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LBX Collective
The LBX Collective aims to inform and educate, create opportunities to connect with industry peers, and to spur collaboration, discourse, and cross-pollination of ideas in the location-based entertainment and experience industry.
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LBX Collective
The LBX Show #27 - BW Rants about the "Disneyland of Pickleball", and more!
Sponsored by Intercard!
The latest LBX show breaks down significant trends and developments in location-based entertainment, from the importance of professional marketing to shifts in competitive socializing business models.
• Amusement 360 event kicks off May 6-8, offering education, networking, and industry connections
• BW loses it and rants about Outlaw Pickle, a new Western-themed pickleball venue in San Antonio, demonstrates critical marketing missteps with poor website design and AI-generated imagery
• Puttshack partners with KultureCity to make venues sensory-inclusive through staff training and adaptive tools
• Gaylord Hotels unveils DC Summer featuring 24-foot glowing superhero statues and themed experiences across four resorts
• NewWaveToys introduces a collectible one-sixth scale Skee-Ball machine with functional gameplay
• Minions Bullseye Mania redemption game is now shipping with a higher price point than expected at $18,000 for a single unit
• F1 Arcade expands to Philadelphia with 80 simulators instead of the usual 60, planning 30 facilities by 2027
• Dubai enters the competitive socializing scene with Hushh, featuring string bowling and AR darts
• Five Iron Golf is pivoting to incorporate FEC elements beyond just golf simulation
• Trax Social closes in Manchester, highlighting challenges in the competitive socializing market
• MGM Resorts eliminates human concierge services across six properties, signaling the growing role of AI in hospitality
Join the LBX Galaxy online community at lbxgalaxy.com and tune in for Sound Off #72 with Kevin Williams on May 6th.
All right, well, welcome everybody to the latest LBX show. This is number 27 for May 4th, so welcome. You know what? May the 4th be with you. Oh man, I should have had more Star Wars stuff. I should have had, like a Star Wars shirt on or whatever, but anyway, I've got at least a little bit of Star Wars stuff back here. So, anyway, may the 4th be with you all, and we're going to have a great show today. We're going to have a great show today.
Speaker 2:We're going to kick things off with some news you should know, and then we're going to roll right into a new arcade corner with Adam Pratt, who's going to talk about some of the details around the new Minions Bullseye Mania game. I had a chance to play that at amusement expo. It was a lot of fun. And then we finish off with a robust open and shut. With Kevin Williams. We're going to dig into all the key trends from the latest openings and closings. There are a lot of them, so we're not going to talk about every single one of them. As usual, we typically try to pick the ones that Kevin feels like are going to be the most relevant and talk about the most trends. So, anyway, all. That being said, let's dive into some news you should know, all right. Well, the first thing we should talk about is Amusement 360, which kicks off this week, in two days, may 6th to the 8th, and so if you haven't already made your plans to go out there, but you do want to get out there, you can definitely check it out at amusement360.com and look, every one of those Amusement 360s have great content, great education and, just generally speaking, like good networking. You get to meet a lot of vendors, you get to meet a lot of people that are involved in the industry, and so I highly recommend going and visiting, at least doing one amusement 360 that you can throughout the year, and anyway, it should be a good time. So if you haven't registered yet, go check it out Amusement360.com. All great guys over there at Creative Works Cool, all right.
Speaker 2:So next thing up we've got is a new place that is coming out. They've just released some details about this. Let's make this a little bit bigger so that you guys can see some of the venue details here. This place is called Outlaw Pickle and it's a new Western themed pickleball venue and it's swinging into San Antonio. They're calling it the Disneyland of pickleball. Okay, all right, it offers five indoor, climate controlled courts, all with a fun Western theme which is, to me at least, apparently lacking in these mock-ups, because this just looks like a school classroom with some tables and some humans dropped in there. They do have some vending, so they'll have automated beverages, automated food areas so you can get your pizza automatically, and so you know it'd be interesting. Right, it's? It's connected to an Alamo draft house. The venue is going to have a pro shop. It'll have a saloon bar they call it live music and a dance floor so that's interesting a gaming area and a changing room so you can change your baby and then go clubbing afterwards. And then you know he's run over this, this, the CEO is Ross Cratchy. He's run over 300 tennis events and he actually brought the Wilson World Demo Tour to Austin and he's begun brainstorming Outlook Pickle a couple of years ago, and so the concept first centered around Pickleball but has since turned into again a five-quart food and beverage and bar with Pickleball and some cabanas.
Speaker 2:So, look, this is we'll just kind of flip through some of the slides here, some of the pictures I've bundled to them together. Look, I mean this is what is available on their website. It is there's. There's not much else here. You talk about being Western themed. I don't see the Western theme. I don't see this being some saloon bars. Just looks like a hotel bar, and I know these are renderings, not what it actually is.
Speaker 2:But then, right on their homepage of their website, after they began to put press out, there is an AI generated image that I don't even know what the fuck it is. It is definitely not pickleball, it's not tennis, it's not even a Nerf ball. It's some guys running around with elevated nets in the background, random balls hanging in the air. This is not even like a mid journey level quality uh G, you know chat GPT, uh level. Uh like four, four, o, x, you know, in beyond level AI generated image. I don't know when this AI generated image was put on the website, but it's it's not even good right Like. It's clearly AI generated.
