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LBX Collective
The LBX Show #25 - Pineapple Ham, Hologram Zoos, Virtual Pool, and more!
Sponsored by Intercard!
On this week's LBX Show we explore cutting-edge entertainment venues and emerging trends that are reshaping how we experience leisure activities across America.
• BW recounts his recent visit to Dallas' Grandscape development showcasing numerous entertainment attractions in an impressive retailtainment destination
• Including his mind-blowing experience at Cosm with its immersive dome LED screen offering a stunning and truly immersive shared reality experience
• Introduction of Pool House, a tech-enabled billiards concept from Topgolf founders securing $34M in funding
• Discussion of the Zoocade in Austin, America's first hologram zoo using 3D technology for virtual animal encounters
• Update on Meow Wolf leadership changes with CEO Jose Tolosa stepping down
• Adam Pratt's Arcade Corner featuring the new Terminator revealed at DEAL and new Dune and King Kong pinball machines
• Chuck DeMonte's promotional tips emphasizing in-store signage and staff training to boost membership sales
Join us Tuesday, April 22nd for Sound Off #70 with Kevin Williams!
All right well, welcome everybody to the LBX show number 25 for April 20th 2025. I'm your host, brandon Wiley, and we've got a great show lined up for you today, but you know, first we've got a holiday to celebrate it's 420. 420, right it is. You guys all know what you know. April 20th means it actually means it is the National Day of Pineapple Upside Down Cakes. April 20th means it actually means it is the national day of pineapple upside down cakes. So I don't know if you knew this, but apparently pineapple upside down cakes are a really big deal on April 20th. And also, I guess another thing that happens to be on this day is pineapple ham, pineapple glazed ham it's the national day of pineapple glazed ham. So if you are really into pineapple, then today's your day. I guess April 20th is your day, and every time I see a pineapple glazed ham, I absolutely have to think of my buddy Frank, who is obsessed with his rum ham and unfortunately he did lose his rum ham, although he was reunited with his rum ham a little bit later. But if any of you have not watched Always Sunny in Philadelphia, I highly encourage you to check that out and you would certainly enjoy the rum ham episode if you are a fan of pineapple glazed hams. So all right, we'll get into it ultimately. So this is we've got a great show lined up for you, we've got. We're going to kick things off with an extended news, you should know, and then we're going to roll right into Arcade Corner with Adam Pratt. He's going to discuss the different pieces, different arcade pieces that were presented at Deal in Dubai this last week, and then he's also going to talk about the latest pinball news. And then we finish off with promo pro tips with Chuck DeMonte, and he's going to talk about how to drive more memberships and more revenue from memberships. So we've got a great show and with that we'll dive right into some news you should know.
Speaker 2:Okay well, so I spent the last few days in Dallas and had a good time out there and had a chance to spend some time near the colony. This is in like the North East corner, I guess, of Dallas. It's not really a full on corner, but it is a. There's a, there's this really cool development called Grandscape and there's tons and tons of entertainment and attractions. And, interestingly, this week also fun across America came out with their with their latest video. These are friends of ours and Fun Across America is. You can check them out at funacrossamericacom or you can. Well, you can go there and then get to their YouTube channel, or you can just Google Fun Across America YouTube and it'll take you to their latest episode. But their latest episode is actually on a number of different attractions in Texas. So they visit Austin, texas, where they can check out one of the first electric shuffles in the US, and then they go to another round mini golf, which is a really cool like creative mini golf space.
Speaker 2:And then they visited Sixes actually, which happened to be at the Colony and at the Grand Scape, and so I spent some time there and I got to wander around and I was blown away at how many different things they have in their retail attainment district. So I actually stopped in into sixes and had a chance to take a look at it. But I also had a chance to now let's see here flip over and pull up their their page here. So I also had a chance to go into Andretti Cardian Games. This is a location I hadn't visited before. I'll come back to cause them here in a minute, because we've talked about cause them a lot on this show and I've been dying to get into one of the locations and actually experience one of their, one of their shows, and so I had a chance to do that.
