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LBX Collective
The LBX Show #31 - Summer Pass Mania, Hot Wheels takes a Victory Lap, and more!
Sponsored by Intercard!
On this week's LBX Show, we start off by taking a look at how summer passes are trending across the entertainment industry with Dave & Buster's, Main Event, Chuck E Cheese, Topgolf, and Pinstripes all offering various unlimited gameplay packages for summer 2025.
• Dave & Buster's Silver Pass ($69) offers unlimited weekday gameplay with 10% off food
• Main Event's premium pass ($70) includes unlimited activities and 20% off food and drinks
• Chuck E. Cheese's Summer Fun Pass ($66) provides unlimited visits for three months
• Topgolf's summer pass ($225) covers up to six people with unlimited gameplay
Card system security remains a significant vulnerability for entertainment venues, regardless of size. Operators must take proactive measures to protect assets and prevent theft, starting with proper permission settings and regular monitoring.
• Card consolidation is the number one avenue for theft in most card systems
• Limit administrative privileges to no more than three employees per location
• Designate a "Card System Champion" to monitor reports and audit for suspicious activity
• Bulk encode cards on the day of events rather than in advance for easier reconciliation
• Employee/tech cards need careful monitoring to prevent abuse
Hot Wheels Victory Lap has launched as a Dave & Buster's exclusive, featuring dynamic racing with loops, jumps, and environmental obstacles reminiscent of Cruis'n Blast.
Check out our website at lbxcollective.com and subscribe to the Stinger Report or Entertainment Social Arena newsletter for more industry updates throughout the week.
All right well, welcome everybody to the LBX show for June 1st 2025. And I'm your host, brandon Wiley. We have a packed, packed show today for you, and first we're going to kick things off with the news. You should know there's a couple of things that I think are important for you guys to understand and see what's coming down the line. Then we're going to roll right into promo pro tips with Chuck DeMonte as he discusses influencer marketing. And then next we've got Jason Mitchell from Intercar. He's going to join me and on Guest Gab, we're going to talk about card security systems and fraud protection best practices. Then we'll have the Arcade Corner with Adam Pratt. He's going to catch up on all the latest releases that are coming down the line, as well as the new Hot Wheels exclusive for Dave and Busters. And then, finally, we're going to roll right into a new open and shut with Kevin Williams and we're going to dig into all the key trends in the business, from the latest openings and closings. All right, that is our show for today. Let's get started with some news you should know. All right Well, iapa has a bunch of events coming up for 2025 and 26. And I realize this slide does nothing for you because it's so small on the screen. Let's see if I can make it a little bit bigger for you here. All right, still not as great, but anyway you can get these different events that are coming down the line for the rest of this year and 2026. There's different meetups in North America and then what they call IAPA Presents, and I'm actually excited because I'm going to be going to Morgan's Wonderland in San Antonio next week, the week after next week, so in two weeks we're going to go to San Antonio for again to go see Morgan's Wonderland. It's an IAPA Presents event. It's basically all day and there's some education at the beginning and then there's some tours and some cool experiences and get to just see what's going on and what new things are happening over at Morgan's Wonderland. That is on June 10th, and so if anybody's in the San Antonio area or in Texas you want to come out and hang out with me, I'll be there, and if you want to hang out with me at any other North America events through IAAPA, you can certainly do that and find those you know, find those on IAAPAorg's website, all right, next, we've got a an update from Dave and Busters, so Dave and Busters are doing some good, cool new things They've got. I think they're trying to shake things up here and oh, that's not Dave and Buster's. Well, all right, we're going to skip Dave and Buster's.
Speaker 3:We're going to talk about creative works. Okay, creative works has a brand new, uh, latest product, boutique golf, and this uh you know some of the pictures I'm going to flip through here very reminiscent of the swinger style. If you're familiar, we, you know, I went and visited swingers in Las Vegas with Barry Zelikson a few months ago now and we had a whole thing, and so a lot of what they've done here is very swingers-esque, and one of the cool, interesting things about it is that they talk about well, they have blacklight golf, they have their Lucky Putt system, which is all around, their automated scoring technology, and in their words they say that boutique golf is about using modern, upscale decor to attract adults in corporate groups, and they really like the fact that this is an interior design that can match your venues material finishes and also flows with your overall venue design language. And one of the things that I like about this from an accessibility standpoint is that you don't have any raised platforms, so it's designed so that it's smooth, you can walk or roll, you know whatever you need to do, right from one hole to the next, and so you know. Again, these are just a couple of different styles that they've got here, different examples. Some are they've recently done their first installation of boutique golf and you know, look, there's some interesting, like there are some exciting holes, some difficult holes, some difficult holes, but then there's others that are just very elegant, very simple, straightforward, using different obstacles that are again really designed to fit the overall theme and feel of your venue. So this is a pretty cool new release from CreativeWorks. So good job, guys, on that. All right.
Speaker 3:Now we're going to talk about Dave and Buster's, I think. So let's see what's coming up here. Yes, all right. So Adam Pratt on his arcade corner is going to dig in a little bit more into the actual Hot Wheels gameplay that is now. The Victory Lap is what it's called the Hot Wheels Victory Lap gameplay that is currently exclusive to Dave and Buster's. Obviously will not always be exclusive to them, but for a period of time it will. But alongside their rollout of this exclusive team up with mattel, they've also released a new f and b package, or f and b offerings that are aligned with this.
Speaker 3:So, beginning june 2nd, so tomorrow, you can go into any dnb location nationwide and they'll have, obviously, the victory lap there on the floor. But then they're also going to have a new themed menu. So some menu items here you can see, here it's got turbocharged chicken sliders with buffalo kick they call it turbo bites, donut holes. They're served in collectible trays so you can actually take the trays home. And then a stoplight punch flight featuring rum punches, and then frizzy fruity hot wheels refreshers, the refreshers being for the kids but then the rum punches being for the adults. So anyway, look, they've done a great job, not only just introducing a new attraction which, when you listen to Adam's thing and you watch some of the video gameplay, looks pretty fun, looks like actually a really great fit, and then you've got the nostalgia using the brand around some of the F&B offerings here.
Speaker 3:So one of the other things that Dave Buster's has done is introduce a summer pass for the first time, so they now have a unlimited gameplay summer pass. I'll make this a little bit bigger so you can check it out here. This is their, you know, it's all access tickets. It's basically gives them, you know, includes all the newest games, including the 10 new games that they've recently introduced, that are, they have some exclusivity to Topka, maverick, ufc Challenge, godzilla VR, the NBA Superstar, cyberpunk and then obviously the Hot Wheels.
Speaker 3:There are three different passes that are available. So the first one is their Silver Pass, that's 69. It's basically 70 bucks. It's unlimited weekday gameplay and then 10% off F&B, although non-alcoholic drinks, so you don't get anything off the alcoholic drinks. And then $100 is the unlimited daily gameplay, 20% off, and then also you can earn, so you can use your unlimited gameplay on redemption as well and earn up to 1,000 tickets each week. And then for their platinum, it's 150 unlimited gameplay. There's no blackout dates, so that would assume then presumably that the others have blackout dates. And then it's 30% off food and non-alcoholic drinks, and then you get 2000 tickets each week, again on the redemption, so you can earn up to 2000 tickets getting that free gameplay for redemption. So this is the first time Dave and Buster's has done this, and so we're going to look quickly at a few other summer passes that are going on Main Event.
