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Sound Off #97 - Upscale The Prize Experience, KPop Demon Hunters, and more!
Sponsored by Intercard!
Sponsored by Alan-1!
On this week's episode we argue for an upscale shift in prize experiences, a sober view on tariffs and show strategy, and a sharper ROI lens on VR. Big brands face 2026 pressure as multi-attraction venues, collectible-forward cranes, and arena-scale content set the pace.
• Upscaling prize centers with premium collectibles and frictionless redemption
• Tariff volatility, shutdown impacts, and investor caution
• Six Flags activism, Merlin restructuring, and 2026 readiness
• Single-attraction fatigue vs multi-experience competitive socializing
• Topgolf delays and expansion math under scrutiny
• Electric Playhouse Vegas missteps in a crowded market
• New-wave cranes, live play by app, and adult-oriented redemption
• Samsung XR reaction and the search for a killer app
• Godzilla non-VR ROI test and headset necessity
• Blending VR with pinball, retro, and social play for resilience
• Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters and LBE potential
• Cloud outage preparedness and offline contingencies
• London Coin-Op signals: rhythm games, micro cranes, enclosed pushers
• Show calendar choices and format rethink for exhibitors
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Are you on the edge of your seat? Because we're about to start with Kevin Williams, covering today's latest trends in location-based entertainment. Brought to you by the LVX Collective, your community to connect aid and inspire. All right, everyone, let's buckle up.
SPEAKER_04:All right. Well, welcome everybody to Sound Off with Kevin Williams. This is number 97. We are so, so close to that big 100, which we're just counting. I think it's going to happen after I have the Expo Week. Wow.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I know. Well, let's dive into it. Kevin, how are you going to change my mind this week?
SPEAKER_00:Well, um, carrying on the kind of the theme of uh a kick in the pants for our industry, I think it's that time where we need to upscale our uh uh our offering. I have just uh been talking about in uh open and shut of one of uh the entertainment companies that uh we were talking about having rebranded and re-evaluated and redesigned themselves to suit the market. And the picture you see there is of time zone in Australia, a company constantly re-evaluating and repositioning their design. I would argue that they go too far down the retail side because they are more associated with the shopping mall industry. The majority of tide zone facilities go into existing malls within their territory. But they always make sure that they're they're on the cutting edge of the trend of representation. And when I talk about we need to upscale, it is too much. You know, when I first started doing presentations talking about the structure of how to put entertainment into facilities or how to develop entertainment facilities, the prize center, I was lucky enough to present along Frank Zelinsky, who was a specialist in redemption uh and uh price centers, and he had a very unique take on how the price center was lit uh and presented, and how the prizes and the offerings were uh front and center and very accentuated. I would argue that a lot of what he proposed for the price center has now been transported into the new wave uh crane systems and how they present themselves as storefronts, pushing the uh the merch front and center, being engaging. And now the entertainment centers, uh the prize experience is very important. Do we use digital? Do we use just in time? Do we use touch screens? Do we have physical representations of the prices uh available? Or do we look towards the next generation? The next generation of merch and price representation is that where the merch is not just a throwaway carny kind of collectible, but it is turned into an uber collectible. It is something that people desperately want to get their hands on and is presented near enough as jewelry, as something to obtain and to aspire to. And I wouldn't be surprised in the next couple of months that we see many entertainment facilities totally pulling down their price centers and re-evaluating their offering.
SPEAKER_04:Well, if they're not, they certainly should be really considering it. I mean, especially when you think about adults now actually coming into the price center. So you and adults wanting to get things as well. You know, swingers, uh the Carnival Arcade in Swingers does this very well. Obviously, that is a 21 and over facility anyway. So all, but they have redemption, and that redemption is all high-end merchandise that are basically collectibles that they're going to want to take home with them to uh, you know, to remember their experience. And that is absolutely a direction that should be done. You know, one of the other trends that's popped up as well is this uh, you know, people are used to doing their online shopping, and then either they sit in their car and the shopping bags are brought out to them already pre-packaged. We're seeing that now in some prize experiences as well, where you go and you have a digital uh experience selecting your prizes, and then it's waiting for you in a bag on your way out, or somebody brings it out to you from from behind. And so you can have your warehouse and storage being you know in the back, and then having much more of a retail Apple experience as you're walking through and selecting the items you want, and then everything is prepared and brought to you. That's a little bit more of an elevated experience depending on the types of facility you you're designing.
SPEAKER_00:Our friends at uh Fonbox in the UK were one of the first companies I saw to employ the um same-day delivery kind of process to your merch you sort of uh could select that's rather than carrying uh your fluffy toy around with you. Uh you gave your uh details shipping, and then Amazon was going to uh deliver your prices with maybe an additional gift from the facility to your site to make it memorable. Uh, it is that frictionless experience linked into that collectability uh to obtain these. You're quite right, aiming at an older audience, but I would also argue that our younger audience are quite poor on this kind of tech as well. But we will touch upon this a little bit more uh from what we've seen uh taking place in Asia. Excellent.
SPEAKER_04:All right, well, coming up after the quick break, we'll dive into the trends for the economy. 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.