Speaker 2:They had this fireside surf, which is ultimately was was shut down, so I think it was just like probably seasonally they hadn't reopened yet because it's a pool. And then they had the Fritz's Adventure, which is just this massive, massive like 120,000 square foot indoor and outdoor adventure park. Pretty cool thing, standard theaters, big observation wheel, great big game show. So this was already pretty packed. So when I was there, it was a what was that? It was Wednesday afternoon, walking around and there were lots of people lining up to go in and out of the great big game show. I've done a similar thing like that a couple of times, not that specific brand, but absolutely a very cool experience.
Speaker 2:And they had an immersive game box, an actual standalone. So this is the first time I've actually seen immersive game boxes, standalone attraction. So usually it's like one or two of their immersive enclosures in an existing FEC, and so I was like decided to look in and I could kind of peek through the window. And it was, they were open but there was nobody in there and there were six bays, immersive game box bays and literally nobody was in there. So this I don't know. There was lots of other people at a lot of other entertainment places and at the restaurants and doing some of the other things, but there was nobody there. There was people at Puttery even. There was people at Popstroke and there's some people walking in and out of the escape game, and so they basically had, you know, a lot of this stuff was pretty busy. Unfortunately, immersive Gamebox wasn't, and you know we've talked a little bit about some of their struggles, and so I think they've got some real major issues that they're going to need to work through, but hopefully they're able to come back around.
Speaker 2:And then, one of the ones I've talked about that I really enjoy I had a chance to actually go and check it out in London with Kevin Williams a few weeks or a few months back now, and it's Toka Social and they are coming as well this year. I did not see where they were going to be popping into that location, but they've got a great product, so looking forward to that. Anyway, the Grandscapes is just a phenomenal retail attainment destination. There's lots of food. And then I got to spend Thursday night I went and hung out at the truck yard just listened to some live music. They bring in different food trucks every single day, so different mix of food, and then they have their own brewery and then they also have a bunch of other cocktails that they make on site. They're already pre-mixed, so they're on a tap that you don't pull yourself, you get from the bar, but they're still all pre-mixed cocktails and it was a great experience. So really enjoyed my time out in Dallas, but also very glad to be back in Phoenix and just be back home, because I was there for a few days. All right With that. We've got another thing here.
Speaker 2:So another bit of news is Pool House. So Pool House is I don't know how are we going to call it. It's exactly what it sounds like, except it's not a swing pool, it is a billiards pool house. So this is a new tech-enabled pool entertainment business from the founders of Topgolf. So they recently announced this week that they raised $34 million in funding for their seed round. So they recently announced this week that they raised $34 million in funding for their seed round, and the funding round was led by Sharp, alpha, dmg Ventures and a number of others and ultimately, I guess it's the culmination of about four years of development by with Callaway at a valuation of about $2.1 billion in 2021. So they've definitely seen that valuation go down. So I think Callaway is kind of wishing that they hadn't made that acquisition, but they did, and so this is according to Steve, one of the co-founders and brother of Dave.
Speaker 2:It says Pool House is the most ambitious and scalable concept my brother and I have created, representing the pinnacle of our lifelong work, and he goes on to say today, more people at top play at Topgolf than on traditional golf courses in the U S. I don't know how he validates that, but I'm sure there's a way and we aim to make an even greater impact on the world of pool. I said, whilst we have a strong track rate of incorporating technology into golf balls, this project has been our most challenging endeavor yet. So they will basically have pretty standard pool table pool balls, pool cues. That doesn't change, but there'll be projection mapping as well as then trackable balls. So this is one of the innovations that they brought to Puttshack, and so I think they're taking some of that same technology and deploying it into pool tables.
Speaker 2:Obviously, this is one of the few areas that we haven't seen significant development in tech enabled sports. So we've seen it in shuffleboard, we've seen it in darts, we've seen it in well we were just talking about Toka, social and soccer and cricket and in other types of bays. We haven't yet really seen it deployed at scale for pool. So we've seen a couple of like little R&D developments, but we haven't really seen this deployed as a concept. So the first location is going to be in London. It's going to be 21,000 square feet, so you're about the same size of what you typically find in a flight club or an electric shuffle.