Speaker 3:Obviously Dave Buster's has learned from Main Event, given the fact that they're now sister companies and Main Event has brought back their summer season pass and they have two different passes. Their basic pass is $50, which includes weekday unlimited bowling, free shoe rental and then 10% off your food and non-alcoholic drinks, and this is only available at the location of purchase. So, as you're thinking about your own summer passes if you don't already have one, definitely think about implementing something like this. Their premium pass has all you can play activities, so not just bowling, but all you can play activities that is $70. So, like, the value accretion there between the 50 to 70 is pretty good free shoe rental, 20 off food and drinks, and then you also get a 25 bonus game credits with any other fun package fun card package purchase. So, anyway, good season passes there. On main event next, we also have chucky Cheese.
Speaker 3:That is bringing back their Summer Fun Pass for a third year. This is now again the third year they've done this. It basically starts at $66 a month Excuse me, not a month $66 for the summer and it is unlimited visits for three months with the Summer Fun Pass and you can play up to 250 games on every visit and then you get up to 50% off food and drinks for the whole family. So really, really, really good value. And then also $99 birthday parties or like $100 birthday parties, which is pretty interesting. So that is their Summer Fun Pass.
Speaker 3:Seems to me that the Summer Fun Pass tends to conflict a little bit with their regular passes, that they have their monthly passes. So I'm not sure the value you get other than the 50% off the food by buying the extra Summer Pass, because if you're already on their monthly pass subscription you're getting granted there's only 40 games versus 250 games per visit, and I mean there's different things. But if you're already paying $30 a month, you're already getting 250 games per visit. You're already getting 50% off food and drinks. So, like I think this is maybe just give people a taste for like, okay, what can I get for $66 for that? So anyway, that is Chuck E Cheese's summer pass.
Speaker 3:And then Topgolf also is introducing a summer fun pass. So this is summer, this is the month, this is the summer of summer fun passes. Topgolf has done the same thing here. It's $225. It includes unlimited gameplay through September 1st, 10% off food and non-alcoholic drinks, and then one pass actually covers up to six people. So for $225 for a whole month or for the whole summer, excuse me, you can bring you and your buddies like your friends, like every day if you wanted to, and just play golf Like that to me seems like pretty good value.
Speaker 3:And so you know, again, thinking through, what your summer pass structure might look like. These are good examples. The last one I'll touch on is pinstripes. They have created their play more together pass. This is their summer adventure group pass. It is two hundred dollars and offers two hours of premium bowling daily for up to five people. So again, very similar value that you'd get with top golf. This is the two hundred dollars for up to five people for two hours of bowling every single day.
Speaker 3:Obviously, what they're hoping you can you do is spend money on fmb while you're there. Uh, I think they probably could have gone a little bit further and added in that 10 off for food and not called just to get people in that buying mode, feeling like they're getting value from it. Maybe that's something they'll try next year If they don't get the same type of lift that they want from this. So anyway, that is a pretty packed news, you should know. Coming up next, we have excuse me, what do we have we have next? Coming next, we have promo pro tips with chuck demonte. Let's get right into it. 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.
Speaker 1:Customer. Thank you. They hope you will become one soon. Hello and welcome to Promo Pro Tips with Chuck DeMonte.
Speaker 1:That is me, and today I want to talk about something that recently came up with a current client influencer marketing. So it's something that we used to do a lot of. I don't do it as much these days Not that there's not value there just as us as a service-based business. It's a little bit labor intensive, right. So I do like to leave that up to the owners and the GMs and the operators right To sort of execute on their own. Again, we're always happy to help them, but I do know a lot about it. We've done it many times over the years in all different industries, right. So I do know a lot about influencer marketing, how it works, the pros and cons and sort of what to avoid and how to work with them. So I say I want to run you down sort of the best guidelines of working with influencers, ok.
Speaker 1:So step one is obviously finding them Right. Where are they, how do you find them? And you know somebody local and who's the right person and all that other stuff. So there's a couple of different ways to accomplish this you can look at. There are services that one of that comes to the top behind. I think it's called Collabster, which is almost like a free search tool, right? I don't like using third party services to pay for it through them and find them like that. I like to find like a directory that you could use, that you could search them and put in there, maybe the categories they cover or the location they're at right, and then that will give you a starting point to start trying to find people. So that's a good way to find them, right. The other way is literally going in manually into Instagram. I would prefer you do it on the app, right. Using on the desktop, you don't see all the features a little bit more not as user-friendly. You don't see all the features a little bit more, not as user-friendly. So if you go to the app, I would find the closest city to you, right, and put in that location, okay, or even try your town, okay, and then you're literally going to see people that have the most popular posts in that city. Now, for example, for me, I'm in Long Island. I am about an hour outside of the city, manhattan, and you know I still follow things that are from the city and you know you're going to still have a pretty wide radius of people who follow that locally, right, even if they're not necessarily directly from your hometown or you're from your, you know your location. If it's a major city next to you, right, you could probably use them, okay. So, again, find a location. Ok, and then you're going to see top posts of those people, right, and so what you can do is literally look through them and find somebody that fits your demographic. Is it a mom? Is it, you know, a 20 something? Right? So you know, do that. And then, once you find them, there's typically a button on their profile that you could drop down and see similar accounts. Ok, so if you find one, it would help you lead into others. Right, you could also look at the hashtags they're using and look up hashtags. So, literally just going through organically and manually trying to find those people. Obviously, you're also local.
Speaker 1:Ask people, ask the people who work for you, like, hey, do you guys know any influencers? Or you know, do you follow anybody locally? Right, start with them, ok. So you know a few different ways to find them. But now you found them. Now, what? Right, how do you work with them. What is the best sort of way to work with them? So, one you're going to reach out. Typically a DM is fine. Sometimes on their, on their profile, I'll have their email, say for collaborations, you know, email me this or call or whatever Right. But DM, I think, is for direct messaging them is fine.
Speaker 1:I like to offer them a lot of times, especially like small local influencers, they will barter with you, right, give them a free event, a free birthday, a free tickets to come down, whatever right. If not, you know you want to see what that price is. You're going to ask them hey, you know we'd love to work with you, or what does that look like? You know, would you be open to doing it? For some tickets from, I would probably throw that out there first. Right, for some tickets from, I would probably throw that out there first, right. If they're not open to that, they're going to tell you well, no, we typically charge and here's how much and here's what that looks like. Okay, you know you have to validate if you feel like it's the right price for you.
Speaker 1:If they have a lot, a lot of local followers, yeah, I mean paying 500, 1,000, 2,000 might be worth a shot, right, I wouldn't necessarily go too much higher than that, I don't think. But again, I think, evaluate that right, it's up to you. If they have 5 million local followers, then, yeah, it might be worth paying three, four, five grand for them, potentially, okay. So that's working with them. You're going to find them right Through those different avenues I told you and in different ways working with them. You're going to DM them and get an understanding of what it looks like to work with them. Right, what is it? Can you barter? Is it going to charge? How much do they charge? What is the? What would the post look like? Would they be coming down and filming it? Okay, would you just send them? Sometimes you can just send somebody something to post, and that's a lower, typically influencer.
Speaker 1:But, um, you know, look through their content. Let's talk about validating them, right? So let me take a step back too. So work with them. You want to followers and see, you know what are their followers look like? Are they local or do they like their fake followers? Right, what is their engagement on their posts? Is that fake engagement? Is that real? Go through their comments. You could pretty easily tell, right, if, if likes, comments, shares. If that stuff is fake and purchased, okay, um, obviously you want to avoid those. Okay, I'm sure I'd never looked it up, but I guarantee there's a place where you could throw in a uh uh, an Instagram profile URL, a TikTok URL, and tell you if they feel how legitimate the followers are. I think I've seen one before. So, but just validating their followers and that they're authentic, okay, typically pretty easy to tell. Okay, so let's say you validated them, you've gotten a price to them or you discuss work with them. What does that look like? What does the promo look like?