Speaker 2:You've got, you know this, this mess of like really on really unappealing renderings that are up there on the website, and this is after you're putting your press out. So look here there are various stages of development. I'm in some of those stages right now, developing one of my own venues, and so I recognize that there are times that things are not fully fleshed out. But if you start to put press out this is a word of caution and maybe a little bit of a rant but if you start to push press out, then have your online shit together. Do not send press out. Get people all excited about this Disneyland of pickleball. And then people go to your website and then this is what they see. They see an AI generated image that my toddler niece could do.
Speaker 2:I don't understand why you would do that. So have your site ready. Don't have images. If you need to have a great solid logo, have a email form there ready to capture emails for people who want more details and want to stay connected, and then if that's all that you have already, then that's fine, but that's better than putting up a bunch of stuff that's going to have people scratching their heads and wondering is this even real? And I can guarantee you there's no way in hell that Disneyland would put a picture like this up on their site.
Speaker 2:All right, so was that news you should know? Yes, because it's a cautionary tale that we need to continually remind ourselves about what we are putting out there to showcase our venues we want people to get excited about coming there, and when they hear things about Disneyland of pickleball, then that's what they see. Now that's what they're going to have in their head and they're likely not going to get excited about coming or hearing or learning any more about that venue going forward. All right, that's the last thing we're going to talk about, that. We've got some other cool stuff to chat about as well. So, so hopefully you were able to take that to heart and you know we're able to just elevate again, elevate the rest of the industry, sorry.
Speaker 2:Last thing I'll just say about this is we've run into problems the last few years because we get into these places where we have great press announcements, we use big words like immersive and Disneyland of something and this and this and this and this of something, and getting people all very excited. Then they come to it. It's an underwhelming experience. Then negative reviews go out and then it ruins the game for the rest of us. So this is a Wonka level execution right now. I'm sure the final venue will be beautiful. It may not be Disneyland, but I'm sure it'll have a Western theme and look better than those concept images. But the problem is, this is what people are seeing, and so people now get skeptical when they hear these things and it's only hurting the rest of those of us who are trying to develop things in this area. So please be cautious about what you say and what you put up and when you do those things together. All right, that's it Next up. Thanks for putting up with me there, all right.
Speaker 2:So this is a putt shack, as we all are very aware. I mean, it looks very much like a putt shack. They do a great job and I love what they're doing here. They're ensuring that guests with sensory processing needs can enjoy a seamless and welcoming experience, so this has been something that has been a key thing for them. They are obviously a high energy, high stimulation environment and Puttschack is trying to set a new standard for what it means to be truly inclusive. So they've partnered with a company called Culture City, and this is with a K, so Culture K-U-L-T-U-R-E City. They're a leading nonprofit on sensory accessibility and they try to ensure that every US venue is certified sensory inclusive. That's what they're trying to do with Puttshack. So Puttshack and Culture City are working together. They want to make sure that all of their venues in the? U, the US are certified sensory inclusive, so this means that every part of the guest experience from training their staff to provide adaptive tools like noise canceling headphones, sensory bags they're also joining the Autism Acceptance Month, which just ended, but throughout the month of April they were donating 20% of their revenue from games in April to Culture City as well, and so they're doing basically associate training. They're trying to have related resources to create consistent, welcoming and best-in-class guest experiences across all their venues. So they're doing an onboarding process for their in-venue teams and again trying to just create sensory awareness within their culture and within their team. And so I just thought it was pretty cool.
Speaker 2:If this is something that you guys you know, any of you and your venues are looking to try to do, I would recommend checking out Culture City. Again, that's culture with a K and then city those two words smashed together. You can Google that, I'm sure, and find it, or use your together. You can Google that, I'm sure, and find it, or use whatever your flavor of GPT is and yeah, so that definitely would recommend doing that. So that's Puttshack. Congrats to Puttshack. I hope that the collaboration with Culture City was successful through April and that you had a lot of great donations going to them. But love what you're doing, keep it up. Keep up the good work, all right.
Speaker 2:Next up, we've got Gaylord Hotels and they are unveiling their DC Summer and this is what they call a groundbreaking resort partnership with Warner Brothers Discovery Global Experiences, and this is pretty impressive. I like, honestly, I really like what they're doing. This is not just taking some DC and slapping one little experience on there. They really are truly like I would say like it's a full on takeover of four of their Gaylord resorts and remaking them to like all have a bunch of DC related experiences, and the capstone for that is a thing they call the universe, universe of light, and I could not find any images at all of like what this will look like. There was some renderings on their website, which we'll pull up here shortly, of what like the process, the production process, went, but like they didn't show a final. I really wanted to see a final, because what they're doing, this universal light, is basically they've got these big, massive 40 iconic DC superheroes and supervillains and they've used glowing lanterns that are constructed by artisans from China. This is a type of art that is done in Zigong, china, and they basically make tall statues like 24 feet up to 24 feet tall. I guess they're statues, but they're like wire frames that are then covered in this global mesh and then they put lanterns inside and they just glow and they're all a bunch of DC characters. So it seems like it's going to be pretty cool. They're calling it the DC's universe of light, but alongside that they also have complimentary and paid activities at each destination. So I'll pull up here their website and see if I can pull this up. All right, there we go. So on their website, let's try to make this a little bit bigger and wider. There we go. All right, zoom in, do a little bit, look at all that. Oh man, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Okay, so within their water parks they've broken their different DC summer activities across four different categories water park entertainment, dining, merchandise. And in the water park they've done three things. Here They've done their DC superhero splash, which is a poolside celebration of superhero games, dc trivia. Obviously they have their water slides and other dc or dj spun beats. And then they've got fun by the pool. Again more fun facts hero spotlight, especially superhero cocktails. So like they're remaking some of their stuff. And then their dc movie night pool side, so you get to watch movies with some of the dc films and have themed snacks and everything else there. And then for entertainment they've done a number of different things called the Revenge of Riddler, scavenger Hunt. They have their Heroes Mission Checklist. You can see some pictures of the kids with their little DC Summer Checklist here wearing their capes, which is pretty cute.