Speaker 2:And then they're in discussions to expand already into the Middle East, north America, southeast Asia and Europe. And this is led by some pretty big name people. So one of the board members, their CEO, andrew O'Brien, is a board member of F1 Arcade. And then they're bringing in some other people who have had senior roles at Puttshack and Bounce and Flight Club and Swingers. So they're trying to put together an A-team and you know, look, they're trying to upset something that has been the same kind of game for 700 years and I wish them, wish them luck. I need to.
Speaker 2:I will hold my comments until I see more examples of what they actually have. So unfortunately this is all we've really been able to see about the. You know about their concept, this little really bad graphic called the future of pool from the founders of Topgolf and Puttschak. So with their press release they didn't really unveil any concept art, any videos of their technology, anything at all. So hopefully we'll see a little bit of that, but it seems to be a little bit. Well, they got a little bit of news. I'm again going to hold off my reservations until I have a chance to see a little bit more about it. I do think they're going to struggle in the same way that any single attraction model will struggle. So they will do probably well for a while and then they'll start to see their same story year over year sales decline. This is what Topgolf themselves are seeing, and this is what I expect other places like Flight Club and Electric Shuffle and others like their ilk to experience the same problem. And so eventually I think we're going to probably see these things blended together, right? So an immersive tech-enabled darts and tech-enabled pool and other things put together in the same system, and Kevin and I have talked about that before on some of the sound offs, and so we'll see how everything develops and goes from there.
Speaker 2:I did want to quickly go back because I forgot to mention this my favorite thing about Cosm here. So we've got Cosm and let me I'm going to share my screen again because I actually want to show some video. I was absolutely 100% blown away. I was excited to go in here to one of these locations and, frankly, it was fucking incredible the immersion, the screen quality. I can imagine. I just watched two of their more artsy videos, but they have live sporting events and you can go and watch UFC and boxing and NBA. They actually have the NBA championship games playing right now, or the, you know, leading up to the championship games right now, the playoff games, and I could imagine that watching that as a is it with a group on that screen would be an absolutely incredible experience. And so you know, this is just some of the let's see here. We'll go big on this guy here.
Speaker 2:So this is some of the video. I've kept the audio. This was just some of the bumper video. At the very beginning this wasn't actually part of well, of course, now it's just going to spin, because why not, it'll just spin, all right. Well, that'll come up here in just a minute. There we go. So I'm going to leave the audio closed, because this was just like before, while everybody was still walking in.
Speaker 2:So it was actually pretty busy for a Wednesday afternoon. I thought even though it doesn't look like it from this initial videos because I got there a little bit early to try to get some video without disrupting anybody. But I mean, it is wall-to-wall, seamless transition from LED panel to LED panel and it's, you know, unbelievable. Some of the CG for some of these early videos was like meh, but once the main videos got rolling, it was pretty incredible. I've never seen any screen like it and I want one. So that's a little bit of that. And here's the aquarium video as well. This again just was another thing while everybody was coming in. So it's kind of nice that you got a chance to like have some immersion experience and like there was a kid next to me that super excited when he saw a shark swim by and then a big squid came by a little bit later when this went dark, but it's, you know, pretty, pretty impressive, and so, uh, if you haven't had a chance to go and check out a cause them, or if you're in an area where you can absolutely check out a Cosm, I highly highly recommend doing that. It was pretty, pretty fucking incredible. So, anyway, that is Cosm, so definitely recommend you check that out.
Speaker 2:All right, so another bit of news is Meow Wolf's CEO recently stepped down. So this is, this was a big, you know, a big shock, I think to a lot of people maybe, but you know, don't know the reasons for him stepping down. Might've just been ready to move on to the next thing. We don't really know, but definitely there's some changes happen over at Meow Wolf. So Jose Tolosa was the CEO. He has been since 2021 when he joined and he's seen a lot of stuff come in. And then Rebecca Campbell is taking on the role of interim CEO while they do a formal executive search. So as of May 1st, she'll be stepping in.