Speaker 1:I prefer to it be more, less promotion driven, meaning, you know, I don't want it to look like they've partnered with me. Right now, some people are going to want to put paid advertising or paid ad or you know, to validate it because you know legality reasons, right, but I want it to look like they just came to my location and they had a great time and they made a post. Right, look at this place, a cool place I went to. I love it. You should check it out, right, as opposed to like hey, I partnered with XYZ, you know family entertainment center and you know we're offering a $50 off a birthday or use this coupon code or you know something like that. It's just, it's not the same people. You want that social validation, that third party validation. That's why influencers work, uh, can work really well, okay, cause it's somebody they trust, telling them this place is cool, as opposed to you yourself saying, hey, my place is cool, right, much different coming from somebody else. Okay, so, if you can, I like to leave it less sort of promotional.
Speaker 1:Now, the problem a lot of people have with that is it's very difficult to track ROI Now. Sometimes you'll hit it out of the park If it's a very large influencer and you will potentially get a lot of people to visit and you'll notice, you know the increase, potentially Okay. Outside of that, you know if you were to do a promo code and say, use this code, that's, you know one of the ways to track it right how many people redeem that code. However, you know, I think and I just did a video on this recently on this, this segment about you know owners, operators, gms getting too obsessed with ROI. If somebody sees your post, that influencer post that comes in three months from now, how do you track that Right? Or if they start following your Instagram and then you're posting and they, you know, come, you know, a few months down the line. How do you track that? Very, very difficult to track.
Speaker 1:Marketing is a lot of consistency, doing it over and over and over and over again and staying in front of people. Okay, and this is just one Avenue, right? So these influencers so again, you could do it promotionally, saying, hey, I partner with this influencer, use this code for $100 off a birthday event tickets, whatever, right. Or you could have them just create something and say, hey, look, I came down and this place is great, and they'll come down and they'll shoot and film and edit their own video, right To put up and say you got to check this place out, tag you all that other stuff. I would also always make it on their post and now it's going to show up on their timeline and your timeline, okay, really important. So you're going to get the benefit of their followers seeing your stuff, your, you know, serve it to more people as they're scrolling through Instagram. Okay, so always make it a collaboration post, right, so that's what it would like to work with them. So you know, I encourage you to do this.
Speaker 1:The other piece, sort of you know a little bit advanced piece of this and I don't think enough people value this, the asset they create, right. Discuss that with them, that you're going to want to use that. After the fact, you could post it later again on your Instagram. You could now use it, probably more importantly, as a paid ad right, when somebody sees a paid ad, they're not necessarily going to see that it came from your page, but they'll see that this, this influencer is down there talking about your place and even though it's coming from your page as a paid ad, you know it still carries a lot of weight and value and could be a phenomenal asset right for you to promote and continue to do marketing.
Speaker 1:So again, it's not just the value of what do they maybe bring in the moment, it's the value of that asset that'll put together a really cool asset for you too, that I think people often forget or don't think about enough. So don't be afraid, don't be intimidated by working with influencers. Don't try and be like I have to take everything to an ROI. It's a difficult thing to do with influencers, but if you have the budget or want to test it out, it's definitely worth testing out. They can work really well, so hope that helps and start working with some influencers, all right, awesome.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks Chuck for that, and you know I'm excited for this next one. This is a guest gab with Jason Mitchell from Intercard and, as I mentioned earlier we're going to do. We're talking about card security systems and fraud protection best practices. There's been, you know, a number of different, different ransomware attacks and other types of attacks and things that have happened, but then, but then you also just have your regular everyday types of fraud that can occur from employees and making sure that you've got your cards locked down and worrying about consolidation and everything else, and so we had a really great conversation. So, looking forward to playing this. Right now let's hear from Jason Mitchell on our guest gab. All right, well, welcome Jason, to Guest Gab the OBX show. Good to have you here, man. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 2:Brandon Appreciate it. Excited to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, awesome. Well, so obviously today we're going to be talking about card system security best practices, and I guess I'd just start off asking, like, in general, how is the industry doing in general, like being vulnerable to fraud? And you know, I'm assuming that some of the larger companies have it pretty locked down, but you're the expert here, so how are things looking?
Speaker 2:Well, your assumption is what it usually is. It's an assumption the large or small I would have to say overall, the industry still has a lot of vulnerabilities out there as far as the security, specifically, of card systems and whatnot. I do quite a few forensic operations, forensic investigations over the years and for many different companies. They asked me to come in gauge how well they're doing, et cetera, et cetera, and there's always, you know, some, some bad things. There's some good things as well and unfortunately there's every once in a while you'll find some ugly. It does help out with some of the larger companies that they have a little bit more. Maybe they have a few more resources, they might have a person on staff or a team on staff looking at this for them, but even in those cases, they still have some open issues or challenges that they don't always catch, and it's one of those things that's been happening for a while.
Speaker 2:A couple of years ago, I even started asking people as they were getting card systems. We all know that you need a card system to properly operate an arcade. Now, that's not a question. It used to be a question for such a long time, but now it's just a normal thing. But, um, you gotta have one, but I asked people so. So what made you finally pull the trigger, uh, and get a card system?
Speaker 2:And what surprised me most, most people operated, or most of the operators said, hey, it was because I was told to do so. And what they meant was that they were told by. You know, they went to a conference or they had a consultant, or even their game distributors just said, oh, you got to have a card system and that's the reason they got it. And all they do on a regular basis is look at the revenue report and call it a day. And unfortunately, that's the crux of why it's not as good as it could be, because the card system itself, the data that you have at your fingertips, is immense. That might be part of the challenges that there's so much to look at, but either way, you can do so much better for your company, you can protect your assets, you can make your business more profitable, et cetera. But you've really got to secure things to the nth degree and unfortunately, that's just not the strong point of our industry right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned protecting your assets. So what would be the initial things or first steps or first set of focus that you would do to actually prevent fraud, how to protect those assets? What would that actually look like?
Speaker 2:Well, the first thing, in my opinion, that you need to do is get it set up properly from the first place your initial security permissions in your system.
Speaker 2:In your system, you have to make sure that only the right people have access to the right reports, the right functionality. You don't want just everybody and their brother to have access to do whatever they want to do, quite frankly, I mean, we all have a lot of great employees out there. Every single operator has got these people that they depend on, that they trust, that they feel comfortable with. But what you have to realize is that if you make it too easy, temptation takes hold and sometimes even your best employee, the person that you would feel most comfortable with, they, can make poor choices based on the fact that you're just making it too simple for them. Perfect example I've done, as I mentioned, several different deep dives into other systems and trying to help people understand a little bit better. I had a location with a total of 36 employees, so it was a small site, but of those 36 employees, 17 of them had administrative privileges within the systems, that's insane, that is systems.
Speaker 2:That's insane. That is insane.
Speaker 3:That's insane in any organization, but that's crazy.
Speaker 2:Right, and it was because, you know it was kind of a family establishment. They felt like that. You know they wanted everyone to have the ability to do whatever they need to take care of the customer, and that is admirable. That is obviously what you want to do. You want to take the approach as this should be, a method to empower your staff rather than limit them, right, but you're trying to empower the staff to take care of the guest without you know, making it a situation where you're giving away the comment, right? So even in the larger businesses let's say you're in a business that's got 50 locations that's one of the big boys Right? They probably have thousands of employees that are in their card system, that are listed as operators or users Even those locations, I would recommend a maximum of three administrators. That's it. You've got to have people with the ability to manage things and you have to prepare to make sure that you have someone in the building that can assist a guest at all times.