Speaker 2:And then Battle for Justice Light Show. They have synchronized lighting effects and dynamic laser lights and music and everything else. So probably like a little bit of like a phantasmic on a much smaller scale for kids related to DCs. And then they have a DC Hero Academy live show so their friend Finley Powers can hear Legendary Tales straight from the comics. So it's a ticketed event. Again, some of these are ticketed, some of them are not, but it's pretty well done.
Speaker 2:I'll just skip over to the dining here real quick, because they've created some pretty uh neat stuff here. So they've got um, you know, cookies that are, you know, have little pals and smacks and other stuff on them. They've got a DC secret menu, so you have a secret code word to access little hero inspired cocktails and apps and desserts at different other resort restaurants. So that's pretty cool. And then a very specific kids menu with a bat-sized bites or, if you're hungry, a Superman and anyway. So they've really done a good job, fully just doing a full DC takeover of their venues, and again, it's only at four of them, so it is in their four locations that are the Gaylord Texan, gaylord Opryland in their Palms, and then their Gaylord Rockies in Denver or in Colorado.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, that is the DC summer and you know Gaylord's DC summer. What are they? Dc summer, that's just what they call it. But their universe of light is their main attraction. All right, so that is the DC summer. And now we want to talk a little bit about this guy here. Super cool deal and we've got, let's see, this is by a group called New Wave Toys and it is the classic skee-ball experience, but in one-sixth scale. So this is a tiny little guy, one-sixth scale of the skee-ball They've teamed up with right here we go.
Speaker 2:They teamed up with retro uh collectibles, leader, new wave toys to create this. It's basically with um, you know all like really really well done, uh, uh craftsmanship. Every little detail works. So there's actually like the bow tie ski ball marquee as well as at the top there's real ticket redemption, so tickets literally stick out. It's got the lights at the top go, there's actual balls. You can actually play this thing as working lights, sound effects, functional gameplay and it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to share this new wave toys because I'd never heard of these guys before. I'm sure some of you have, but this new wave toys guy. So here's their presale so you can come in here. You can pre-buy a ski ball. So actually I think the presale goes on in 20 days, so you can't buy them quite yet, but in 20 days and seven hours 51 minutes, as the countdown shows, you can buy this mini ski ball and it also has this little sign. But you notice like they actually have also a and, by the way, just for those of you who are not watching, or this is $149 for this mini skee ball. You can buy two of them for 275, but they have like a mini Zoltar, which is awesome and he also works these different benches and stools. They have, like, this cigarette, old school cigarette machine, some boom boxes, a bunch of really cool stuff, some other things that they've done in the past as well, that are all either coming soon or some of these things have been sold out. So they have a golden tee golf set that's actually coming soon as well, and some little mini pinballs and other arcade games. That are all coming soon. So these guys are pretty cool. They've done some other stuff that has sold out.
Speaker 2:You can check out their website at new wave toyscom. It's new wave toyscom, and do you pre-order a ski ball? It's pretty cool. But then they have let me see if I can find it. Where is it? Uh, maybe it's, maybe I passed it. So basically, what they've done is they've also got a.
Speaker 2:I think I have to go to shop, maybe anyway. Oh well, I'll find it later, but you can find it on their site and you can actually build a different. Maybe go to shop now. Well, it doesn't matter, it's freezing up on me right now, but you can buy these like little panel walls and you can hang that are magnetic and you can hang different signs on. I think the whole idea is you can build like your own little mini arcade with like these walls and other stuff.
Speaker 2:So that is, that is the. You know, that is new wave toys. You can buy and build your little mini arcade and have it as like something in your office or in your home or whatever, or have you know, for your kids to have fun doing. So that is a new wave toys. And that is the mini skee ball. And that wraps up news. You should know. Thank you. 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, well, next up we've got Arcade Corner with Adam Pratt, and it's a pretty short one, but we're excited to learn a little bit more about Minions. Bullseye Mania Take it away, adam greetings.
Speaker 3:It's adam for the arcade corner here on the lbx collective. This is probably going to be one of my shorter segments because there hasn't really been a lot of whole, a lot of news this week in the arcade sector. But there is one thing as we enter into may, or right before we entered into may, and that is minions. Bullseye mania by touch magics has finally been released. Here's a rendering of the single player cabinet as that as was sent out and approved by touch magics, approved by mbc universal and illumination. Here's the dual version. There is a special marquee that can be done for that. The pricing on these I was a little surprised by how high they were. It did include tariffs which looked like they added about $1,000 to the overall cost, but that would be $18,000 for a single.
Speaker 3:Now, if you hadn't come across this one or seen much about it, it's essentially a ball toss game with a video screen, but instead of balls you're using darts and bananas, which of course fits with the theming of the universe of the minions. And the goal is well, what you have is on the screen. There's this rotating wheel with all these objects from the Despicable Me universe, and so you're just throwing the darts or bananas at the screen to hit those and you're filling this meter. I can't remember if it's called the minions meter or something else. That's actually the yellow bar. That's on the large yellow bar that's on the center of the control panel. There it's actually will show you what your progress is on that. As you're throwing the objects it's using dynamic addressable LEDs to represent that. It's also on the screen too. But if you hit a certain amount of objects before the timer runs out, then you go to the bonus stage and the goal of the bonus stage is to hit all of the minions and they'll be floating up inside of bubbles and so you have to hit all of them to get the super bonus, which, of course, is a bit of a challenge, but overall, a simple redemption game that hits a family theme. You have to hit all of them to get the super bonus, which, of course, is a bit of a challenge, but overall, a simple redemption game that hits a family theme and very recognizable pretty much anywhere in the world thanks to the minions. But that's pretty much it as far as what has hit the news wires this week.