Speaker 2:So, like you know, just a couple of weeks and during Jose Tolosa's tenure, they opened up a grapevine in Texas, also the Houston location in Texas. They also started working on locations in Los Angeles and New York We've talked about some of those locations that are up and coming and he also oversaw the launch of their app as well, as then introduced a digital layer to try to enhance their guest engagement. And so he says. A quote from him is I'm incredibly proud of what we've built together and I'm confident the company is poised for an even more magical and mind expanding future. With a strong foundation now in place, I'm proud to pass the baton and excited for what's next for Meow Wolf and for me.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, this seems to me to be something that might have been. You know, feel like if this was something that was planned and they really wanted to do, they would have like already brought in a CEO like you know, kind of like prep them versus like okay, jose's out. We're not doing an executive search and we're going to have this temporary interim CEO. You know at least Campbell, who is the new person coming in. She's got 25 years of experience from Walt Disney. She's had several leadership roles, including the being the president of the Disneyland resort and also president of the Walt Disney company in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, so has a lot of experience leading high power teams and creative teams. So I think they'll at least be in good hands in the near term and I think they're just probably ready for the next evolution iteration of what Meow Wolf will become and what needs to become. So that is some of the news there.
Speaker 2:And then the last thing I wanted to share here is pretty frigging cool. So there is this concept called the Zoocade, and the Zoocade is basically the first hologram zoo in the US. It's been opened in Austin. This is something I've had on my list to cover for a little while and I finally decided to dig into it. But they've opened in Austin and they offer an alternative to traditional zoos, naturally, and it was considered one of Time Magazine's best inventions of 2023. And this was when it opened. It was available in Australia, china and Canada, so it's the first time it's come to the US and it's pretty freaking cool. So software company Axiom Holographics basically use their hologram technology to you know, as you can see here, to offer wildlife, wildlife experiences.
Speaker 2:The. Some of these videos are a little bit this or this. This picture anyway. Like clearly a CG girl petting this holographic tiger and then like these kids are seeing this dinosaur, but they're not wearing the holographic the 3. Then, like these kids are seeing this dinosaur, but they're not wearing the holographic the 3d glasses they're actually supposed to wear 3d glasses and you walk through a 60 foot long holographic tunnel and they can go through three different themed shows, basically as they're walking through it the Africa, australia and a dinosaur themed show. And I think what I'll do is I'll just pull up their, their page, their website, because I think this will give you a better sense for the experience. So, as you know, I'll just keep talking while it's playing.
Speaker 2:But basically, you know, the stuff comes at you with the screen, you've got your 3d glasses and I, you know it doesn't feel totally holographic. I mean, I think this is more like a 3d film. This is where I'm just. I'm going to have to try and experience this myself because I get different conflicting things. Like they're walking through this tunnel and like which feels more 3D with wearing the 3D glasses, but yet then, when I read some of this stuff about how it's done, they talk about using laser light to project these objects into the air. But when I'm looking at this, it doesn't look like objects into the air, it looks like objects on a screen. So I'm just not sure. But like I'm getting conflicting things about this experience. But either way, I do want to check it out.
Speaker 2:When I'm in Austin next, I will definitely pop into the Zoocade and if you haven't had a chance to check it out, I would definitely do that. You can apparently go into smaller rooms that have, like this, you know, have, I guess, rooms like where they maybe are actually holographic stuff. You go and like have more of an experience to like interact with the animals apparently. So I don't know if maybe that's a separate thing. You walk through this tunnel and then you can go into these different exhibit rooms and those are more of the holographic stuff. So that could be why, like, the kids that are actually seeing what I consider to be holographics weren't wearing glasses, and then this tunnel is more like you wear the glasses through the tunnel just to get into the main area.
Speaker 2:They also do have an arcade. The arcade is seems to be relatively let's see here. I think I had going to go up to the arcade. You know pretty standard arcade, so you know nothing super fancy. There is about 30 pieces is what they had said in the arcade, so just something else for people to do.