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SPEAKER_00:Well, jumping straight into the economic trends that we're seeing, and confusion and chaos reigns regarding really where some uh countries stand concerning uh their tariff payments, and those tariff payments have knock-ons to imports and exports as well as to the financial positionings of some companies. And this is taking place weeks before uh most of us are planning to jump on planes uh and uh get ourselves out to Ialpa. And I'm already coming across Chinese companies as well as uh Canadian companies that are sort of umming and Ring if they can have a full presence uh at the IALPA show based upon the confusion. All it takes is for a uh a TV commercial uh to be run, uh using information that I would argue, I'm not going to be political here, but I would argue is an exact representation uh from Ronald Reagan, and suddenly uh Canada is thrown uh into confusion. This is difficult for investors to deal with, and you know, when investors get pushed into uh quandary, they look to their mattress rather than look towards uh spending their capital. And that is a 24-hour changeable situation. When I was putting uh these slides together uh a couple of hours ago, I had to uh remove one slide and change another slide because we've just learnt of a very successful meeting so far, claimed by uh the President of the United States, that uh the Chinese situation has suddenly sorted itself out and that uh those tariff problems have gone away and everything is going to be roses and peaches. The problem is that where the discussions may have been successful, the products have still been shipped and they've still been impacted by uh tariff payments. The companies that were quandering whether they should be coming to Ayalpa can't turn on a dime. They can't jump on a plane and quickly make a simple, swift decision. And so these uh implications have reverberations throughout the sector. Uh and you know uh some of us uh are really feeling that Chinese curse we uh uh seem to have incurred upon ourselves. May you live in interesting times.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean the material nature of all of this is just so frustrating and um you know it's unpredictable. And who knows if like this, I you know, we hear about the fact that they've reached a framework uh for you know this new uh tariff reduction for the at least the planned or threatened 100% tariffs on Chinese goods. And you know, we have uh that's not structured, we don't know. And if he hears one thing tomorrow, it could be completely blown up and we go right back to it. So this is the frustrating uh uh you know aspect of planning for anything in the near term.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, let's hope the Chinese don't have any uh television commercial slots planned uh using long-dead presidents. Uh and uh of course the impacts are felt in the heartland of the country with uh the uh federal government lockdown, shutdown, closure, abandonment. Um we've seen the impact on the troops, uh, we've seen the impact on the stamps, those individuals looking for uh helpment with their food and uh payment. But also, this has an impact on air traffic controllers. Uh air traffic controllers has an impact on anyone that's planning to fly in goods or cargo. They're now pushed uh at the back of the queue because of the limitations. And again, another uh sad uh indicator of how this will impact us in the short term regarding IALPA uh and in the long term regarding increases in pricing. We don't know when this uh shutdown is going to break. Um, we've been given various reasons of why it's in place. A lot of things seem to be happening uh during uh the shutdown. Uh and uh I am concerned that uh it's uh advantageous for some parties to keep this shutdown going as long as possible before the reality uh uh of uh having to get back to business. And that hurts all of us. Again, uh another impact that we have to take on the chin, be we operating a facility or importing product.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Moving on into the more uh clearer waters of uh the biz, uh, and we are seeing the serious impact of what I was touching upon uh last sound off. I raised the questions of what the investors were going to do regarding the six flags malaise and the confusion and the uh the uh rotating desk uh of employment across the board. And then suddenly we see uh the superstars turning up. Uh uh a famous uh football, American football player has uh combined himself with an investor group, uh, and they've brought a percentage of shares and put themselves on the board uh towards uh trying to shake up the situation and get uh some clearance to what's happening with Six Flags. While I was putting this slide together, there was also information coming uh of uh a possible uh suit or class action by a group of Six Flags investors towards the uh uh uh malaise or the uh inaction of uh the boards towards the entertainment and customer engagements. Uh this is a situation that will have to sort itself out very quickly, or else uh uh people with bigger pockets and much more control will sort it out for them. I wouldn't be surprised by the time we meet after IAPA if there hasn't been a root and branch purge of the current management structure and they come up with a brand new plan of action, especially looking towards what the 2026 uh season is going to represent for the industry.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and again, you know, this gets a little bit blurred when we talk about Six Flags because is this, you know, when we've got these activists wanting to quote unquote revive Six Flags, are they referring to the actual Six Flags branded parks or the Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, which includes all of the uh Cedar Fair parks that they've recently acquired? So what about it?
SPEAKER_00:I think that's the point they're making that they expected by this point that we wouldn't have the blurriness of Cedar Fair still hanging over us. Everything would have been known as Six Flags Entertainment X, Y, or Z based on their location. This didn't happen for whatever reason, and sadly the last management didn't leave any uh notes behind for the milkmen uh regarding how to move forward. So maybe a lot of that planning that was going to be put in place has been thrown away with the departure of the last management group and uh uh C-suite uh executives, and so they're gonna have to start again from fresh. And if I was an investor, I was hoping that uh merging these two giants together was going to create a powerhouse rather than a vacuum. Uh again, another operation that uh is trying to defend its uh lackluster position. Our friends uh at Merlin Entertainments has uh received some support, uh backhanded support from their key investor uh Blackstone. Uh the park has been going through uh a major restructuring and a refinancing uh of its operation, and it's now uh, according to our friends at Blackstone, uh, which is a Canadian pension group, we uh mustn't forget, uh they have positioned themselves to offer a line of uh debt restructuring for Merlin to allow them uh to be able to carry out this uh this operation with impunity. Usually, when you do this kind of level of restructuring, you have to be very mindful uh uh of your uh available credits in this sector. I am interested to see how Merlin restructures itself. Again, going back to my comments about what 2026 season will bring to the markets under the current financial conditions, you have to be extremely attractive, but also extremely focused on ROI uh and generating the best revenue out of your business. And if they haven't repositioned themselves in that, in the short period of time available until the season starts, they're gonna miss out. You know, if you're still offering the same old, same old uh and you've got a uh people around you that are cutting back uh making decisions about whether they're going to go to these venues or if they, you know, how are they going to cut the disposable income spend, then you know, we have uh uh conditions to be worried about. If you haven't made the changes by the end of this year, you've missed out. And this is really the question: can Merlin, can Six Flags, can Disney, can Universal position themselves for the coming market change?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. You know, Merlin, I think, is also just struggling in general with some direction uh around what they're trying to do. They're experimenting with some of their own location-based entertainment uh concepts that they're developing internally, which is not something they've historically done. They've typically taken out you know outside IP and then developed parks around that and then operated those parks and you know experiences. But then we're even beginning to see, you know, with Lego's acquisition of all the Lego discovery centers from Merlin, that they're even beginning to lose control over some of the really powerful IP that they've had control over for many, many years.
SPEAKER_00:And uh excuse me, the I'm beginning to think that we haven't heard the last from Lego regarding uh what's going on with their relationship in the park business. So don't be surprised if Merlin uh isn't in control as many parks as they used to be by the end of next year. Uh shakeups, changes, management, um state of play, hospitality may not be a household name to uh many of our listeners and watchers, but you will be familiar with the brand facility, social entertainment facilities they run. These are the people behind uh Bounces and Flight Club and High Jingo. Um they have gone for a new CFO and a CMO uh uh position uh upgrade, uh I would say. Uh they've strengthened it with uh strengthened those positions with individuals that come from a strong background uh in the sector. The reason why I'm interested in keeping an eye on the state of play is because they are also sitting on uh uh reinvestment of the competitive socializing market. They have, you know, Bounce and Flight Club have been bastion uh uh products in the brand facilities in the competitive socializing market, along with Lane 7 and Put Shack and others of that ilk. And uh we're getting very close to that point where the next generation, the next upgrade, as it were, uh uh of the competitive socializing brand is about to take shape.
SPEAKER_04:This is a good sign for them. Um, you know, I think that there's a lot that they do really, really well. Um, and but then I do uh, you know, as we've talked about before, bounce flight club, even hyjingo, which is a new concept that they've recently developed. Not so well compared to it it's it's not taking darts. I guess my point is not taking darts or ping pong and then creating like an augmented.