Speaker 3:What has hit the news wires this week, I've been keeping an eye on some other things that are in the works out there. Of course, with May here now, we should be seeing some additional stuff on Minecraft Series 4 that would be publishing tomorrow most likely, unless there is some kind of change. Top Gun, also coming soon. Last week I'd mentioned Hot Wheels by Adrenaline Amusements, which units have shown up at Dave Buster's but without software. It's a little strange that they would ship cabinets without software. It's been done before, but I'm guessing they must be waiting for some final approvals or doing some last minute coding to polish the software before it rolls out. But still it does seem a little strange to me if you're a manufacturer why you would send hardware out but not any software. But that will be at Dave Buster's pretty soon. I know Cyberpunk's already out there. Cyberpunk Turf Wars from LAI Games is also at Dave Buster's, which will be there through August.
Speaker 3:Top Gun I might be misremembering that might actually be up until June. I keep forgetting what the exact numbers are on that or the release dates are on that as well as the Top Gun. Wizard of Oz is already shipping. Minecraft is coming this month and then Godzilla. The final chapters to that are also supposed to be sometime this month, hopefully, but Rothschilds doesn't want to. They're not announcing anything until they're actually ready and shipping out, and I know there've been some operators out there really waiting for that. Of course, if you have a Godzilla, that would be where it'd be top of mind.
Speaker 3:A few weeks ago I'd mentioned Harry Potter Pinball by Jersey Jack Pinball. Surprisingly, there still has not been any news on that up to this point. But given that they did start rolling out some teases on it confirming that it's there, they started taking pre-orders from distributors. That's where it was seeming like they were going to announce it around that time, where they were asking for money already. But my assumption at this point is it has to be sometime this month and I think they're hurting themselves by waiting too long Now.
Speaker 3:Of course, sure, there's some people that are going to buy regardless, but for any fence sitters, I think you want to strike when the iron's hot, so to speak, when the announcement first came along, and or when you start asking for money. You need to have a reveal for a game and, in my opinion, and not keep teasing people with the carrot on the stick sort of thing. But uh, perhaps I'm wrong and pinball is a whole different uh beast at times as far as how the marketing's handled on that. Obviously there are no new Harry Potter movies or books coming out or anything. I guess there's a TV series in development. But still, how licensing works in the arcade and pinball industries often doesn't have to be tied to something like a major ip release.
Speaker 3:Of course, later this year we'll have tron aries. I haven't heard anything and that would be the third of the tron movies which have a pretty strong arcade connection, particularly from the very first film back in 1982. But yeah, I haven't heard anything from this third one, if they'll have any arcade connections in it at all. As Disney's marketing towards it it's been a lot more muted than Tron Legacy's marketing push was. So we'll have to wait and see if they'll do anything for that this summer and whether or not anybody in the industry will happen to tackle that. But other than that, I know Soda Slam from Allen One is now on test here in Utah, where I'm located, and I've heard that it's been doing very well on test so far and that's about it, aside from some things in Japan which may not be. That's about it, aside from some things in Japan which may not be wholly relevant to what we see in the market here. That's this shorter edition of Arcade Corner. Thanks for watching. We'll catch you next week all right, awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks, adam for sharing that about, uh, you know, minions and a number of those other things, so I really just hope that the I had a chance to play the minions um bullseye mania at amusement expo, and it was a lot of fun. I actually really enjoyed the game. I think it's a great game. I think it's just another one. It's a be one of those of the kids would just absolutely love and eat up um. I do hope, though, that the bananas that they were using, at least at amusement expo I know because it was like a little bit of a demo demo there were really hard. They actually weren't soft Like the other other part that you were throwing at them was really.
Speaker 2:It was like kind of squishy and soft, but the banana was like actually hard plastic and you're like chucking them at the, you know, at the plastic that's protecting the screen. I just feel like it's going to get, you see, like little marks already on it, just going to get dinged up. So I really hope that the bananas have a little bit of a better, like squishier texture to them and they're not that hard banana. Bananas aren't hard anyway, so I don't know why the other part of the other one was soft and then the bananas were hard. It should have been opposite, if anything. So that's my only thing there, and yeah, all right. So after this quick break we'll jump into open and shut with Kevin Williams.
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Speaker 4:Hey, big hello to everyone to this latest open and shut, and the continuation of a crowded scene is just filling up with lots more facilities, so let's jump straight into it. All right, sounds good, as always. Pause the video as I zoom through these, and so, really, the first one that I'm going to spend some time on is our friends at F1 Arcade. We have the first of their Philadelphia facilities going in, and this one looks like it's going to be an outlier. It's quite a large site, 19,000 square, and it has 80 rather than the usual 60 simulators. So they've doubled down, literally on the sims. They've got the watch parties, they've got the private rooms Interesting.
