's right along some sort of a quasi boardwalk inside of Monkey Park that has a number of different unattended, different types of things Retail, retail, f&b, retail retail, f and b. So it fits very well as a. You know again, as like, one of the things I love about what cubix has done is how seamlessly they've really with the gate, they've made it to be unattended it's for me they've.
Speaker 5:They've gone down a path of going for unattended I'm I'm always petrified of unintended because I I believe in the Barker approach. You know your attraction is only as good as the person that's encouraging the group in kind of approach. And it's very hard to do that because you know people take sick days. Not every one of your members of staff is going to be a perfect encourager for that, but you know you go on training courses. I'm sure Beth can beat even the most shy individual into becoming a promoter of your attractions. Game box being parachuted into facilities and leads back to what I was purporting a few years back about how venues are going to want to have a smattering of entertainment experiences rather than depending on just one. But anyway, that is it for the moment. I don't know if there's anything that you want to pick out from that, any of the ones that I missed.
Speaker 2:No, I think it was a great. It was a great rundown, great overview. And, yeah, for those of you who want to go back to the very beginning of this segment and pause it and see some of the other ones that we didn't talk about, things like Andretti Karting opening up in almost my backyard here in the Glendale area of Phoenix, the Glendale suburb of Phoenix, but so congrats to Eddie Hammond and his crew for opening up another location. I'm sure it will do well over there on the glendale side of phoenix, but uh, otherwise, I think I think that wraps this up for another great open and shut see you soon, all right.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm unmuted now. Well, that's about a wrap here and I'm excited for next week as well because we have a new segment with Justin Michaels from Intercard. He's going to be talking about some redemption tips and things to improve your overall redemption layout and, you know, in mix and everything else there. So he's got a lot of redemption experience as well. So, anyway, excited to have him on for a new segment we're going to do in every every once in a while. And then make sure to check out the sound off, number 68 with Kevin Williams on Tuesday, which is April Fool's Day, so you can have some fun there. And I promise you everything on that show is entirely accurate. There was no April fools going on there, but it was still be a fun time. So that is a wrap for this week's LBX show. This is Brandon Wiley signing off. Stay tuned and keep kicking ass.