SPEAKER_00:It's a new concept, but it has it's been a slow burner. Sorry for me to cut through, but just correct. No, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:What I meant was it was it's a new attraction, new type of attraction they created from the ground up versus taking you know darts and overlaying an augmented experience. Um but the the the still I do get concerned about the fact that they're continuing to develop and grow and expand single attraction models. And so I do hope that at some point, you know, they've got the CFO, they've got the CMO that may not be the right people necessarily to make some of these um strategic changes, but hopefully collectively they do begin to see the fact that they need to consider evolving their model to support multiple experiences in a facility versus a single attraction model, depending again on location, etc.
SPEAKER_00:They will see in the next couple of months their competitors developing multiple entertainment, not single entertainment sites. Uh Rivals social uh and some other concepts that are in the works will be appearing on the market in the next uh four to five months. And at that point, they're going to have to look in the mirror, and they've only got two options raise more money uh and improve their marketing brand. And those two individuals uh have been put in that position, I'm sure, to achieve those things. I commented last time about uh Top Golf and that we were going to be seeing the first examples of a kind of a pausing or a hiccup uh in the uh never-ending opening cycle for top golf facilities. And we have it confirmed now that the uh Brighton New York, not London, uh England, uh the Brighton, New York facility is going to be postponed on their original plan uh to uh open for 2025-2026. It looks like it's going to be pushed to 2027. Excuse me. We're not quite sure the full reasons why the construction process and development has been paused, though. The project. If we hear of a second, yeah, yeah. What else are you gonna say? Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, they they say that about Mattel Adventure Park in Kansas City and in Glendale, Arizona, too, right? So it's uh you know, they can say everything you want, and you know it's just not real.
SPEAKER_00:I I should put those in quotes and just put an asterisk by saying what else are they gonna say? But uh what I need is an example of another uh commenced construction top goal facility that pauses uh on its opening dates, and then I think we've got an example of a route on our hands. This may be the straw that breaks the camel's back, or this could be an example of a franchisee turning around and saying, I want a lot more support from you guys before I open this facility because I cannot open a facility that will have a six, seven, eight percent uh site-on-site uh decline in uh uh in revenue sales. And we you've seen that across uh the operation. Top Golf will have to make an announcement before the end of the year, or they they will pull poor old Callaway golf down with them uh regarding uh the uh the market's backlash. Again, I am pointing this out, just uh uh mark this in your calendar, so we say.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, this is going to be really interesting to watch. Like you said, if we see a couple more of these sites get postponed, that will be potentially the straw that breaks the camel's back. Because as we've talked about, when you have year over year same venue uh uh same venue revenue declining, the only way to show top line growth in your brand is to continue to open new locations. And if you're not open new location, this is why they continue to drive new location openings in spite of the fact that they see their same venues decline in revenue year over year, because they're trying to show that continued growth in the top line revenue for the earnings calls.
SPEAKER_00:And if you can't show that, or if you have to report on postponements, uh then people kind of see the uh the hole in the boat, as it were. Uh, we touched upon this in Open and Shut. Uh we had previously mentioned Electric uh Playhouse more from the point of view of their original facility and how they were kind of mixing that immersive projection environment uh experience uh with kind of a mission room, interactive floor activity uh kind of space. They are very loose uh regarding their immersive entertainment experience. They're all different and unique. There isn't that much separation, but they are dependent on the projection mapped rather than the interactive floor kind of approach. Uh the company's also been uh investigating other aspects to their projected environments. They've been even holding uh uh immersive yoga uh in specially projected uh uh areas of their space. There are two facility operations after you know somewhat success with their first facility, they opened a second facility in Las Vegas. And you know, that's when my eyebrow raised, because we know how difficult it is to uh do business in uh Las Vegas, especially as part of uh uh a casino, so not on your own, but uh actually in the bosom of the confused uh circus that is uh uh a Las Vegas casino operation, and also without having a strident brand identity. You know, if you put a gun to someone's head and said, what is electric uh play house, even after they visited the facility, they would have difficulty in elucidating what they've just experienced, though they on the whole would say they had fun, but would they go back again? Was there one element that was compelling? Those were the issues that needed to be uh tightened up and established with their Las Vegas facility, and I think they just offered the same old, same old, but uh uh in vivo at Las Vegas. Either way, uh the information that is available to us tells us that that uh Las Vegas chain has gone bankrupt. Not all of the operation, just the Las Vegas facility, as far as we know. We have a rough idea of the debt that they've incurred. Uh and uh now the question is will a white knight come in and save the day for them uh and allow them uh some more finances, an extension to continue and try and sort out their business, or will someone just jump into that vacant space, the next entertainment uh offering on the shopping block?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and looking at where their actual location is in the forum shops inside of Caesars, if people are going into the forum shops to shop, that they're not necessarily going into the forum shops to play these types of things. So, unless they're specifically booking and going to Electric Playhouse or going to Sandbox VR, they even now have an F1 arcade in the forum shops. And so this is um you know competition within the very landlord that they tried to do a deal with to get you know some broader exposure, and now they're competing with a very well-established or at least well-known brand, right? Even if you don't know what an F1 arcade is, you at least know and recognize the F1 brand, and that is something that could potentially draw you into the forum shops.
