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Sound Off #99 - Competitive Socializing’s Pivot Problem, Netflix House, and more!
Sponsored by Intercard!
Sponsored by Alan-1!
On this week's episode of Sound Off, we track competitive socializing’s growing pains, from single-attraction brand traps to the staffing and education needed to earn repeat visits. Then we zoom out to supply shocks, rebrands, soft numbers, and the hype gaps that erode trust and margins.
• single-game venue ceiling and brand rigidity
• staff-led guest education as growth lever
• China tech restrictions and chip supply exposure
• Topgolf softness and replication risk
• Genda rebrands and practical FEC upgrades
• Chuck E. Cheese Adventure World design misses
• Netflix House overpromise vs on-site reality
• HelloPark’s interactive projection and India rollout
• escape room openings pulling group demand
• esports leagues as repeat visitation engine
• MrBeast Land as pop-up transmedia test
• STEM add-ons in LBE and fit questions
• Sega crane IP experiment and compact rides
• DreamPark VR “as a service” viability
• Coca‑Cola AI ad backlash and brand risk
• Meta AI data opt‑out and creator control
Catch us on the show floor at IAAPA Expo this week!
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Are you on the edge of your seat? Because we're about to see the video. Covering today's latest trends in location-based energy. Brought to you by the LBX Collective, your community to collect a player. All right, everyone, let's buckle up.
SPEAKER_02:All right. Well, welcome everybody to sound off number 99 with Kevin Williams. This is uh yeah, man, we I'm looking forward to episode 100 post-IAPA Expo. It's gonna be amazing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's uh it's gonna be amazing. I hope I find you well then.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, very good, very good. And um, you know, we're we're rolling right in the middle of IAPA Expo. So let's uh let's dive right into it. How are you going to uh change my mind this week, Kevin?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's uh kind of touching on a topic that we've uh spoken of before, but uh again, now the competitive socializing element, I am surprised to see how many competitive socializing components or attractions or platforms that there are at IALPA this year. Uh but we've also just previously had the hospitality conference show in Denver, which also gave us some transparency to that. And you know, from the job of trendmeister that I have, I've come away with people kind of saying, Can we have some more, please? Uh and that more is more entertainment. And this has been a kind of surprise to the hospitality guys that thought all you had to do was create a sports bar, throw in some gamified darts, and way, hey, you know, we're in the money. When really what's happened is they've created a monster that they're going to have to feed along with their customers. And I'm just wondering what type of compelling content we're gonna have to add to competitive socializing to keep it fresh.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, I think there's a couple of things here for me. Um, you know, one is you've got these single game or single social competition models, right? So you've got your flight club, electric shuffle, putt shack, etc., etc. And the issues, the issues around that is one single attraction. So repeat visitation is always going to be difficult unless you can continue to shake up your gameplay and keep things compelling. Um, but the second major issue is like even if they decide to diversify some of their bays or some of their areas, I call them bays. Flight club is a little bit unique in that they they the way that they're laid out is really special, I think. Actually, they have beautiful facilities, and I like how like it feels like you're you're in your own little private space the way they have it laid out, and so they could very easily bring in some new content and some new games, and but their name is Flight Club, and so they've built this brand around this very specific, unique, singular thing, and they all have done that. Um, and so this is really one of the big issues. Toka Social is maybe the one that that hasn't, and like you obviously know that they've like I mean toka meaning touch, right? So, like kind of like the whole concept of that's obviously what their brand, but like they maybe have the most flexible branding, and they've tried to bring in sandbox VR to fit into their space. Um, and so I you know, I don't know. I think it it I agree with you, but I think it's going to be a hard pivot for them to do that. And there's only so much you can do with immersive augmented darts. I would call them immersive darts, I'll call it augmented darts. Um, there's only so much you can do with that gameplay to make it unique, especially when you're using a real dart board versus like um you know, like a crazy darts type of system.