Speaker 4:They've also admitted now that the next on the list is Atlanta and Denver, and they have confirmed that we're going to be looking at by 2027, their hopes for 30 facilities internationally. I noticed that we still haven't had one in the UAE, so I should think that's on the list, and we haven't had one in Japan. So I'm sure Tokyo is on the list, but this is quite an aggressive rollout. I'm sure Tokyo is on the list, but this is quite an aggressive rollout and I think we're due for a little bit of restructuring now that they've had enough time to work out what works and what doesn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would think so. At the same time, I mean, maybe they're finding that there's not enough simulators and so they've needed to add, to increase by 30%. I'm not sure. Um, it seems it's to me. Still, I am not sure yet that this model, at this scale, is viable. But at the same time, I've not been in one, I've not been able to see how busy it actually is, beyond the, beyond all the the demo reels and everything else that they put out there right, with, obviously, obviously, actors playing and hanging out.
Speaker 4:So the London and Vegas ones are the ones that I've kept closest tabs on. I've sat at the bar and watched the numbers. I also have people at some of the other facilities, especially in the UK, that have kept an eye. The attendance during the watch parties are strong. The price of the drinks means that they're seeing a good f and b return and we have rumors and that's about as much as I'm going to go for of how the percentages are working between the game and the f and b. And I say games plural, because there are a number of experiences available.
Speaker 4:Everybody talks about the simulators, but they're not aware that there's also some skill games test your speed, coordination games, as well as a question and answer product in there. I would say that the game itself, the simulator game itself, is the one that will be under the closest magnifying glass when it comes to the next evaluation. But I think we'll let them tell us what's going on first before we make some assumptions Carrying on, and we have an interesting entrance to this. So all of us are returning from Deal and a crowded UAE market. Deal will soon be followed by Sea, which will be in Saudi, and during the show we saw the appearance of a first dedicated competitive socializing entertainment venue in Dubai Call Hush interesting name name. It has gone into a special um area, uh called the social district, which has about 22 food venues in there offering unique, bespoke uh gourmet uh meals. It also has a special license so it can operate from 12 in the afternoon till 2 in the morning and it has a whiskey and cigar lounge as well as full cocktails.
Speaker 4:So this is a migration for the UAE market of proper outdoors drinking, as it were. This is rather than it just being something that's done in hotels, in private, at home or in selected restaurants. This district seems to have been earmarked for the beginning of the change which a number of us have been waiting to happen within the UAE sector as well as in the Saudi sector. This venue is the first one to have string bowling or duck pin bowling in the Middle East. It is the first one to have dedicated AR darts. It is the first one really to be a big push for competitive socializing within the region. And, surprise, surprise, it is partnered with our friends at ASI, one of the largest distributors in the UAE. So no surprise about the amusement edition, but we have all of the amusement you can come to expect from a competitive socializing venue, though I would argue that the themality is a little bit on the generic. But then again we need to get out there and try it before we make too many assumptions from the video.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean it looks at least they've blended together a number of different competitive socializing games, different competitive socializing games. It looks like what a, a, d and B social might look like. If, if, if Dave and busters had taken some of their, some of their social bays and put them into a separate, into a separate venue.
Speaker 2:You know, they've got some yeah, it's still good, right, but they have some games, but obviously not the same level of weight that Dave and busters would put towards their arcade. But there are some games, some pinball, but really driving, I think, hard on the competitive, socializing and F&B component.
Speaker 4:I like the board staff standing in the background of that last shot. That was interesting. It is what it is. It is a new market entering competitive socializing and testing the water, like we saw with the first of the Tokyo competitive social venues and as we can expect to see in other markets. My only concern about Hush is is it generic enough or is it too generic to stand out as a competitive socializing rather than just a nightclub bar approach? Moving on and we come to our attack from Asia, we can't go without a week without mentioning our friends at Genda sorry, Genda, for Adelaide and Geigo. Get into the game.
Speaker 4:Oasis, the latest venue opening up in Tokyo. Tokyo must be full with Geico facilities. This one in the Iron Mall is an interesting one, being that it is quite a large facility layout compared to their normal size of location. I actually remember this locality when it was a previous venue, so it's going to be interesting to go out next to Tokyo and actually see what this one looks like in comparison do a side-by-side. But it has a bit of everything. It has the gashapon, it has the cranes, it has the amusement, it has the amusement. It has the kiddie play area. No f and b though in this component.
Speaker 4:And then we jump over to vietnam. How many of you knew that gender actually had a geico vietnam operation? How many of you know that there is a Geico Europe operation? The Vietnam location is a fascinating one. We have two sites now operating there. They are the Game Oasis approach, with not much change that I could see for the Geico component, but as part of the unit in this mall they also have a kid attainment component called Little Planet. Little Planet is also being deployed in Japan and Little Planet is also being deployed in North America. I think they may have one Little Planet in North America already open. I'll have to double-check that. My perception from the little planet demo reels that I've seen is it's very reminiscent of what we were talking about on the last sound off of our friends at Hello IO, with a lot of the projection mapped interactive kid game experiences, but again aiming for the younger side of their audience, catch them young and then encourage them into the arcade component. Very interesting.
Speaker 4:We have a redevelopment or relocation. Our friends at Need to Speed had previously opened their karting location, found that they had too little room and they wanted to expand and moved into a new location. The new location isn't that much bigger than their old location, but it allows them to open a multi-layer track, and so Reno is the proud recipient of the first multi-level karting track the first multi-level karting track. There's also 12 lanes of duck pin bowling, mini golf and a selection of amusement machines, all supported by F&B, a kind of what I would say Andretti's wannabe or a K1 wannabe. We are now seeing the karting scene follow this kind of model. They have the large space that they need for indoor karting, so they now are supporting that with the social and FEC style entertainment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it definitely feels like a mini Andretti, for sure, you know, I don't know about the nine hole mini golf.