Speaker 2:But that is Zucade. You know, I think they're trying to do something pretty innovative. Like you know, again, here is the dinosaur that's the scaring the kids, and so I would definitely go and check it out. So that is Zuc kids. And so I would definitely go and check it out. So that is the Zucade. And that is a wrap for News. You Should Know roof. They introduced cashless technology to the amusement industry and have been leading the way for over 30 years. Cashless systems 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, so next up we've got Adam Pratt with Arcade Corner.
Speaker 3:Greetings. It's Adam with Arcade Heroes for the Arcade Corner here at the LBX Collective and I'm here to get you up to speed on the latest developments within the arcade world. I hope everybody's been having a great spring out there. As I look to my left, it's coming down, or buckets are coming down from the sky, so I guess it's April. Showers bring me flowers.
Speaker 3:But yeah, we've had a trade show happen here very recently Deal 2025, to show off product for Middle Eastern markets, and it was held in Dubai. I know various people that went there, but it doesn't sound like there was a whole lot of stuff that we hadn't seen at Amusement Expo 2025, except for what's on my screen, which I'll get to in a second Expo 2025, except for what's on my screen, which I'll get to in a second Sega. They did have a new version of Alpha Ops VR Strike there that had several upgrades to the game cabinet and, I'd also assume, the software as well. But speaking of VR gun games, as you've been looking at straight in the screen here and if you're listening I'll just listening I'll describe it. So what this is, this is terminator 2. Now, at the show it was called terminator uprising but, oddly enough, asi the distributor, which is one of the major distributors over there in the middle eastern markets, and it's not the same as Amusement Source International.
Speaker 3:This company is called Amusement Services International. It's a little confusing like that. But either way, the actual game itself was designed by Oculi, a Chinese manufacturer, and I guess it's just a little uncertain as to where the license stands on this, because ASI was not really showing much about it in all of their deal coverage. But they did post this photo to their website and there's a listing there which briefly describes it, and so they seem to have settled on terminator 2, which to me that makes more sense, because out of all the terminator movies that have been made out there, terminator 2 is the most iconic and most memorable, and you know, nobody really cares about the newer terminators, because they just keep rehashing what 2 did, or they keep attempting to, and doing it poorly, and so, yeah, it would make sense to go that route, but it appears that you're just in the future setting, where you're a Resistance member and you're fighting off the Terminators, as opposed to time traveling back to the 90s and doing the same thing. But this uses what's become the standard light gun VR setup, where the VR goggles are attached to a gun that can hold up to your face. I'm still a little unsure as to how all that feels, just because it can be a little bit awkward, depending on what the game requires you to do, how much action it wants you to take in that like when VR agent came along with and that was the first game to do that sort of setup I was oftentimes finding myself getting out of focus with that, with needing to do quick movements, looking around and all that now. Now I would say that the Alpha Ops VR Strike I did not experience that as much because since that one has you sitting down, it seems like that helps with such movements. But the Terminator 2-1, as you can see here, is another standing one, but it does have the pedestal for the gun, as opposed to having an overhead gantry where the gun comes down, and so I would assume that this would allow the cost of the machine to come in much lower, because overhead gantries with automatic cable retraction systems and all that stuff can get a bit pricey. Of course, the danger is depending on the cabling here. I mean from this photo it looks pretty flimsy, just like a USB cable or something is holding in that gun, and I would assume that it wouldn't have so much slack to it that you wouldn't be able to throw it on the floor, but a gun that's probably a few to several pounds in weight just hanging from the top there. Let's hope that they add some steel cabling to reinforce that, as otherwise that's just going to be damaged and it's not going to be operable for the most part. But one interesting thing about this cabinet design is that it does have two units and they're back-to-back as opposed to side-to-side, and so that design does look interesting and of course, with the license, I'm sure that would grab plenty of attention there. But not sure where this will end up. If this will end up much out west, it might just be something for eastern markets at this moment, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Speaker 3:But as I had mentioned at the beginning, most of our discussion here will be about pinball, because this week has seen a lot of pinball news. Now, there's one caveat to that, and I was kind of waiting to the last minute to record this, but as of this recording, they still haven't unveiled it, but Jersey Jack pinball has been heavily teasing and hyping Harry Potter pinball and the assumption was that was going to come along this week. But again, so far it's not dropped. I'm sure it will drop as soon as I'm done recording. But there's a lot of hype behind that one. Just because it's Harry Potter, for many, many years people have been wanting a Harry Potter pinball. I do know that Steve Ritchie aka the King of Pinball, as he's often called, is the head designer of Harry Potter and it incorporates elements, I think from what I saw, from all of the movies. I would also assume there's plenty of stuff from the books as well, but there's plenty of crossover there.