Speaker 2:But once again your hourly employees don't need to be comping cash back to your customer, your hourly employees don't need to be, you know, bulking coding cards for group events and stuff like that. You're just opening yourself up for a lot of heartache down the road.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, what you don't want to do. Also, though, you can go the extreme the other way, which I've been in part of organizations that have had one admin, and then, if you have one admin and that person is out of town or is sick or heaven forbid dies or leaves the company, now you're stuck with one admin. Obviously, they could always call the card system provider, figure things out, but it just makes it that much more difficult. So, yeah, you don't want a lot of admins, but you also want more than just one person who has the keys to the kingdom.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, you've got to be able to make sure that you can take care of the company, and you've got to have people that are available, that understand the system, people that are a part of the solution, so to speak.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So given the level I mean, given the fact that, okay, you're, you're limiting the number of admins Is there like a certain should a company have like a certain number of employees, like a whole team or a dedicated employee, that's just in general, trying to improve card system security? Could this be like your game tech, or should this be somebody else? What does this look like for somebody who's coming in and trying to regularly improve the security, and not just the card system, but maybe security in general of all the systems? Short answer to.
Speaker 2:Should you have someone protecting your assets and monitoring your business? Absolutely, yes, yes, by all means. Some of the larger companies they pay a six-figure salary to have a forensic accountant employed on their company might even have a team or another company come in as an unbiased viewer that takes a look at everything from a third party, from 30,000 feet, manages things for the business. But if you're a smaller facility number one you can't afford that type of investment. It's just not there. But should you have someone that's doing that? Absolutely. Should it be the owner? Probably not. Should it be the GM? Once again, probably not. But at least the GM should understand it. They should be able to do it. They should be able to train others to do it. And what we're talking about specifically is you know you want that person not just to look at the reports. That's not what we're talking about here. I like to call him a card system champion, ok, someone that is going to take care of your card system and basically your arcade operations from the ground floor up. We're talking about you need to expand the responsibilities to much more like redemption, inventory, marketing, training the rest of the staff working with your card system provider. As far as support is concerned. But should they be looking at those reports and auditing loss prevention and keeping tabs on what's actually happening in the facility? Absolutely they should be. That's a key point.
Speaker 2:But it doesn't have to be like I mentioned someone with a degree. Absolutely the best CSC that I ever had working for me a card system champion I had working for me was a 17-year-old senior in high school. She was fantastic great attention to detail, she had a passion for humans and she wanted to move up in the company, which is also another key thing. Maybe you have someone that you want to keep on board. You've got to give them that type of responsibility. Let them learn from the bottom up and work their way up in the company. That CSC that I employed with me when I was working at Main Event she actually became a general manager at Main Event and is running her own site today. So I thought that was very telling of the fact that it doesn't have to be someone that you have to spend a ton of money on. This was a person that was an hourly salaried person that grew within the position and trained her replacement.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, finding somebody who's passionate about it. Probably also somebody, I would imagine, who's not connected to the frontline operations in some way, like what I mean is like they're not potentially auditing their own work.
Speaker 3:So, you know what I mean. So there needs to be, I feel like a little bit of a separation of church and state. From that perspective it'd probably also you mentioned third-party auditors. Probably doesn't hurt, you know, once a year to have a third party come in, even if you have somebody who's doing that on a regular basis just, you know, to just check right, do a little penetration test, little security test, just to check things out. I would imagine it's that it a good thing to do.
Speaker 2:Right, let you know what they're seeing because, as we all know, we can walk into our facility every day, for you know three or four years. But you know on day one you're picking up trash as you're walking through the facility and stuff like that. But you know three years later you're walking through and sometimes you get a little blinders on. You're not seeing that film wrapper on the floor, you might not pick it up, et cetera, et cetera. So having a fresh pair of eyes is paramount.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, so you've been doing forensic analysis for a number of years. You've done this for multiple companies. What are some of the regular security challenges you see that people run into in their venues? And I would say, maybe a secondary thing to that is, given that probably a lot of these challenges are the same, what's a good starting point for operators who want to trim down fraud in their centers?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say, if you want to start, the first place to start, unfortunately, is what I consider to be a necessary evil in the industry, but is also the number one avenue for theft with any card system, and that's card consolidation. That's when you take the value on multiple cards, all the value from one card, and you consolidate it with others. That creates a potential for fraud, not only in your staff, but also with your guests. It depends on how you're doing it and how you monitor or manage it. If you're opening a brand new facility and you haven't opened it yet and you're listening to this my best suggestion is to never offer card consolidation at all from the very beginning, because if the guest doesn't know it's available, they're usually not asking for it. And when they do ask for it, okay, because it will, you know, be asked.
Speaker 2:Can I put these together? Ask questions, because all you have to do is say, oh, you want all those redemption points on one card and 80 to 90% of the time, that's all they want, right? You don't want to move the cash value, you don't want to move the registrations, you don't want to move certain bits of data from one card to another. Moving the points is okay because you're consolidating for that guest. Use the borrow function within your system. That's usually a better way to do that a card combined function, not a consolidation um. But there are going to be cases where you are going to need to consolidate cards. When you have a, a guest that buys uh, four, or you know, four twenty dollar cards, uh, with five dollars in bonus on them, and what they really wanted was one you know eighty dollar card, uh, or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 2:Sometimes there is a need for it. Well, because that should be few and far between. Then you can gatekeep that with the security permissions. Hourly staff no card consolidation Supervisors, maybe an hourly staff that's your call as the operator.
Speaker 2:You know your staff, you know your business, you know your operation better. An mod probably needs to have that ability. You need to have card consolidation. You know the ability to do card consolidation in the building at all times. So usually there's an mod on property most of the time. So that would be where I would personally start. It was with the mod. And then, of course, the general manager and stuff above that can have the ability to consolidate as well.
Speaker 2:But, um, you know, the consolidation becomes a a big problem when you look at everybody wants to recycle their game cards and I think that's a good thing. Anytime you can take the cards that you're purchasing and recycle them and reuse them, uh, for the guest and not have to buy new cards. Hey, that's a win. The way you do the card recycling is a security method. If you are just putting them, you know taking them at the counter and putting them in a you know a stack behind the counter. Get ready, it's probably already happening at your facility. The staff is consolidating all that float that might be on those cards onto one card and they're handing it to a buddy. They're going to go get the, the PlayStation, or they're going to go.
Speaker 2:You know, if you allow the cash value to be used all throughout your building, they're going to go buy some, some, some food, et cetera, et cetera, and that's going to negatively impact the cost of goods sold and stuff, because you never actually that's. That's not their money, that's your cash flow. That they're doing. So that's definitely something you want to be be wary of is in the consolidation Bulk encoding for birthday parties, group events, stuff like that. I know so many companies that they'll they'll bulk encode the cards on Thursday, for you know all the cards for Saturday and Sunday on Thursday. Well, the problem with that is is when you do that, the encoding shows up on Thursday on the reports and then on Saturday and Sunday when you're collecting money for all those cards that you were selling them. It's much harder to reconcile that If you're asking someone an accountant, a bookkeeper or your CSC to do so for you. So there's no reason not to bulk encode all of your cards the day of the event. It helps you better. You know, designate OK, well, they scheduled for 15, but there's only 10 that showed up. Let's only make 10 cards today for this group, you know, and immediately have that taken care of and make it much easier to reconcile Because if you did sell you know, hand out 15 cards. If your party host handed out 15 cards to that party but only 10 showed up, the person that's reconciling would absolutely know that and say, okay, well, where's the other five cards? We only received payment for 10. It's important to stay on top of that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:The employee tech cards they're often used to test a game. They're also used to comp a guest in many cases out on the game room floor. When you do comp like a redemption game, you're swiping the employee card or the tech card. Then you're inviting the guest to swipe there so the account number can be captured by the reader and then whatever points are won at that point all go on to the guest's card. They were never charged for it because you paid for it, but they do receive all the points. Well, one of the biggest things that you've got to look at on your employee gameplay reports to prevent that type of theft is to make sure that if you see a lot of gameplay on a certain game at a certain time and all of the points are getting comped to the same account number, the same game card you know, secondary game card, then that's probably, you know, an employee abusing their privileges with that. You know, with those security permissions, you can limit the number of comps that an employee can use on their card, you can limit the games that they can use it on, et cetera, et cetera. So use those systems that you have available to you to really monitor everything that your staff is doing.