Speaker 4:uh, you know, aligned with it, that seems anyway, but um, yeah, obviously someone suggested they do the spaghetti and put a bit of everything in there in there. I wouldn't be surprised if that nine hole gets removed and used for some kind of attraction down the road, or or they may have found that in the Reno area. This is a perfect addition to the mix. We will see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it looks like they also, by the way, have outside yard games. They have ping pong, some foaling, so the football bowling which I'm surprised to see in Reno, it tends to be more of a Midwest popular thing and the cornhole setup as well. Yeah which the cornhole is free, but apparently you pay for the football, bowling and the ping pong.
Speaker 4:That's weird. Well we will see how their financing model works with that.
Speaker 2:I don't know if this is on a per hour basis, but Friday to Sunday it's $20 per ping pong table for up to four people. So I don't know if this is on a per hour basis, but Friday to Sunday it's $20 per ping pong table for up to four people. So I don't know if it's per hour or how long you're reserving it, but that seems to me to be a bit pricey for some ping pong. I mean, unless you're like a spin right, Like in your whole concept built around ping pong and that kind of thing, like just having it as a yard game outside and having to pay for it seems interesting, it's still pricey and you are tying up systems where if you keep it free and easy then you can chuck people off and chuck people on.
Speaker 4:Nailing it down to an expensive cover charge will cause a bottleneck. We will wait and see One of the most, for me, important developments this week in the list of new openings. We will go into a lot more detail of this in the coming sound off, but we have Five Irons undertake a move that I've been speculating for some time, which is stepping into the FEC side of the business. So rather than just running a golf simulation operation, they have now pivoted into adding FEC to their mix. They have been doing this quietly through what they call their Detroit duck pin bowling setup, but they have now admitted that their Ohio facility that will be opening up later I think in the next three months, if the sources are correct will incorporate the addition of an FEC component to the golf simulator component.
Speaker 4:It is interesting. The space that they're going into in Shaker Heights is an old golf simulation facility Not that old the 1899 golf chain, which still has two operating sites, closed the Shaker facility in 2024, 2025. And our friends at Five Irons have been rushing to deploy into that space. But this is the beginning of what I think we'll be seeing from a number of the single entertainment operations as they suddenly work out that being a mule is much more profitable than being a single entertainment experience.
Speaker 2:So let me ask is the 1899 Golf and Social Club no longer and so Five Iron is coming in to take over, or is Five Iron branding this new concept as 1899 Golf and Social Club? Watch your sound off, all right. Yeah, I guess we'll. I guess we'll know shortly, but but yeah, I mean this is interesting. I'm looking forward to having a deeper conversation about this. We don't need to have that on this on this show now, so we can. Yeah, we'll have a deeper conversation about that on the sound off coming up in a couple of days.
Speaker 4:Sorry to be mysterious about it, but let's keep them wanting more Interesting developments Again. Something that we've been expecting to happen is that for the pub co, the public and trade, especially in the UK, to finally bite the bullet and admit that competitive socializing is a thing and not just derivation of their bear and skittles approach to hospitality. And we have seen one of the large chains step into the ring with their interpretation of a converted pub towards being a competitive, socialising and sports watching environment Under the brand new name of Grandstand. The Tipton facility or bar Gospel Oak has been turned into Grandstand.
Speaker 4:Grandstand used to be the name of a sports television program from the 1970s, so obviously the executives there are showing their age and the competitive socializing that they've added is some darts standard darts and some pool tables standard pool tables. So they haven't gone for any gamification, but they have gone for a much more competitive socializing menu layout and watch party vibe. It will be interesting to see if they bite the bullet and then add some more gamification to the space or if they're going to stick to their laurels and just survive with those two entertainment aspects.
Speaker 2:I mean this seems to be a daunting upgrade if they do intend to go and make these changes to their 1,300 additional locations that Marston's already has out there in the UK.
Speaker 4:I doubt that they will do that. A lot of those facilities are actually pubs as components of a hotel. So the mix of trying to put a competitive socializing spin on a pub that is part of a hospitality for a hotel would be out. I expect that they will suck their thumb, evaluate the numbers, see the lay of the land and then start cherry-picking which are the best locations to be turned into grandstands. And then we have a redevelopment.
Speaker 4:Our friends at Airborne Extreme a active entertainment space, trampolines and climbing walls have decided to turn over part of their operation into a competitive socializing mix and this is their social bowl. Someone stayed up all night to come up with that name, I'm sure. And this is an interesting mix of everything kind of getting hush vibes, though not to the same themality but definitely the same approach. We have the very strong Lasertron dart system, lasertronic dart system. We have some blacklight pool tables. We have also some selected amusement and selected F&B in support of this. So an example of an entertainment facility parachuting in competitive socializing elements so they can have some after dark revenue so they can have some after dark revenue.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, they clearly needed to do something beyond just an adventure park. But it's always sometimes these things that they try to expand their market reach to a different demographic and it doesn't always work. So hopefully they'll be able to make that shift. But when you've got a trampoline park, adventure park that's primarily catered towards teens, then to try to move into the social bowl component where you're not trying to target 20 somethings and adults, I think that will be a struggle.
Speaker 4:It means correct marketing positioning and promotion. You can't treat the two as the same thing. They are oil and water, and this is where the real skill will happen. It's the same problem that our friends in the cinema sector have when they add an entertainment component onto their cinema. It is the same for any operation where they're putting a new addition to an existing formula, and as they have four facilities out there, it will be interesting to see how many of them are rolled into the social bowl.