Speaker 3:But since we don't have anything else to talk about on that one, we have these two other games, and first we're going to start with one. That was a big surprise. This just popped up out of nowhere. I believe the manufacturer behind it called Barrels of Fun, which you might not be familiar with because at this point they've only released one game and that would be Jim Henson's Labyrinth. And ever since I saw Labyrinth I could tell from their marketing that they just were not really considering the commercial market for pinball much and they were focused mainly on collectors. Now, to be fair, that's pretty much where almost everybody except for Stern has gone, even Jersey Jack Pinball. I remember when they first started with Wizard of Oz and I visited their booth, they were talking about this for operators and that for operators and it was really refreshing to hear them taking that approach.
Speaker 3:But as the years have passed and the collector side of the market has become the dominant purchasing side of pinball, that has shifted for pretty much everybody is my. I've heard numbers anywhere between 50% to 80% of pinball. That has shifted for pretty much everybody is my. I've heard numbers anywhere between 50% to 80% of pinball sales go to collectors at home as opposed to locations. And that is because of the often uncomfortable aspect of pinball in that it just doesn't in most locations it's not a moneymaker. They have terrible ROI. The only time that they might have decent ROI is when you sell them. But even then that's sometimes a crapshoot because if a particular game becomes not well liked then it doesn't hold its value, like the legendary pinball machines, like Adam's Family or something like that, and so yeah, but anyways, barrels of Fun. I mean this will work for commercial locations if you really want to grab one. Pricing hasn't been unveiled on it yet, but let me play this video here. I'm going to have the sound off just so that it doesn't ding on the licensing side of YouTube, but you can find this video on YouTube Again. The channel is Barrels of Fun.
Speaker 3:This is based upon Frank Herbert's Dune, although it's based upon the recent Dune movies as opposed to the novel itself, and so all the artwork is showing actors from those new Dune movies. The artwork is showing actors from those new Dune movies, and I think it's Timothy Shelley, if I'm remembering that correctly, and Zendaya, and I can't remember all the names of the actors, unfortunately, so I'll stop trying to bother there. I do like the artwork on this one. Personally, I've read all of the Dune novels, including the ones that were finished by.
Speaker 1:Frank Herbert's son as.
Speaker 3:Frank Herbert passed away, I think in like 84, 85, somewhere around there, and he never finished the whole saga and so his son, brian, went and finished the saga. I haven't read all of the books that Brian Herbert has written, because he's done, he's milked the IP quite a bit and come up with a bunch of his own novels set in the universe, and I haven't read those. But anyways, for this doom pinball it definitely looks like it fits. It grabs a ton of elements from the movies.
Speaker 3:I love this aspect of the pain box. It's called the pain amplifier in the books, but it's when Paul Atreides has to put his hand in the box and if he removes it then the Bene? Gesserit lady will kill him with this poison dart sort of thing, a gum jamar. But in the game, when you activate the pain box, you have to put your hand on one button and then you have to use your other hand, while still holding the one button in the center, to work the flipper. So that's a nice little thing, because if you remove your hand from that button you will die. But the other aspect of Dune that I think is cool is the sandworm target slash trap. So it works both as a trap that swallows the pinball and also works as a target. My only concern with that one is that it may be a nightmare to fix down the road, like maybe it'll work fine at the beginning I don't know, but several years down the road.