Speaker 2:And what's funny is if you just come out one day and say hey, johnny, I noticed you played this game. We just got this brand new game in last Tuesday. And when you work Tuesday night between the hours of 6 and 6.15, you played it three times or four times or five times. Was there an issue with the game? When you just bring it up to the employee, most of them are just playing around. Right, I'm not going to fire that guy for doing that, but I'm going to bring it to his attention. So he knows that, I know. So he knows that we're looking at that. Just the fact that they know you're looking at it will be a big preventative measure when trying to protect your assets within the facility.
Speaker 3:Yeah for sure. Yeah, it's just them. Knowing them, being aware of it is a big deal. So you know, there's a lot of things that seem to be fairly common sense, things that are good best practices here, but there's also some things that you know are unique aspects of each system and so I'm just curious, like, in general, are there reports or certain settings or training that's available for these different systems in order to help reduce fraud, help, just in general, create a more secure operation? Things where, if I have a dedicated team member that I want to make my CSC, is there training I can put that person through, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And you know, I've personally worked with the majority of the card systems that are out on the market today and I can tell you that that, without a doubt, they all have some form of reporting and ability functionality limitation. You know, if they want to, they're all different, but they all have the ability to manage your property properly. Right, if you have the opportunity to schedule some additional training with that company, do it as quickly as you can. There's many companies that they have manuals out there that I don't know a lot of people don't like to read, but guess what? They also have videos that can help you with the training and the security.
Speaker 3:And now you can drop a manual into Google Notebook Google Notebook LM, for example and it'll put a podcast out of that manual, and so if you don't want to read the manual, you can have two people talk about it for you and learn from it. That way, Let AI tell you about it.
Speaker 2:There's so many different ways to do that, but, yeah, some of the companies have videos and I can tell you confidently that every card system out there has their resident industry expert Right. Utilize and leverage that knowledge that they have within your facilities. They can help you understand what reports you need to be running, how often you need to run them, what you should be looking for and what are some of the best abilities or things that you need to identify with someone or you know, a CSC or a department when you're trying to engage someone to look at this stuff for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. All right, jason. Well, is there any other final thoughts you have here as we wrap up? It's been awesome getting to know a little bit more about card system security and best practices.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the only thing I can say is if you don't think that it affects you, think again. Yeah, it's one of those things that it is happening. I have yet to find a situation. I know my job is to find these things. However, I don't want to find them. Some of them are actually pretty. You know, it's like staring at a red light in front of you. You know it's pretty evident. So don't be surprised if you can protect more of your system. Protect more of your system. I can tell you that the industry as a whole arcade industry as a whole is losing millions and millions of dollars each year to not only theft and fraud, but also lack of knowledge, you know, lack of understanding of what their customer system can do. So that's what I would, you know, say to them, is something we need to focus on.
Speaker 3:Awesome, awesome, all right. Well, jason, thank you so much for joining us and guest Gab the LVX show. This has been awesome having you here.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Have a great day.
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Speaker 3:All right. Well, thank you, jason again for coming on to the LBX show and giving us some rundown there. Next up we have Arcade Corner with Adam Pratt and let's hear from him Arcade.
Speaker 5:Corner with Adam Pratt and let's hear from him Greetings. Welcome to Adam's Arcade Corner here on the LBX Collective. I hope you all had a fantastic May and that you're also having a great start to your summer. And, funny enough, after a little bit of time where things were a little bit slow on the arcade news there and I missed some of these, we've had a few things pop up, so let's get into that today. First off, it was Pac-Man's birthday here on back on May 22nd is what's considered the official birthday for pac-man, or pac-man day as it's often called, and so, and if you didn't get a chance to then, be sure to go out and play some pac-man and fortunately, being one of the best-selling arcade games of all time, that's generally not too difficult to come across that or miss Pac-Man. And of course there are numerous games that have been available on home consoles the Pac-Man World series and such, and more recently Bandai Namco is prepping this game called Shadow Labyrinth, which is a very interesting modern twist on Pac-Man, where it's more of a kind of a dark platformer that adds in some Pac-Man elements Again, very interesting and a little bit different.
Speaker 5:But let's get back into the arcade side of things. There have been a couple of new releases that have popped up recently, such as Pop-A-Shot Elite, with this basketball machine that made a debut at Amusement Expo in Las Vegas back in March, and so this is available now, although I think, even if you order now, there might be a little bit of delay on shipping with containers and such that PopShot's been waiting on, but there have been some locations out there that already grabbed these and have been showing them off, and so, if you missed this one, it has a video backboard, which isn't something that's brand new, that hasn't been done before, but it also has a QR code system, and they're able to operate nationwide, or there's regional tournaments, and you can even set up a local tournament and compete against other people that happen to log in with their phone, and so nice little touch and competitively priced, from what I had seen. And then there was, or is, soda Slam by Allen, one, which also made a debut at Amusement Expo. The version that was seen there had the giant prop cans on the side, but they've also listened to feedback and offered a non-can version as well, and so you can grab whichever one fits your fancy, so to speak.
Speaker 5:This game has been testing at a couple of FECs here in Utah where I'm based out of, and, from the numbers that Alan1 shared with me, it's been doing very well. If those numbers were to hold, the games would pay themselves off anywhere between six to nine months, and so that's always what you want to hear as an operator. Something that's a year or less on ROI is traditionally been the numbers that I know most operators look for, something that I'm always happy with. My cruising blast had paid itself off in five and a half months, and so I was super happy with that, and so, yeah, anything under a year is really just icing on the cake for me. But let's go back to the website here and look at a couple of other things that have been around, such as Adrenaline Amusements has recently launched Hot Wheels Victory Lap, and it's exclusively at Dave Buster's, and there have been a few videos of this popping up from just people visiting Dave and Buster's. But also there was this video from Hot Wheels or it's direct capture of Hot Wheels and the Cobra Valley level. So let's give this a watch. I'll put this on mute so that it doesn't accidentally hit the copyright flag there that YouTube generally does, which is silly, and let's up-res this to 1080p at 60 frames a second. But by all reports on this one I mean right here. It reminds me a lot of Cruise and Blast, because not only do you have the jumps, you have things that you can run into and of course there is a Death Valley level on Cruisin' Blast, but that's a different touch compared to Cruisin' and you also have these loop-to-loops. So this is also reminding me.