Speaker 4:Moving to the shots, and a sad one for me. As a consultant, I work on many projects. As an advisor, I advise many projects and as a founder of some companies, I have to direct companies from the position of development director, and one of the projects that I had worked on a couple of years ago two years ago was Spider Entertainment. I was one of the co-founders there. We came up with a number of ideas of how to break into the competitive socializing and entertainment market. We worked with companies such as Merlin, but sadly, due to the financial situations, the investment didn't arrive, and so Spider went their way and I've had to go my way.
Speaker 4:One of the last things that I worked on was I roughed out an idea for something called Spiderbox, which was a very simple mall-based drop-in, competitive socializing component. I had gone before the idea was visualized or created and Spiderbox was dropped into a mall in Manchester. Sadly, money was short and so some of the elements that we wanted to incorporate themality, activities and entertainment couldn't be done at the time. But it had racing simulators, it had interactive bays and it had karaoke and F&B. Well, anyway, it's a difficult industry out there and if you can't get the mix right and if you can't learn from the mistakes and redressing, then you get bitten in the bum. They first had to change the name Spiderbox for various reasons, and they went with with tracks social to push the simulation side, uh.
Speaker 4:But uh, the inevitable kicked in and the facility closed, uh, a month or so ago. The information on when this actually closed down was only gleaned from the website. Uh, and my sources, uh, in manchester, sources in Manchester haven't built up the guts to stagger into the locality. One of the poor aspects about the planning of this particular installation is that Track Social was installed right next door to a Boom Battle Bar. So you know that is really putting your McDonald's next door to a Wendy's, as it were. You know many reasons. Success has many fathers. Failure is an orphan, but you know I have to accept the successes from my consultancies as well as the failures. It's sad to see it go. I wish everybody that worked on the project and were involved in the project well, and maybe they'll be able to raise some more support and get it back on its feet.
Speaker 4:But, here we go. I don't think this will be the last time I'll be talking about projects that we've had involvement with going through changes.
Speaker 2:No, and this is it is. It's always hard to hear, especially when a venue that has been really fleshed out and dreamed about for so long and only survives for six months. You know that really, and and probably wasn't even surviving, Right Was like just barely barely making it it is. It is too bad when it happens to anybody. It is too bad when it happens to anybody. I know that when it first opened, we had some reservations about its viability. Unfortunately, and to be fair to Spiderbox concept, it is not really a Spiderbox concept, knowing what you and I have talked about before. So, to be fair to the Spiderbox concept, at least this is not it, and that may have been one of its, one of its downfalls.
Speaker 4:No such thing as failure, just opportunities to learn. Yeah, Uh and uh. You know, when we made, over six months ago, when we made, the uh observation about what it had turned into and what they were proposing to open, it was clear that they were making some of the fundamental mistakes which, hopefully, you know, my ego is big enough to say that if I'd still been directly involved with the project, we would have advised them not to do. That said, those lessons are important and one of the things I do as an advisor and as a consultant is I like to pass on the lessons learned so others don't fall into the same heffa-lump traps that others do. That said, it is also important for operators to listen to their advisors and consultants. Not everything that they say is going to be accurate, but at least having a second opinion rather than being in an echo chamber is essential.
Speaker 4:A surprise one for me here I hadn't come across Particle Inc. I had to do some research into this when it appeared on my radar this week that they had actually finally permanently closed. It's best to call it an AR experience live experience, projection, mapping, live actors and performers themed cocktail environment. It sounds quite a fun. I would go as far as saying a Meow Wolf style experience Started originally in the Arts District in Vegas and then was snapped up by the Luxor and placed in there in its own unique location.
Speaker 4:The Luxor can be the kiss of death to a lot of entertainment concepts I've charted over the years, concepts and opportunities that have found success and then been parachuted into the Luxor, only to disappear with a whimper and a whine. The nice thing about the situation with Particle Inc is that the team behind it understand the reason why they couldn't survive in the Luxor, which is due to, shall we say, a different opinion to how the location should be operated. And they're now talking about taking the proven success of Particle Inc, because it was a successful implementation, and they're going to drop it into a new locality, maybe even a new city away from Vegas. Whatever the case be, I wish them a lot of luck and I look forward to actually having a chance to try it next time. Makes me wonder what other hidden gems are lurking in the art district in Vegas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'd actually been familiar with Particle Inc. I've never had a chance to actually check it out, but was familiar with it and it might've been, I think, even Christine back in the day, christine and I talked about it on one of our old LBX daily shows when we were still doing daily shows and yeah, I think it's probably a. I would say it's like a Cirque du Soleil meets cabaret show meets Meow Wolf, and I think just the cost of delivering it on a regular basis if you don't have the throughput in the audience, it was probably just too much, in addition to maybe the rent and everything else. But you know it also had a lot of augmented components with your phone and had digital NFTs and other things that you could collect, and so it's a very interesting element to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, very interesting. But to your point about Luxor, this is one of my biggest concerns about Play Playground and that was at least doing fairly well when Barry Zillix and I went and checked it out Like there was a good number of people there for a Thursday evening. But it still is one of my concerns because you go up to that second story above the Luxor, where all of their attractions are. They're titanic and everything else and it's super hard to find. There's no clear signage from the casino floor at all that there's anything you would never find play playground unless you know, unless you're looking for it.