Speaker 3:It might be one of those nightmare mechanisms that you just don't look forward to having to fix. But all that aside, it has all sorts of interesting elements that it does have from the films, including the thumper, and I don't see an ornithopter on there, those bug-like planes, I guess you could call them. A nice thing too is the blue effects, like the spice blue and the eyes and all that. So I think for dune fans they would enjoy this one. Just again, I don't know how this game would earn on location, and again, the price has not been revealed for this, but if it's the same as labyrinth, then it's likely going to be around 10 000, which is really tough for most pinball locations to or locations with pinball to make money on, and so don't know how that will end up. But really quick, for our last one we've got. That wasn't the only thing revealed.
Speaker 3:This week we also have King Kong, myth of Terror Island by Stern Pinball, and so it was just based upon actually the 1932 movie. As the you know, there've been many iterations of King Kong over the years, but this one is just taking Stern's interpretation of that 1932 film. It's the game's not in black and white. It is in color, but the premium and LE versions have a giant spider that attacks the ball when it's captured by the magnet. It has an animatronic King Kong toy in the upper left-hand part of the playfield.
Speaker 3:Also has a New York subway train car that works as a ball lock and an animated biplane Also has a different thing on the left out lane, which is the lower left-hand side of the play field, that the pro version doesn't have a lot of that, like it doesn't have the articulated kong toy and it doesn't have the spider and all that.
Speaker 3:But it looks like the flow of the game is pretty much the same, it's just lacking those extra niceties. But the pro versions start at seven000. And then if you want the premium, then that's $96.99, basically $10,000 after shipping, and then the LE is $13,000. Maybe they'll come along with a black and white model at some point, because they've done that before with like the Munsters, but at this point in time they haven't done that. But again, that covers pinball and arcade news for this week, and so stay tuned for next week we'll probably have some harry potter news, hopefully, and some other interesting items that say thanks for watching, catch you at the next corner, we'll see you next time and build a loyal customer base Plus they're offering a complimentary local market analysis to show you exactly how they can help you grow.
Speaker 1:Curious, visit Radiusco and ask about your free market analysis. That's R-A-Y-D-I-U-S dot.
Speaker 2:C-o all right. Well, uh, thanks adam for that. And uh, man, that dune pinball looks fucking awesome. I am a huge dune fan. So adam and we have that in common. I don't think we knew that about each other, but I have also read every single book that has that frank wrote, and then even some of the ones that brian, his son, wrote, and have gone way deep down the dune rabbit hole and have also read the core Frank Herbert books Like, I think, maybe four times at this point, so the entire series multiple times. So definitely a big fan and anyway. So I could like absolutely see that dune pinball machine in my office or something like that, but not at that price point anyway. So we'll see at some point maybe that will be a key part of something down the line, whatever, but we'll see. But I absolutely love that. So thanks for covering that. And next up we've got Chuck DeMonte with Promo Pro Tips.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to Promo Pro Tips with Chuck DeMonte, that is me, and today I want to talk about something that came up just this past week when speaking to a client and actually kind of funny that this client is not so we've niched down to only serve FEC clients. This client is a legacy client. They own a dog daycare, right, but there's a lot of similarities and operational similarities between FECs dog daycares, brick but there's a lot of similarities and you know operational similarities between you know FECs, dog daycares, brick and mortar, you know, obviously, servicing people. So something that came up and I realized one of the things that a lot of people find difficult and a lot of operators you know, gms, owners get wrong with FECs is helping to spread the word for their offers, their packages, what they you know memberships or any other thing that they have that the customer should know about, okay, and so this really falls into two ways to do this, and the reason this came up, like I said with my client, was last year we tried to launch memberships for them, okay, and it kind of fell flat, right, and now this year, we're revisiting it. The CRM that they use has now upgraded and it's enabled and made it much easier to do these memberships, ok. So as I was talking with this client and through this I realized she was explaining that sort of. One of the reasons it fell flat is they weren't really promoting it themselves in store, right, she didn't like how it was set up, she was difficult, so she just had like this apprehension to push it Right. So we were kind of pushing on the digital side and an email and stuff like that. It just wasn't being backed up by in-store communication of it. Okay.