SPEAKER_00:Where that picture is taken directly below me is uh Flight Club. So you've got Flight Club, you've got F1 Arcade, uh not a million miles away. Uh you have uh uh Sandbox VR, um, you know, you've got a lot of opportunities. And one of the biggest opportunities, if you could pan the camera over Caesars, uh you would also see Area 15. So to survive in this target-rich environment, you need to have established your brand, be marketing and promoting. And if you go onto the website for the Las Vegas facility, the group hire components, the unique discounting, the tourist specials, all of the things that even the uh the most minimalist of marketing director would advise them to do isn't being done. And I think that is really the price that they have paid for the position that they're in. You know, uh the day that uh uh play uh uh part uh play playhouse at uh Luxor? Oh, play playground, yes. Play playground. I always say uh part, yes. Play playground at Luxor opened up, must have been the day that they panicked the most. Though I would also argue that uh electric uh playhouse has a problem that if it couldn't define itself but just by saying, oh, it's an immersive projection environment, then you've got the whole point of Illuminarium at Area 15, who uh uh would argue that they're also an immersive uh projected environment, even though they're not as interactive uh as uh Playhouse. Anyway, this is one to keep an eye on uh regarding if this has a domino effect on their original facility as well as what happens to this real estate, because um I know a number of competitive socializing venues that would like to parachute into that space. Moving on, and uh, you know, we've talked about uh our friends at Merlin uh having access to uh an injection of investment or access to debt uh investment, as it were. And our friends at Roller have uh received uh an injection of about 50 million, which uh is claimed in the press release and information that they're going to be putting this into AI capability or innovation. Uh, I think that's a euphemism nowadays. You know, give me money and I'm gonna put it into AI, or it's uh the equivalent saying, give me the money and I'll put it on black. Uh it's uh the the issues here are that Rolla uh will be using that capital, I think, to roll up a few more of their competitors uh in the coming months.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, they've been very acquisitive the last year and a half, and I think the expectation, at least in the general um, you know, the scuttle butt, is that they will continue to uh find those smaller opportunities to acquire to help add both capability and market share.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's what you do. Uh you establish your position and then you uh acquire companies that have technology that you can consume, the Borg School of Business, uh, as it were, resistance is futile. Uh my interests here with Roller are at some point in time, uh, the company is going to have to nail down its offering and which markets it's going for. So at the moment, it's still a little bit nebulous, a little bit in FEC, a little bit in water parks, a little bit uh over here in theme parts and resorts and stuff like that. At some point in time, they're going to have to finalize their group, and there are examples of companies out there uh in a similar position that have achieved that very successfully. But again, um shows the money's still out there. And that money's still out there. Our friends at Netflix just won't go away. They're turning into the Gender uh of our moments. And funny enough. Uh next week a little birdie tells me that I may have some Gender news to share, uh, but we won't get ahead of ourselves. The uh our friends at Netflix, we'd already talked about the deal that they'd done with AMC uh to start screening uh their streamed uh uh series on the cinema stage, uh as it were. And one of those first film productions that was going to be screened at AMC was the uh phenomenal success they've had with K pop Demon Hunters. Uh Well, surprise, surprise, uh, just before Christmas, we have the announcement of a unique relationship. So our friends at Netflix has signed a co-master toy licensee agreement. Yeah, don't say that after a couple of gin and tonics. The issue here is we don't normally see a co-master agreement. We usually see a master agreement, the word master kind of being a giveaway. Um, this tautology tells us that Mattel has certain areas of interest to Netflix to promote their product, and Hasbro has some areas of interest. I would argue that maybe uh West Europe uh and certain retailers, uh Hasbro may be stronger than Mattel, maybe in Asia and Oceanic uh regions or Latin America. I'm I'm generalizing here, but it is clear that rather than just putting all your eggs in one basket, uh Netflix is powerful enough now to just spread their largest over two of the major toy manufacturers, toy manufacturers that also have uh bricks and mortar location-based entertainment business as well. So this is very mindful that from Netflix's point of view, they're now sitting on K-pop Demon Hunter as an IP that is equivalent to having a frozen or a Lego, uh, you know, or well, a Star Wars in in its heyday uh in your back pocket, and you want to make sure that you can generate them uh the largest amount of revenue while the sun is shining, while the audience is still hip and hot to that concept. I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about a K-pop uh attraction at the Las Vegas uh Netflix house being developed as we speak. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a pop-up uh experience similar to the Minecraft experience being developed, maybe through Mattel or Hasbro's capabilities. Either way, 325 million viewers to this property can't be wrong, uh, and you want to milk them as much as possible. And you don't just want to do it with the TV series, you don't just want to do it with uh the toys uh or the video games, but you also want to do it at the facilities as well as at the peril stores, as well as uh wherever you can get them.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, this has been actually a really big black eye for both Mattel and Hasbro at some level, because they originally turned down the toy licensing opportunities for K-pop demon hunters, and now they're scrambling to get these uh get products out on store shelves in time for the holiday season, the holiday buying, and they really only have a few weeks to make that happen, um, which one of the issues actually with the Halloween that's coming up in the next uh, you know, coming up. Well, it's coming up as soon. It has already happened by the time this is airing. Um but the uh but the fact that the the the costumes just weren't available and ready because you know again, people turned down the IP opportunities early on, and now they're scrambling to try to make changes. I do think it's interesting though, like as you said, both Mattel and Hasbro have location-based entertainment um venues and um and experiences, but Netflix is now also building their own location-based entertainment arms through their Netflix house vehicles, but also what they've been doing with their partnership with Fever. So it would be interesting if you're going to have a K-pop Demon Hunter's LBE experience. Is it going to happen being led by Netflix, or is it going to be through one of their toy licensed partners, Mattel or Hasbro?
SPEAKER_00:Uh yeah, a uh a basket of embarrassments. Uh, embarrassments number one, uh both uh Mattel and Hasbro missed out on this opportunity when it was placed in their lap. Embarrassment number two, Netflix doesn't trust either one of them to have it 100%, but feels that they need to split it. Embarrassment number three, they may miss out on the transmedia capability of this. They may not be able to pick up the IP rights for this for all of the other opportunities, including location-based entertainment. There uh some people have been calling this the Groot moment. You will remember a couple of years ago when uh you know Groot became the uh the iconic Star Wars character, and all of the major toy brands missed out on that because they couldn't pivot fast enough. Some people are also referring to this to the old man syndrome, where some of the executive uh uh divisional team leaders, the C-suites that are making the decisions on these, cannot move fast enough to the speed in which the streaming and the transmedia market is moving to. So they are always having that Beatles moment where they they're turning down a fantastic opportunity only to kick themselves or be kicked by the investment team uh one when they've missed out. Whatever the case may be, this is one of those moments where you mark a uh a line in the sand saying that uh Netflix was able to uh activate a co-master agreement with the largest toy and brand properties in the market and get away with it handsomely. Uh look forward to Christmas 2026 being up to your derriere in K-pop. Go K-pop.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah. Anyway. All right. Well, coming up after the break, we'll continue with the trends.