Speaker 2:Unless you were looking for it right Like actively looking for it, you would not see it. So it is not a surprise either that the Luxor does not do it should to support its entertainment that come in from a third-party standpoint Fun.
Speaker 4:It's one of the few hotel casino resorts I've never actually stayed in, but I've spent so much time in the building evaluating. They killed Sega World. Stayed in, but I've spent so much time in the building uh, evaluating. They killed sega world. They killed uh the um the 4d simulator, the doug trumbull simulator, experience many. A real strong project has been killed within the luxor. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I'm sure the luxor people aren't doing it purposely. It's just just that maybe if you're not a Formula One driver you shouldn't jump into a Formula One car that kind of approach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I have to think about competing incentives, right? So, depending on what kind of licensing deal that Luxor has with these entertainment groups, if there is or isn't any revenue sharing happening at all, if it's purely just a lease scenario, then lunch store has zero incentive to push people upstairs to their operators that are up there, because taking people away from spending money on the casino floor, and likewise they're probably expecting a particle ink or a play playground to actually drive foot traffic into the casino because of their own marketing efforts. And so it really is a misaligned incentives from Luxor standpoint to promote these types of things and really drive foot traffic away from their floor.
Speaker 4:I think, like with the Blue man Group success that they had at the Luxor, giving them a slice of the cash allows you to then jump on the bandwagon of the promotion and the Luxor marketing and promotion machine can be a vast monster when it is turned on to support you. But you know, these type of operations that we've touched upon are just really renting space and hoping to grab foot traffic and that pyramid can be very dangerous at trying to grab foot traffic. Talking about Las Vegas and moving into our layoff section of Open and Shut and we get a little bit of transparency to what actually happened with the Mr Beast problem, a major layoff took place just before the Mr Beast experience. It seems that Resort World, the facility where we will be relocating the amusement Expo International to received one of the highest fines from the Nevada Commission for money laundering. It seems from the reports that were given to us by the Las Vegas Sentinel and the other media out there that 10 million was leveled against the venue in fines and as soon as those fines were announced the resort world management decided to lay off a considerable number of staff. You know we've had various numbers of how many people were laid off. 50 is one number. I've actually heard higher than 50. Either way, all of these people got gone as soon as this happened in March and of course, I think a lot of the people that would have been involved in the Mr Beast experience were not there and could not continue the operation and for some reason, the resort world management didn't cancel or suspend the event. That is the current version that we are being fed Again. If anyone has more information or needs to correct what I've just said, we are always open to make corrections here.
Speaker 4:Moving on and talking about further departures from the Vegas staffing, I call this a barometer of recession. Sadly, one of those things that I keep a close eye on are barometers that tell me the financial health of various states. Hotels, transportation, hospitality are examples where if you start to see retailers close, if you start to see restaurants or hotels starting to lay off staff even while they still stay operational, then you know that people aren't spending as much or companies are girding their loins and protecting their bottom lines of financing and all of the six properties that fall under the MGM Resort chain of businesses turning around and deciding to cut overheads regarding their live concierge service. So when you check in. There will be no more concierge from a human being. It will be all kiosk-based or direct-based. I'm sure it will be done by a phone app of some sort, but that has cut at least 100 positions from these various chains, and we are led to believe that other hotels, casino resorts within the catchment of Las Vegas will be going through the same process. So we'll watch this space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, as AI agents get even better and better and better, and, as I always say about AI, this is the worst it's going to be. So that means, when it's already so good, it's only going to get better. These are the types of jobs, at least in the hospitality space, that we will begin to see, but you will see a ripple effect through any telephone customer support, et cetera, as well as, again, ai agents really become much more powerful, especially connected to internal bookings tools and point of sale tools, where they don't have to necessarily navigate the web to do some concierge work for you. They can navigate internal systems and be much more intricately connected and therefore less susceptible to mistakes that a more generalized agent might run into.
Speaker 4:I wouldn't be surprised, within the next few months, we see the little black box by the side of your bed in most hotels removed. I think the phone that is ubiquitous in most hotels internationally will be removed for an AI Siri style agent system where you will shout at it and it will deliver whatever you need. And when that your paper if you're still reading a paper or those extra towels turns up at your door, it will be a robot delivering it rather than a bellboy. The last time I was in Vegas, we had robot service and I looked at the phone next door to the bed and said your time is limited. Now we need to work out what you can do when you collect all of these phones from the hotels, what you can turn them into.
Speaker 2:But Art installation in one of their new locations, I'm sure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, a nice art installation of phone reports. Be prepared for these type of jobs to be superseded by the AI tools that are coming forward, both on your phone and through specialist kiosk systems. But I'm sure we will touch upon the AI side in a later sound off. I'm sure Anyway, that's it from the main lookouts, that I've seen Anything that I touched upon that you want to reiterate.
Speaker 2:No, I think it was a great open and shut and looking forward to the next one.
Speaker 4:Always a pleasure Speak to you soon.
Speaker 2:Intercard is the only cashless system designed, developed and manufactured all under one 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, well, that wraps up our LBX show for today, and you know what We've got? Just a little reminder about LBX Galaxy. This is our online community where we're constantly sharing different things, and so I highly recommend you join that and get sharing and get learning and get connecting, and you can scan that QR code or visit lbxgalaxycom. And we've got sound off number 72 with Kevin Williams coming out on Tuesday, may 6th so just in a couple of days and it's a great one, so highly recommend you listen to that. All right, everybody. That's a wrap for the LBX show. This is Brandon Wiley signing off. Stay tuned and keep kicking ass.