Speaker 1:And so I mean you realize, man, like so many places fall flat on this, right, and so. So here's why it's so important you have your customers that are ready in store, that you have a captive audience. Ok, that is your time to let them know about events, promotions, packages, different things you offer. Ok, it is so, so, so important. We can do a ton of it digitally. That's great. And this goes back and I've spoken to before about multiple touch points with marketing. Right, they want to see you on email, you want them to see you on social and all these things. You want to communicate these things when they're right in front of you, right At the best, best time possible. So how do you accomplish this?
Speaker 1:In my opinion, there's two ways, probably more ways you can get creative, but I have two, two main ways that that I think really will help. This one in-store signage. Okay, make sure you have flyers at the front desk that your team can hand out big, you know, retractable banners or what if you have memberships, different packages, a promo, an event coming up? Right, have in-store signage, put it on. You know, maybe you have TVs that with digital messaging that you can put on throughout your location right, put it everywhere and everywhere in the bathrooms. Flyers, it really. Get creative here. Right, get it in front of people. It is super, super important. How are people going to know about the events, the offerings, like I said, the promotions you have, if you're not putting in front of them? And in-store signage is one of the best ways to do that. Again, you have a captive audience in your location. Get a message out to them, okay.
Speaker 1:The second way that I find really, really important is training your team. Okay, if you have an event coming up, let your team know. Hey, when you're speaking to somebody or engaging somebody, they should be doing that anyways, being pleasant, smiling at people, asking if they need any help, let them know. Hey, did you know about the event we have coming up this Saturday? You should join. We're having it's from this time to this time. We're doing raffles, whatever. The team should be trained to talk about these things and let the customers know, okay.
Speaker 1:Another great example say, you offer memberships, right, and they see somebody coming in a lot or they're coming in a second time. Hey, did you know we have memberships, right? I see you coming here for a second time. It'd be, you know, really good idea to check out the memberships. It's, it's these savings, right. They need to know what you offer when to upsell them, right. Train your team on this and I to that point of focusing, measuring it.
Speaker 1:The really way that I've seen this work the best, especially with the team members, is incentivize them, okay, and so how do you do that?
Speaker 1:You put out a bounty.
Speaker 1:Maybe you have a custom code, right?
Speaker 1:You know, I don't know Sarah.
Speaker 1:10, right, they get 10% off off a membership, right.
Speaker 1:So now, every time Sarah speaking to somebody about a membership or you know an offer event, something that they can get a discount on, she gives them her personal code.
Speaker 1:And now, when a customer uses that you could hopefully see that through your CRM. Hopefully, if you're set up for this technology-wise, you could see that. And now the person that gets the most in a week, in a month, whatever, you're going to give them a bounty $50, $100, whatever the value is to you. So it's really not technology wise could be a little bit difficult to pull off if you don't have the right tools, but most of you probably do have the right tools to do this. So I really encourage you to think through that again. So just really recapping here if you have just your normal everyday packages you know events, offers, whatever in-store signage, and have your team communicate that and pro tip, do a bounty, so your team will push that more and so they're incentivized to help you increase revenue. The more money you make, the more money they can make. So hopefully that helps. If you have any questions, as always, reach out. I'm happy to answer anything you want.
Speaker 2:All right, well, thanks for that, chuck, and you know what that's it. We've got a short show today and we do have sound off number 70 coming up with kevin williams on this tuesday, april 22nd, but it is going to run a little bit later in the day because we're recording it a little bit later. It's also we didn't have an open and shut. Kevin was unavailable for this week, so we will be back into our normal. You know our normal plan and whatever like segment, open and shut, segment and everything else that we got going on. But that is it for today. This is Brandon Wiley signing off. Stay tuned and keep kicking ass.