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SPEAKER_00:I'm looking into the tech trends. And as I was touching upon earlier with uh the need to upscale the uh the price center, we have a major trend breaking in Taiwan that is now overflowing into the major Asian market. It is a continuation of the uh what I like to call the new wave uh crane and claw machine market. Uh but the grab stuff trend is kind of becoming a gashipo of its own in the uh crane sector, and we're beginning now to see uh the Japanese market actually take note of this Taiwanese trend. It goes back to what I was saying earlier: highly collectible, highly wantable uh items in the prize, less about conning the uh player with having badly operated claw or crane systems, but making it a physical game experience with the capability of upscaling, uh, you know, a little bit from the Gashapot, a little bit from the new wave claw machines, a little bit from the crane arcade business that we've seen explode. Uh, and surprise, surprise, uh, I finally got the list of some of the products that our friends at Tato will be exhibiting uh at the Amusement Expo. And there is uh the Little Bull system, which is one of those Taiwanese crane systems. The Little Bull is one of those multi-stack systems with a very active uh claw system, which is much more responsive, not something that we would be familiar with in the West. It is much more of a game system rather than a prize system. Along with that, uh our friends at Taito have a brand new immersive attraction system to go into their cube projection mapped environment. Uh, this one's a horror experience, uh perfectly in time to miss Halloween, it would look like, but uh I'm sure they'll roll that out across their markets. We also have a new price system from them, better spin, uh, and we also have a more younger audience pedal-powered uh racing game. One of the biggest surprises for me from Taito is how much they're focusing on embracing the new crane technology from Taiwan. So not homegrown, but importing this in under license, and also how they're mirroring this with the success of uh their live play systems, their ability to play uh prize machines via your uh smartphone app. Those type of things I think are going to be front and center in a couple of uh days' time when uh amusement expo takes place. Moving on and uh jumping into the other tech trends, and we finally had uh the thing that I was alluding to last time. Uh our friends at Samsung threw their hat in the ring. Uh, they obviously did go down the path of emulating what Apple uh was doing with their spatial computer mixed reality systems. So their Galaxy XR was released to the market, uh 1,800 bucks compared to the uh 3,600 bucks of the Apple alternative. Uh and the market kind of went meh. Um, you know, there was interest, uh, you know, people jumped up and down, the nerds and the shills and the fanboys uh all got excited, but at the end of the day, there just wasn't enough there. There wasn't a killer app, as it were. Uh, and the presentation uh from Samsung was quite lackluster, even though they had Qualcomm and Google and Samsung on the stage, uh, you know, they they couldn't really uh light the fire. And that kind of leads us to uh a question that a lot of people are asking now, which is you know, look at it. It's you know, it's a lot of years have gone by uh where we were promised that virtual reality was going to be the next best thing since sliced bread in the consumer sector, the second coming, you know. Uh Samsung's first foray into VR was right at the beginning in 2015. Now here we are in 2025. And can you really put a gun to our heads that aren't technically invested in this and say, has VR moved on enough to warrant uh quite an increase in price? Uh, and B, the fanfare and the adoration from the nerds. And now we we're faced with the brand new nerds who are trying to change the definition from, oh, it's not VR anymore, Kevin. It's extended reality, it's XR, Kevin. Well, well, guys, uh how about it's ROI? How about its profit? How about it's achieving some of the hype that it's promised itself? I I'm I'm not here to praise Caesar nor bury him. Uh I am still a big supporter of uh immersive technology and VR in our sector, in the commercial entertainment sector, where I feel that we can give a compelling experience that is unachievable at home, unlike anything other. But I feel for the consumer purchaser, who are now looking at tightening belts under the current financial conditions, being handed another box on their head, but this time they can see some of their room, uh, they can stick digital widgets on their wall, they can watch YouTube uh on their uh their headset, uh, and they've got a battery life of an hour. And so, you know, I I was very disgusted from the reviewers that didn't bring this point up. They were we were promised a three-hour battery, and after using these systems uh for a review, they were seeing an hour and twenty, an hour and thirty at max, and lots of excuses being made about what type, you know, if you turn off the VR capability, then the battery life's better. Oh, that's great. If I turn the torch off, I'll save the batteries and just trip up over all the stuff I can't see. We you know, we're getting very close to that come to Jesus moment for uh this type of technology. And I think maybe um unless Valve pulls something out of their hat that is amazing, then maybe this phase of uh VR is going to be going back into uh the shadows for a period of time.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean, look, there's no doubt that the level of technology, the level of fidelity, the quality of fit and the comfortability, all those things have improved over the years. And I think there's a number of things that they've done really well to make this at least a more comfortable experience, certainly better than what the Vision Apple Vision Pro did with their early first edition and even what their revised edition with the additional strap has tried to accomplish. So, I mean, I think we are definitely making technical improvements. The problem ultimately is what the and you you you alluded to this earlier. What is the killer app? It's not to watch YouTube videos on VR. Why would I do that? I can watch YouTube videos on my phone, I can watch YouTube videos on my computer or on my TV. I don't need to watch them on VR. Um, they show you know watching an F1 race with the VR. Again, why what is what is the killer app there for this type of experience in home experience? And so they're going to have to really work to develop a killer XR app to drive the XR, you know, the extended reality concepts forward and it not just to be a rebranded VR headset. Um every single one of the photos, too, by the way, on their site that I was reviewing, um every single one of them that's using it actually has the cord going down into their pocket, which is the extra little battery pack, which does give the 2.5 hours. So yeah, sure, it'll last an hour without that cord, but if you want, you are actually tethered to your body with a battery pack sitting in your pocket, warming up your leg while you're doing whatever it is that you're doing.
SPEAKER_00:Warming up your leg, yeah. Let's just hope it's only warming up your leg. The issue is, uh, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, it's about the content stupid. And for some reason, I do believe that these tech nerds may be a little too close to the uh to the technology and not to the customer. They've uh maybe been high on their own supply, as it were. And now we are finding out in location-based entertainment that the audience doesn't care how good the technology is, how light the headsets are, if the experience works, they will come and they'll play the experience and they'll be enthused. And a perfect example of this has been uh what we've just seen with the announcement from Raw Thrills. They had a success with Godzilla uh kaiju war uh VR, uh virtual reality headset system, two-seater, motion seat, interactive gun game, fantastic. And so many operators kept on saying, Do we really need the VR? Could you just remove those headsets and turn those motion seats and point it at that lovely big jewel screen that you have there? And would the experience be comparable? Well, after location test doing that very thing, surprise, surprise, our friends at Raw Thrills have just launched the non-VR version of Godzilla. And this will open the storm gates on operators' criticisms of VR because they will point to this and say which one is going to generate more money? And if we have that situation where the non-VR version generates a higher ROI than the VR version, then the whole structure of VR adoption in location-based entertainment will be put in doubt where you're going to have to really prove that that VR brings something special to the table rather than just novelty value.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I mean, this is exactly the experience that we had with the Night Herons Kung Fu Panda last year at IAP Expo. You know, really, you know, somewhat entertaining, relatively simplistic gameplay, um, but strapping on a VR headset for no real reason whatsoever when I'm literally standing in front of a dual screen the size of that Godzilla Kaiju Wars VR screen. And so, you know, I questioned why couldn't I just still hold the paddles in my hand, turn around, look at the screen, and interact with the screen while playing? And I'm sure that their next iteration will do the exact same thing that Roth Rills has done.