Speaker 5:If you've been around in the industry for a while, you might remember a game from the old global VR the industry for a while. You might remember a game from the old global vr called twisted nitro stunt racing, where it was also a game that had looped loops and jumps and stuff like that. But it just lacked a lot of the personality that this has and things like this having the camera change or having loops of fire to drive through and stuff. I remember playing Twisted and feeling kind of bored by it at times, especially where it had an unlimited boost. I don't know why they decided to do that, but if Twisted had had this sort of dynamic personality to it, then things like the giant snake riding through the course and stuff that's a nice touch too and perhaps Twisted would have done better. But like this is the sort of stuff that you like to see in racing games, and I know when people talk about Sega racing games like the old Daytonas and Scud Racing and stuff like that, it was how the environment was a set piece and again it added personality to the game that sometimes racers, if they're not thinking about that, then they miss that, and so this one seems to capture that pretty well. So again, this one is out only at Dave and Buster's and it comes in the same type of deluxe cabinet as the Need for Speed Takedown and it also has a motion base and all that.
Speaker 5:Whether or not Adrenaline is going to release this to the rest of the industry is unknown at this time. It's very possible that it's just a Dave Buster's exclusive for I don't know a year. They did the Marvel Contest of Champions for five years. I would hope that this wouldn't be locked in like that, but I guess it just depends on what deal that they worked out with Dave and Buster's. So I should throw in main event. I did hear that Hot Wheels Victory Lap ended up at a main event location or two. It's all the same company now, so that would make sense.
Speaker 5:Now, also, speaking of limited exclusive releases that you can't find anywhere else, here's a name that you might be familiar with if you've been around video gaming since the 80s, and that is Contra. Now it's been a very long time since Contra has had an arcade version to it. This one is called Contra Burst. So there was Contra back in 1987, and then I think it was 88 or 89, there was Super Contra. Then after that the series basically just stuck to consoles, and so there have been numerous console releases. There was ones on the Sega Genesis and the SNES, and modern consoles have had different iterations. But of course, for us, we always like the arcade stuff.
Speaker 5:Now there was this very limited release in China called Contra Evolution, which was essentially a modernized remake of the game, but again, that was only released to arcades in China. I have heard of an occasional arcade here in the States that has imported one, but it's still very, very rare to come across. But now if you go to Round 1 USA, so instead of Hot Wheels there as an exclusive, they've just added this Contra Burst to their locations. Let's zoom out a little bit here so you can see the cabinet. Now this is an update kit to the Bomberman Arcade machines which had been at Round 1 USA for a while. Of course, round 1 USA having exclusives is nothing unique either. They've often worked with companies like Konami and sometimes others like Taito to get these games that are available in Japan but not available elsewhere. Although this particular game I don't recall seeing a Japanese version of this one. I think this is wholly exclusive and designed for Round 1 USA, and we were sent a video of this yesterday, last night.
Speaker 5:Let me zoom through here. It doesn't show any gameplay, it just shows the attract mode, but it's been designed as a redemption game. It does have the two screens, which is interesting. It also has another side to it, and so it's actually a four player game. It's kind of it'll almost be like head to head, but I don't think it has anything where you can see the people on the other side. Perhaps it does, and it's just not something that we've seen yet, and this also looks like it's been put into a corner. Nobody puts baby into a corner, and so I don't know. Perhaps there's versions out there that are only two players, but I also initially had seen stuff about this having four, but it appears that you just aim your guns and blast all the bad guys as it plays Contra-style gameplay in the background and you have to reach a boss and then, if you defeat the boss, that's where you win the ticket jackpot. But it also has a leaderboard, which is interesting.
Speaker 5:Games like Adrenaline Amusements. They oftentimes have removed leaderboards from games, which is not a decision I like, either as an operator or as a player. I think it's just one of those staples that should be on every arcade game. If there's a score, there should be a way to track it. So that's always annoying to me when that's removed from modern games. But fortunately this one, even though it's mainly to play for tickets, still has a leaderboard on it. Now, whether or not it has a non-ticket mode, I have no idea. But also I have no idea whether or not Konami will be releasing this in a wider sense.
Speaker 5:There was recently news about Konami making some big corporate changes and doing something with their amusement division and at IAAPA I heard several times of some Konami representatives who were wandering around the show floor and looking to make contacts and such and to do something on the US side of the industry, because Konami it's a name that everybody knows, but they just haven't really had a strong presence in Western arcades in a very, very long time.
Speaker 5:Back in the 2000s, the 00s and the 10s they had a presence in Europe and they actually released a few new games there which occasionally might find their way over here, such as Castlevania, the arcade game, and a new version of GTI Club and a couple of other games, but again, those were super rare to come across here. Of course, the one game that most people think of when they think of Konami is DDR Dance, dance Revolution, and those also end up through imports. But there's not been official support for DDR and other Konami games here in the West in a very, very long time, and so perhaps with this Round 1 USA push of an original game and this news of some corporate changes and talk of Konami really looking to kind of make their name rebuild their presence back in arcades here in the West, maybe that'll change soon, but until we find out more, I don't know for sure. But that's the news for now. Thanks for watching. We'll catch you on the next arcade corner.
Speaker 3:All right, well, thank you, adam, for that. A lot of good information and finally, we've got Open this latest open and shut.
Speaker 4:I hope I find you all well. Good to see you, brandon. So we've got a lot to deal with and so we'll jump straight in. As you can see, a crowded roster, a lot of interesting developments and, as always, if you want more detail on the ones I skip over, just pause the video. So, straight in and Total Ninja Interactive. Well, by its name it's an active entertainment venue. It's in Dubai, quite a large facility, but predominantly populated with ValoMotion, what I would call gamified active entertainment systems. Interesting to see the move for active entertainment, embracing gamification and also taking a big bet by having so many of one particular manufacturer's product.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like they really bought into the Vallo Arena concept, or Vallo, is it Vallo Arena I?
Speaker 4:can't remember the name Vallo Jump, vallo Climb and Vallo Arena.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that's right, vallo Arena. But they had their whole park concept that they had developed, and now I'm going blank on the name of it. But basically, you know, I had some, a couple of valor jumps, a couple of valor climbs, and I had a couple of valorinas, some party rooms like a lobby, it's like they. They just embraced that whole concept from valor I would.
Speaker 4:I would hazard a guess that this actually was in development, uh, ahead of valor launching their valorALO Park concept. Valo Park, thank you, which you know. They can come around and kick me up and prove me wrong, but it is clear that this will be a proof of concept regarding the park initiative, whether it can stand on its own two legs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I'm looking here. They're using boilerplate Valo. I've got their website here. They're using boilerplate Valo imagery too on their website, like from Valo arenas, like actual page on the Valo motion website.
Speaker 4:It seems to be a close relationship and a proof of concept. We'll have to see what the reaction is. Moving on, and our friends at Five Irons, of course, they're now announcing more venues on a larger scale, incorporating a mixed-use entertainment model. This particular facility in Florida, nearly 30,000 square and, of course, the most important part about it is it's good to have that pin bowling capability as well as some amusement. You know the beginning of the change, as I like to say, regarding then moving from a single entertainment venue to a mixed entertainment offering.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is much larger, much more upscale. The bar here is more upscale than any bar I've seen yet in a five iron golf. So they're definitely moving in that direction. I wonder at what point they're going to rebrand and drop the golf from their brand, you know. So it's like five iron right, which is obviously golf. You know, you know you're just going to get your golf, but when you start adding bowling, start adding other types of indoor-outdoor spaces, I don't know how much more you become more of a mixed again, like we talked about a mixed-use leisure entertainment model versus a pure golf sim model.
Speaker 4:The two resonators are going to be the dropping of the golf and the adding of the eat dine play hang like moniker at the bottom of it.
Speaker 4:I really find Five Irons' whole branding a little bit needing a little bit of a blowtorch, but that's a personal opinion. I'm sure they have a loyal following with their particular brand. But you're quite right, now that they're a mixed-use entertainment offering as well as a golf lounge offering, they're going to have to think about positioning. Funny enough, I've just been doing a presentation for another group of individuals and I was sort of homing down on the application of brand and IP being injected into location-based entertainment.