SPEAKER_00:If they have enough funding left to be able to do that, that's the question. Uh, because Night Heron has disappeared off the face of the earth for me. Uh I hope to bump into them at uh IALPA and uh they can bring us up to speed on what they're doing. Though you know, I get the feeling that maybe if you take the VR away from the tech nerd, then they you know they they may be a little bit uh out to sea. For me, fundamentally, yeah, the argument about is VR necessary is going to be defined by what happens with this particular product. If our friends at Raw Thrills sell uh a considerable uh more units at this particular price point, then the question about what did VR bring to the table is going to be raised. And those people that will try and get me to say, why can't we have both? Well, the reason you can't have both is because is there a fundamental difference in the experience between the VR version and the non-VR version? If it was a deluxe, the reason why we have deluxe machines in this industry is that you have the standard machine for the smaller pocket and uh facility, and then you have the super deluxe or the deluxe system for centrepiece attractions. That's great. But when the two machines look near identical, other than the headset and uh the uh motion system pointing in a different direction, a lot of questions are going to be asked. Moving on, and our friends at Raw Thrills are forever being uh resourceful. Uh, we know that they were not entirely uh happy with the response to their GP racing game, uh, both in its VR as well as its non-VR version. Again, this is where they actually started to come to the realization that they can run a game as either a VR experience or a non-VR experience. Though I would argue it was the other way around. They'd already released the GP uh racing experience and then they slapped VR uh onto it with less than sterile results. Well, if you've got a warehouse still full of a large motorbike uh contingent cabinet selection, come up with a new game, uh upgrade, uh redesign, and reinvent. And this is an interesting one. They are now proposing this game, this motorbike racing game set up for a slightly older uh frame build. If you look at the ergonomics there, it is not aimed at your usual audience who play redemption games, but they have turned this bike game into a redemption product, a holy redemption product. Not just the ability to spew tickets out like some of the Chinese systems, but this is aimed as a redemption game with a short play, get as many tickets uh as you can. And because of the age group that that cabinet configuration is aimed for, we're going to be faced with the you know the question of who are these redemption games being aimed at now? Is it a much older audience? And then we are walking into a whole new ball of wax, and I will remind everybody who along uh Stinger Report readers of the problems we ran into when the gaming industry started uh to uh try and incorporate uh uh gambling mechanics into video game experiences.
SPEAKER_04:Well, yeah, certainly. But um, you know, I think this is actually a really clever uh I I really enjoy the racing games, um, but at the same time, I enjoy earning redemption credits that I can use in a store. And so I think you know, combining the two, this is very clever. Uh, you know, the and and obviously the cabinet is alluring as well. Um, but uh to your you know, to our point earlier when we were talking about redemption and and the re-development of the prize uh area of your facility, I'm not even gonna say prize counter. Um, this is a key driver for why you need to be rethinking how your prize center is uh is uh merchandised and laid out, etc., for a growing uh an age, oh how would I say this, an audience that is growing older.
SPEAKER_00:An age-specific redemption product. I won't I won't call it an adult redemption game system. No that that doesn't work. What I'm looking at here is if this is a successful product, then this could inject new life into uh a terminology that I tried to coin many years ago, redemption, the you know, the employment of the video game as a redemption platform using a lot of the mechanics of the video game in a redemption package. And this could be the impetus to totally change, not just this game, but this approach could uh be the impetus to change uh how we deal with the prize experience. Because if we're moving away from just targeting a younger audience with uh the prize experience, that means then we can have higher quality merch. If we have higher quality merch, then we can make it much more obtainable or uh desirable. And then it goes back to how we started the beginning of this sound off. Uh, one of uh those things about redesigning and redeveloping yourselves. We touched upon this in Sound Off recently, which is uh our friends at VR Core, who have been bellwebers of uh how the market moves. They were one of the first uh to throw their hats into the ring through their VRcade uh of a VR Arcade environment. You know, remember the tethered uh headsets within your own uh tanning bay, as it were, playing. They were very successful for that for a period of time. The company then pivoted again uh and became VR Core, where they're along with their VR Arcade facility, they also uh entered the uh pop-up uh and mobile VR offerings where you know they would come to your facility and set up VR experiences. They also entered the educational side where they would uh do virtual field trips at schools and colleges based on their technology. But going back to their facility, they've looked at their VR arcade, uh, they've taken a deep breath and they've reinvented themselves. So the VR is still there, but now it has a stronger amusement uh setup. They've thrown pinball into the mix, there is a competitive socializing vibe, and they've really embraced the zeitgeist of the 80s retro theming to come up with their night wave arcade concept. And this really is underpinning my point of we have to reinvent ourselves. This is an eight-year transition from being on the zeitgeist of VR onto the ROI increasing of the business and then pivoting to embrace the social entertainment market by still keeping your VR credentials, but now embracing secondary and tertiary entertainment components. No man is an island, no company can stand still, and those ones that are holding on with their fingernails, hoping that they can still offer what they were doing six years ago to their core audience as we enter 2026 are going to be very unhappily surprised by how the audience will vote with their feet if they don't feel that you're staying off.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, we talked, you know, again, I I gave some of my thoughts on this at uh on open and shut, but uh they've really done an excellent job uh rebranding themselves, staying staying current for the market. And this is absolutely what needs to be done uh in order to stay relevant, especially when you have a product that, you know, as we're seeing out in the market, is potentially gaining uh or losing steam as far as uh consumers and guests are concerned.
SPEAKER_00:The the new VR systems, the arena-based VR systems, are the next blush of life for our sector. They are doing well, they are strong products. That is fantastic. Uh the more traditional VR products, which lived off novelty value more than uh they did over ROI, those are now moving to the shadows, as it were, and we need to grow as an industry to embrace the next phase. The nice thing about a revolution, everything keeps on turning. Uh I've touched upon uh Felix and Paul before regarding their space experience. There was a traveling VR uh experience that went around Canada and Denver and Washington. Um Felix and Paul, a design studio run by uh key artists. Uh, they had received quite a large investment from the Canadian uh um uh arts and financial community to come up with their next generation of experience. They have again returned to a multi-user, or as I would like to call it, shared reality experience uh using VR technology as well as some physical immersive entertainment elements. It is a pay for a ticket, wander around for 60 minutes, get kicked out the other end kind of experience, though uh offering an interstellar space opera themed experience. Fantastic, great tick here. The interesting novelty here is that Felix and Paul have decided not just to go for uh a traveling experience version of this, but actually a permanent uh installation. And surprise, surprise, they've chosen uh Area 15 for uh the first installation of their permanent uh installation. I'm led to believe that this is quite a long uh permanent facility uh where some of the other installations around Area 15's new upgrade uh are on uh three or five-year leases. I get the feeling that this one's on uh uh a much longer lease and that this may be the first of many Felix and Paul shared reality uh experiences that go into that space. Either way, uh it'll be very interesting when we're next out there to uh try and get our heads in a headset and experience this. Because I never got a chance to try the space uh experience that they originated.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean, as somebody who is uh a massive science fiction fan, uh I am I am actually really excited to try this. I you know do again question the medium in which they're trying to deliver the experience, uh, but I've got to do it myself first before I before I jump too quickly to judgment there. Um but the I will say the one thing they have done very, very well is getting the word out. I see this in my feeds, on my Google feeds, my news feeds continually. Um and it is uh, and I've only it is not like because of remarketing and cookies. Um I'm very familiar with that model. Um, and uh never once have I actually visited the Interstellar ARC, so I do not have the cookies on my phone or on my computer. They are paying for these ads to be distributed, and they're doing a very uh aggressive job at getting the word out.
SPEAKER_00:I use a uh a search tool uh that purges uh my uh analytic cookie. So when I see something popping up a lot, I know it's organic uh rather than uh shall we say encouraged. Uh and I can uh I think a lot of that money that uh Felix and Paul raised from their Canadian backers has gone into a very intensive marketing campaign, which will pay off if the Area 15 expansion. I get the feeling that the Area 15 expansion, with its universal haunted experience, its John Wick uh escape experience, uh as well as other attractions there, will pay off in foot traffic, but also will pay off in other directions where maybe we will see a Felix and Paul rollout of another site quite quickly on the back of uh the initial rollout. But again, let's not get too ahead of ourselves. I'm looking forward to uh both of us being able to wander around in March that facility, if not sooner. Uh and again, the VR boys are still trying it uh heavy and hard. Uh if it isn't a shared reality experience, it's a shared carting experience. Uh our friends at uh EVA, known for their esports virtual reality arena systems, they have uh invested in developing a karting uh virtual reality experience. So this will be number four of the VR carting systems that we've been talking about uh as an emerging trend, uh, immersive carting as I like to call it. Uh and this one follows the unique formula, though rather than following a track, this one is a much more open flow kind of racing experience for three or four riders uh using the latest of uh the micro kart uh drift systems that are now becoming popular. Uh you know, it it's the size of space that this can fit into looks interesting. So even if you don't have the capability to have a full size e carting space, then you can still have some kind of karting experience. I also see this appealing to a younger audience, and the first games that have been developed for the EVA karting GP platform look to be aimed at a very young audience. So this it Is kind of sitting between having your K1 um augmented reality uh cart headset. Uh uh on the other side of the fence, you've got the full chaos cart projection environment. I kind of see this system sitting in the middle of that as maybe a toe in the water regarding immersive carting.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah. Um, you know, I've got to try the experience. I I tried that the Eva um free roam um free roam arena experience was one of the best that I've uh that I've ever experienced. And so uh they certainly do a great job again with the fidelity of the experience. Um so my hope would be that they've done the same thing here, uh, but I am skeptical of strapping on goggles and riding a motorized vehicle around, regardless of the speed in which you're doing it, um, to really create the type of uh you know interesting experience. But you know, they've got big arenas, big square footage, and they're gonna have to have other experiences to create. I'm just wondering if they should work on other free roam arena experiences versus uh you know carting with uh with you with your eyes blocked.
SPEAKER_00:These venues are beginning to learn the lesson that we've been harping on for for nearly a hundred episodes of uh you need to have more usages for your floor space than just one single entertainment experience. And maybe populating that with a karting experience is one way to look at it. Though let's hope that Windows 11 has done its update uh before you start taking some high-speed corners and get the blue screen of death, uh literally. Uh the environment projected uh immersive. If you're not filling it with uh projected go-karting, then you're uh uh filling it with Pac-Man Live Experience. We've talked about this before from our friends at uh Little Lions, uh, and we've just learnt that they have uh parachuted in a version of their Pac-Man Live in Riyadh. Um, as far as we understand, not at their chaos cart location, uh, but actually at a uh unique infrastructure that's part of the uh Riad season. Uh, I'm still a little bit iffy about uh exactly where and when this is, but we we know that uh this uh facility has opened. Uh again, we haven't tried it. This is kind of us sort of saying this looks interesting, but we need to try it before we will give uh the final experience opinion. Uh again, I have you know watched this very closely since they signed the deal with Band Dynamico to license Put Man to create this life-size uh experience. I really need to try it uh before I can say that this is going to sweep uh the market because again, a lot of these technologies teeter on the possibility of it being one and done's. The last thing you want is to we're not theme parks in this particular part of the sector. We have to have the audience come back and want to do it again. And if you haven't added the correct uh entertainment components to your immersive experience, then it's a one and done, and you'll be closed in the matter of months. Yep. Moving on, and uh one and done was how many people were feeling when the outages started. First, uh, when we uh when I was uh putting this deck together, uh we were dealing with the uh Amazon failure of the uh AWS platform uh that lasted for 24 hours. Some people didn't notice it because they you know they didn't get touch a bit, but uh, but a number of uh fast food venues that use uh this uh displaced cloud-based uh communication platform suddenly you know had the blue screen of death, literally, uh, to deal with. Uh, you know, your drive-in uh center suddenly is giving you information about how to do your BIOS. The issues here are that you know this had impacts across all kinds of services that are using AWS uh as their portal service, and it kind of shows the danger of putting all of your eggs in one basket. You know, numbers were thrown around that this uh impacted about eight million people, uh eight million users or firms that uh use the platform over 12 hours. I think they you spun that a little bit to try and get over it. They fixed the problem, they blamed the problem uh on uh bad code, uh, and everybody carried on with their day until the same thing happened at Microsoft. And then uh yeah, the Azure platform, the alternate to using AWS, also uh a couple of days later had a 24 uh hour break, and in this case it impacted a new selection of customers, it impacted uh people that bank with uh NatWest, and uh the most important, it caused Minecraft servers to crash. Oh, I'm sure all of the uh the kiddy widdies were really unhappy about that. Sorry to insult. I'm not a Minecraft user. The the issues are is you can't hide from this. You know, we are living in the fidgetal age, and you know, no matter which server you've plugged yourself into, you are going to find that when they have a denial of service through to error or invasion, then you better have a plan B of how to deal with the systems. I'm not gonna go with the trite phrase that certain companies were making, which is try and work out how to run your company without computers. Those days have gone. Uh, what I will say is that having a backup plan and actually doing a uh uh unplug, uh removing your online capability and seeing what are your vulnerable components to your system, how much of it you can run remotely, if you should have a backup satellite uh uh data system in place just for 24-hour emergencies. These are the type of things that a good IT team needs to be thinking about, especially in these current conditions.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, well, there's a lot of people on those good IT teams uh at uh Microsoft and Amazon that had very bad weekends.