Speaker 4:We've talked about the announcement of the Top Gun location-based entertainment social mix and now we have a concept from our friends at Mattel through a partnership to create a pop-up partnership to create a pop-up, so temporary, social entertainment environment based around their UNO card game. The social clubs are kind of like a casino table layout, craps table layout, but based on the various UNO games with the support and service of hospitality. The first one has parachuted itself into the Palms Casino in Las Vegas and then they're hoping to have a number of other pop-ups. For me it's difficult to see where the card game ends and the UNO treatment begins.
Speaker 3:but if you have an IP that is recognizable, I'm sure you're going to push it yeah, this one's interesting too, and when I was reading the press release I thought, you know, I was trying to figure out exactly what they were doing with this model, because they also have a whole sweepstakes type model.
Speaker 3:So there is you can I don't know if you enter a sweepstakes or what it is, but you have a chance to to win and then a chance to stay, play and, as they say, go wild right From the Uno game. Go wild in one of the most colorful suites in town, right? So they decked out a whole suite with this Uno concept from July 18th to the 20th. So I couldn't figure out if this is like a pop-up location, if this is just one of their suites that they've branded with this UNO and put an UNO table in it. This is where the press release didn't do a very good job, I think, in really explaining what the hell is going on here, other than the fact that there will be future pop-ups down the line in different places around.
Speaker 4:The digging that the licensing industry. I was reading a report that tried to dig into the information on this and you're quite right, it was vague, purposely vague. I would would hesitate, I guess. Yes, the only thing they mentioned is that there will be other pop pop up venues that are short burn at other locations in North America Doesn't tell us a lot. I think it's a toe in the water for this particular brand. Maybe Mattel is building upon what they've seen happen with Monopoly Live, which also started up as a pop-up and then became a permanent infrastructure. For me, uno Social Club feels like a component that you would inject into an already existing facility, but maybe I'm overthinking it.
Speaker 3:No, no, I don't think you're overthinking it at all. In fact, actually, that's exactly what I was thinking is that I could see an UNO Social Club being like a private room or something that's a component of a Mattel competitive socializing facility. Right, so a Mattel social entertainment facility, say the Monopoly Live, you have the Uno Social Club. So not like the adventure parks that are being done in Kansas City and in Glendale, arizona, but more like a smaller format social entertainment venue that leverages a couple of different things to have some different feels and different attractions.
Speaker 4:Again a job for us when we're in Vegas next to try the facility out. Interesting concept. Well, I'm not sure if the concept's interesting, but the information coming to me was filtered in such a way that it piqued my interest. So Box, original name. Yeah, sorry, I'm getting Spider Box flashbacks so I'll stand away from that.
Speaker 4:So Charlesbury Avenue, that part of London, is really becoming the Silicon Valley of competitive socialising venues 7,000 square, mid-scale. They get an investment of 4 million to roll this project out and you know, when you peel back the hood it looks like your run-of-the-mill competitive socialising venue. It's going to have shuffleboard, it's going to have some darts, obviously, it's got karaoke, it's got private rooms and it's going to be doing watch parties, so there'll be some live entertainment-esque. It's part of a chain of five facilities. I hadn't come across the other five facilities until I did the research on this announcement and when I looked at it I was getting boom, battle bar vibes and super social vibes. So I would argue that it isn't earth shattering, but it is clear that it is following a USP that is becoming very popular.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. I don't know how I feel about both the concept and the brand. It seems to me to be a flash in the pan, somebody trying to capitalize on the movement, and they're maybe right there in the middle and will probably either be consolidated or shut down in two, three years from now.
Speaker 4:Well, from some investors' point of view that'd be a success. Yeah, Five years return on investment and then someone comes along and buys it out. That's a success. Moving on, and uh, the next oh, dear machine's fighting me lane seven.
Speaker 4:Been talking a lot about lane seven, especially with uh, their you know broadening of their brand offer offering uh. In newcastle up north of england they're opening up their latest Lane 7 boutique bowling facility and they've decided to add a new component to the mix. They've partnered with Moment Factory who have their arcade arena illuminated floor game system for multiple players proving very popular as an active entertainment component and an obvious fit to inject into the competitive socializing market. The same way that our friends, I'm sure, at VeloMotion look at utilizing some of their products in an active entertainment environment that has a social component, their products in an active entertainment environment that has a social component. Be interesting from my point of view to see how much the Lane 7 concept of boutique bowling migrates towards having more and more attractions added to the mix as they try and broaden their appeal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you know I'm a big fan of Moment Factory's floor and their attraction, you know, was originally called the Arcade. The AR was capitalized, so the ARcade. They're now calling it the Augmented Games and yeah, I think I really like the addition here to what Lane 7 is doing it's going to from.
Speaker 4:We know a little bit more about what's happening at Moment Factory through some consultancy work. We're doing so for the sake of transparency. It'll be interesting to keep an eye. They first launched their product being a Canadian company in a Canadian museum environment and now they're broaching into the FEC and competitive socializing sector and even looking at other markets that will be compelled to utilize interactive floor systems, and we'll talk about the explosion in LED floor systems in a coming sound off.
Speaker 4:Weird one here popped up on my radar and I suddenly remembered that I've been to this facility uh, not the facility as is opened now, but uh, I was doing some consultancy for a check company and I was taken around the empty space of this department store being told the fanciful story of how they were going to turn this into a vast location-based entertainment facility. And you know, when people take me around facilities I always use a large bag of salt, because you know you get shown a lot of bowls of porridge but you really get to see one that you can eat. Well, here we go. It's great to see that the House of Fun managed to complete their rollout. You know they've ploughed about 180 million euros into that, which is a vast expense. There was a lot of work that was needed to be done to the facility.
Speaker 4:The department store was a monster of the 1970s. A lot of concrete. And the money hasn't just gone into the House of Fund. There's also a social environment. There's a fantastic view on top of the roof of that facility which they've capitalized on to make a lounge and cocktail bar environment. But this Levels is what they've named. Their core entertainment facility is a spaghetti moment. It's got kids entertainment zone, it's got amusement, it's got attractions, it's got racing sims, it's got F&B. But again the Czech market is undiscovered country. So again you have a captive audience that hopefully will be compelled to at least try the venue out being a unique offering in the capital.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wow, this is interesting and I can't tell if House of Fun is the entire building or if there is a different if this is part of like a larger store, because they have multiple restaurants, almost like a food hall, restaurants, cafes. They also have multiple retail shops, so this feels like House of Fun is a component in this larger venue.
Speaker 4:House of Fun incorporates the entertainment and the competitive socializing component. The hospitality side, the actual inside the House of Fun, the actual entertainment component is levels. They have 5,000 square meters dedicated to their activities.
Speaker 3:Yeah, mini golf, billiards, karaoke, it says. Here they also have two really interesting attractions, things I've not really seen before. They have this thing called Back in Time. Prague is a looks like a walking type of historical experience, but tons of immersion, tons of interactivity, some really unique things that are going on here. And then they also have heroes park, which is an experiential retail attainment store. There's life book, life size comic book characters that are there and then then you know, obviously lots of retail. So they've got a lot going on here beyond just the typical entertainment and this back in time. I'm going to have to spend a little bit more time going into what it is that they've created there.
Speaker 4:Well, I would kill for the opportunity to get back out to Prague. Very enjoyable time the last time we were shown around there, and also I've got a couple of companies I'd like to pop in and see. One thing that also stood out from the website more than the walk around was no virtual reality.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that is very interesting. Just down the street from where that location is is Hanley's, and inside there there is a virtual reality experience, Gollum, created by our friends at Dive Labs, and that offers us a unique and compelling entertainment option, but hasn't been repeated here, I wonder why.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Moving on and Lumos I think I've mentioned this before as a coming soon. We're in the final throws 45,000 square, so it's quite a large operation. It is a spaghetti moment. It has a bit of everything here. I was interested in including this because it gave us a snapshot on the expense that's been plowed into this. You know they have allocated $12 million into this one. 150 jobs are going to be created, so it's quite a large venue with quite a large staffing budget. Again, we will have to watch this space and hopefully get a chance to visit all of these venues that seem to be popping up in Texas.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, this one is a bit of a meh for me. I mean, it's a lot of stuff, money poured into what is basically just like every other family entertainment center that throws a bunch of attractions together. So you know, we'll see. It'd be interesting to see how it does.
Speaker 4:And then from our friends in Texas to Austria and we have again a 5,000 square meter facility, which again is a bit of everything you have your shuffleboard, you have your mini golf, you have your escape rooms, you have your bowling all within a package which I get the feeling has been created in such a way that it's going to be rolled out in more locations. Excuse me, but also something that I took away from this is that it is feeding off of the hospitality that is in this particular locality where this site is going in. So again, it is a bit of a vampire where it's using other people's hospitality and also drawing a crowd into their space hospitality and also drawing a crowd into their space.
Speaker 4:We've touched upon the Puttman experience before from our friends at Little Lion no-transcript and then, a matter of moments in putting this slide together, we get the announcement of the London facility and that they will be parachuting in a permanent London facility for 2026. This to give a bit of background. This isn't the first time they've been in London. Chaos Carts was actually tested in a temporary facility in London, a very unusual location, brick Lane and it was from that test that they got their support and their funding and the green light to move forward. The guys at Little Lion have a lot of experience in the live entertainment interactive side. They are the guys behind the Crystal Maze live operation and they've seen some success with the first of their Chaos Cards. I am not sure how well the Pac-Man is doing, but it's very timely as it's the 45th anniversary of the Yellow Pill Muncher.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a little Yellow Pill Muncher. I like that, you know, I think so we've got a little video up here. So again, if you're you know, you either go to pacmanliveae to watch it on your own or you can pull up the video if you're just listening to this. They are running around. I mean, obviously this could be staged, they're having fun, or whatever. I don't like the vests. I don't know what I didn't. I don't know if I realized or didn't realize that they were wearing vests. When I first saw this you know a couple of I want to say a couple of months ago, when they were first talking about this.
Speaker 4:The vests had some haptic feedback and also help with the tracking system.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but the back of them they look really bulky, really cumbersome, and I think it's the problem with this and we run into the same problem with laser tag is that you limit the age range in which your kids you know the kids that can play, because those those vests are long. I doubt that they have small kid versions of the vests and so you know you're limited to the height, probably, of what you know the kids that can actually run around and play, and maybe that's fine because they're just focused on more adults or or older kids, but it definitely is a limitation. Again, this is the same problem that we have with laser tag. Your little five-year-olds can't want to have a birthday party, go play laser tag and, like the laser tag vests are banging on their knees as they're wandering around the laser tag venue. I see the same problem happening here, so I would hope that they work on it.
Speaker 4:The Puttman experience is aimed at a more mature audience than the five-year-olds running around and I think that you know it's got a bit of banter added to it. It's a build-up and they also want them to follow the rules rather than jump over the maze walls. So I get that side. But you're quite right that we're all surprised about the cumbersome. I was hoping that they would just go for a wrist, a wrist band or a shoulder. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So much simpler because I mean, it's a big box that's hanging on their back of their and it's like banging on their ass and you know that kind of thing is. They're running around and so I just think that, yeah, it's anyway, I think their, their usability, could use some work. And look, this is their first iteration of it, so I'm sure they'll evolve over time. I mean, we've seen that happen with free roam VR, when you used to wear packs and now you don't have to anymore. We've seen things improve, even on the laser tag vesting side, so I'm sure that they'll make improvements here. And yeah, they are still powered by fever. So, like they, clearly, little Alliance has a good partnership with Fever to run and operate their locations.
Speaker 4:I noticed that as well. Yeah, it's a marriage made in heaven. But you know, fever, do pick very clearly the winners in this market to support, offering the package that they do. I am interested to see what the return, repeat visitation and interest levels from the surveys that they're compiling during the running of the Putman experience. Hopefully we'll get some transparency to that and understand the appeal Moving on and we jump into the shots.
Speaker 4:Oh, someone's taken control of my machine. Has it All right, let's try that again. I haven't seen that happen before. Someone wants me to go back to one of the other slides? Okay, or my PowerPoint is haunted. One of the two. An announcement about the Next Level Game Lounge. They have closed their doors. They hadn't been open that long. It's not good to see a venue throw its doors open and then crash and burn hard as this one has. We weren't really given much information for the reasoning behind the shuttering of the facility other than the statement that was made. You know started with high aspirations and sadly has come to a bit of a quick ending. I wouldn't be surprised if the the business wasn't there that they had been expecting and hemorrhaging debt. They've decided to pull back from that Again, I'm not sure if this is an opportunity for acquisition at this point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's too bad to see.
Speaker 4:It's too bad to see, yeah. And then, finally, in the layoffs component, we have an unusual one here, not a mass layoffs, but a layoff of one individual in particular. Those of you that aren't familiar, valcoma is a manufacturer of ride systems well-known in the industry, and it suddenly seems that one of their employees had to be terminated for the unusual reason of being in prison.
Speaker 4:It seems remote working, taken to the ultimate limits, the individual had been shaming large amounts of money for remote working. After a little bit of due diligence it was found out that the individual was actually an offender that was sort of out on license and was still going back. Anyway, a legal process was started and legal costs were extracted from the individual. He returned to a little bit more incarceration. But it pays to be careful to keep an eye on your stuff, no matter how effective they may be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this one got me when I saw that come across my feed. So anyway, I mean creative. The guy really must have liked working on roller coasters, but I've never heard of a white collar job being done by a work release prisoner, so it's very interesting.
Speaker 4:Interesting and maybe the individual was fantastic at his job and so hopefully Valcoma will bring him back once he's served his time Just his term this time. Make sure that he's in an office. For many of you that may have not caught it, we've released a companion to the Stinger Report called the Entertainment Social Arena and that focuses on competitive socializing. The first issue went out last week. In comparison to when you're watching this video, please sign up. It's a free service and would like any feedback. The competitive socializing sector, as you can see from our open and shut rundowns and from our sound off rundowns, is an important part of our sector and it deserves to be covered well. Anyway, those are the targets that I wanted to touch upon, brandon, anything that you want to add no, but I now know where to go.
Speaker 3:Look for new employees.
Speaker 4:Hey, nothing wrong with employing individuals that have served their community. It's just best to serve the community and then take up a new position, exactly exactly.
Speaker 3:All right. Well, thanks, kevin, for another great opening shot. Have a good one. 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 June 1st 2025. And if you are looking for some more content, we got Sound Off with Kevin Williams. It's number 76, comes out on Tuesday, june 3rd, so just in a couple of days. And you can always, as Kevin mentioned at the end of the open and shut segment that you can go to our website, subscribe to the Sting Report or to the entertainment social arena and get some news on your in your inbox as well throughout the week. So that wraps everything up for the LBX show. This is Brandon Wiley signing off. Stay tuned and keep kicking ass.