SPEAKER_00:Very bad weekends. It's uh it's it's a guarantee that uh certain individuals uh yeah, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes for that one. And uh it also had impacts uh that will be longer lasting, uh especially in the financial as well as in the airline uh business. Certain things happened during those down periods that have uh reverberations in the market. Uh just to wind up, really, and one of the things that I was doing while here in London was uh I attended the uh Autumn Hoinop show. Uh I would point people to the fantastic uh dilution of my pictures and commentary that Adam has put together on arcade heroes, but I wanted just to share some thoughts. For those of you that are not familiar with the London scene, um we have three or four selling times for amusement products in our markets, and our shows and our conferences usually line up with that. Because we deal with a seaside and inland uh amusement business as well as the location-based and FEC market that's that are uh uh emerging. We're kind of a uh distributed uh and disturbed uh sector. The CoinOps show is uh a throwback, but it is a great opportunity to show some of the new trends to operators so they can make decisions about buying before the Easter and the Christmas period in some cases. Some of them will make a decision now and then buy the product in January at the big EAG show uh that takes place in London, or some of them will actually buy the product now to have them in place for the Christmas and New Year uh business markets. Um, trends that we saw, not as many video amusement as uh as previous years, though uh our friends at Sega uh had their racer, and our friends uh from uh JNC had imported a brand new racer from China that was at a price point and in a package that was very comparable with the raw thrills alternative. And that kind of underlines how the Chinese market, unencumbered by tariffs, remember, this is selling into the UK market, can be quite competitive with uh their amusement. And the quality of the game uh and the quality of the fit and hardware was very similar to what I had seen from uh the Fast and Furious uh uh deluxe product that uh Raw Thrills had uh had released. And a lot of operators had wanted to get their hands on the Fast and Furious product, but they couldn't have because of the price point, so now there's an alternative for them, and there was some uh definite uh interest there. The music games, uh the UK has kind of been a harbinger of trend establishment. I believe that music games are going to be the big push uh in the coming season. Uh and our friends at UDC had uh the latest of the touchscreen rhythm music games. Our friends at Sega didn't bring their version to the show, but we are aware that their MyMai machine, which is another touchscreen music uh system, is going to be uh rolled out to IALPA uh and uh be prepared to hear the latest K-pop tunes being blasted out by one of these uh lovely little machines. And now the distributors can't hide and claim that there's no interest. We know there is an interest for this. Uh uh 300 million uh K-pop followers on Netflix can't be wrong. Time to get the head out of the sand, guys. Um, we were seeing a major infusion of capsule systems in the I would say Gashipo-esque style. These weren't Gashipo sizes, but they were mirroring that kind of approach, as well as the new micro cranes that I was alluding to previously from the Taiwanese approach. Sega has already released their range of uh micro crane uh new wave machines, which have seen strong popularity. This is going to be a major part of our market, no matter how some distributors keep on claiming that they have crane machines at home. This is what the audience is looking to consume. And then finally, the the interesting thing for me was the uh Chinese pusher machines. Uh coin pushers being uh stacks of coins uh launched into the machine and then being pushed by various pinball-esque kinds of systems, hoping to create a jackpot of a buildup of coins into your price pot. These are enclosed pushers. The traditional British pushers were kind of open where the coin that you dropped in and was uh pushed out would uh be in the tray at the bottom, where these ones are an enclosed loop system where the only thing being distributed to show your winnings is a redemption ticket. And I wouldn't be surprised that these new Chinese enclosed pusher systems prove themselves very popular with uh our audience demographic. Anyway, that's really the the build-up from uh that show. Uh, one of you know the nice thing about getting together with all of us in the industry, uh the UK industry, is that we can hide around a pint and uh bemuse the market. And one of the interesting things to be mindful of for the 2026 market is the impact of uh what will be happening in London. Uh and uh for those of you that don't know, the London show is scheduled uh to take place in January uh at the beginning of the year, but uh at the same location in a couple of months' time, or six or seven months' time later, we will then have IALPA Europe taking place in London. And so the problem is, you know, from an exhibitor's point of view, is which one of those shows are you going to put your money into? Because many operators with Titan belts and manufacturers with Titan belts will not be able to go to both. They're going to have to make a decision and they're going to either be supporting one or the other, or they're going to have a part appearance at one and a full appearance at the other. This is an interesting situation to be in, uh, and it's something that we have to be very mindful of when it gets close to uh really the uh end of this year and the beginning of next year on how certain companies are positioning themselves.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean, this is certainly the same issue that we deal with here in the North American market between Amusement Expo and IAPA Expo uh in Orlando, you know, opposite sides of the of the year. Although EAG and and Expo Europe tend to be a little bit a little bit closer. Actually, no, they're not. They're they're maybe about exactly the same equidistance.
SPEAKER_00:January to September. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, month out.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I'll anyway, but uh, but you know, very similar um thing, and which is why you see um you see we've seen some uh a decline in the booth sizes at Amusement Expo, uh, because they're shrinking, they're having to shrink one of their presences but not wanting to abandon it entirely.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So the the question goes uh you don't abandon it, but you have a lesser appearance. If you have a lesser appearance, the show doesn't have the same uh impact. If it doesn't have the same impacts, then uh why the hell are you doing it? Or uh is there a need for a different type of format? I personally feel that there's a need for a different type of format from Amusement Expo, but I am a very opinionated individual. Really? Oh, it's crazy. Crazy, crazy talk. Anyway, that kind of uh wraps it up from me. Uh again, our LinkedIn details are there if you'd like to pass on more information or tell tell me how opinionated I really am. Uh also uh please make sure that you're getting the Stinger Report and the Entertainment Social Arena. We just had uh a really big push on the uh the what was happening in the brand and licensing show uh recently in uh one copy, and we've got a a big write-up about what's happening in the gaming, uh the skill gaming shooting uh sector is a brand new trend. And I think that will be an eye-opener to some people in our industry. Anyway, Brandon, did I cover everything?
SPEAKER_04:Oh man, another great sound off and looking forward to number ninety-eight next week.
SPEAKER_00:Look forward to it then. Have a good one.