SPEAKER_00:I yeah again, I apologize for using uh many people commented uh when I'm doing presentations about the the dead photograph, which is showing an entertainment facility with no people in it, which doesn't really kind of uh project what these places are like when there is six people or even eight people per uh let's see, we've got two terminal systems set up there. The point that we're trying to make is it would be difficult if you were called flight clubs, if you were called swingers, if you were called uh five-iron golf to then have a bowling component to it. Uh, it would be difficult if you were F1 arcade and you had a skee ball or an electric shuffle added to it. You have kind of hoisted your flag uh to the flagpole of a single entertainment offering. And if you're going to pivot, then you're gonna have to rebrand. And people like Gravity Max and other uh venues are in a much better position to do that. There's also the argument about what your audience is expecting to get. Uh, if your audience is expecting to do that dance thing with the screens again, that's fantastic. But then when they turn around and say, No, I don't want to do that screen dance thing again, and you have to then re-educate them to say, oh, but we're much more than that now. We have uh, for argument's sake, shooting, we have argument's sake simulators, then it becomes very difficult. And really, this is well, when I'm talking about compelling, I mean it on three levels. I mean it compelling as in educating your audience, this is going to be fun and generating repeat visitation, educating your audience with rebranding that this is going to be fun and worth doing again, and then re-educating your staff to be able to impart to people who walk through the threshold and don't understand what's changed, to understand what's changed.
SPEAKER_02:And that third or third thing, that last thing, anyway, I will say, is the most difficult thing, I think, and the area where people really miss you know, operators who are going through those transitions really miss the opportunity, which is to make sure that their staff is properly educating the guests as they're coming in about what's new about the experience.
SPEAKER_00:And the first and the last experience of your audience is always going to be the most important. Uh, and it is always a member of staff. Uh uh, don't don't believe Elon Musk uh uh and our friends at uh OneN. Uh robots aren't going to be able to interact uh with your customers as well as real human beings.
SPEAKER_02:Totally agree. Totally agree. All right, awesome. Well, coming up after the quick break, we will dive into the economic trends. 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 system to InnerCard increase customer spending, get satisfaction, and boost revenues by up to 30%. Intercard is so proud to be serving the amusement industry. If you are already part of a global family of customers, they hope you will become one too.
SPEAKER_00:Let's go straight into the tech, or really the economy in the tech, because uh our friends uh in China have been making some rules about the tech that you can use. Now, let's be very specific here. This news story is specific to uh facilities in China that's developing service centers uh uh and chip operation centers that uh receiving government funding. And so the government has said uh, you know, you've received money from us, you can't use uh American uh technology or technology that's linked to countries that we uh are not supportive of at the moment under the current economic conditions. I am throwing it out that a number of the Chinese amusement manufacturing operations have received local government funding and or have received specific funding from state in there. And so if you're building your brand new arcade racing game uh and you're expecting to put a couple of NVIDIA chips into uh that racing game, you may find out that they're not able to do that. And that, along with the tariff impacts and all of the other impacts, could hurt the availability of certain products.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, this is a really interesting one. I mean, one for our amusement industry, but I think two, just in the general general economy, um, this is almost, I mean, I recognize the reason China is doing this, but this is almost like cutting your nose off in spite of your face. Um, because just because they know that they're not getting the top tier chips from some of these companies, you know, these these companies because of other trade restrictions we've put, uh we meaning the US has put on some of these on their these companies. Um it almost seems like this this whiplash thing that they're doing, or like, okay, well, if we can't have your chips, then you can't have their chips. Um and so this just seems like a little bit of a knee-jerk reaction. Uh, and and you know, we'll see how much it really does have a long-term impact, but certainly will have an impact on any Chinese manufacturers making amusement uh uh you know games.
SPEAKER_00:Uh sitting down and talking to individuals involved with importing uh Chinese amusement products into Europe, uh I was given a little bit more transparency of the difficulties just uh from the European point of view. And so from the American point of view, and especially what we're going to be seeing at Ayalpa with a larger number of Chinese products being represented uh by mainstream distributors, all of these factors come to play. Moving on and factors coming to play. I touched upon it many a sound off ago uh that uh the penny was in danger. Well, uh this month the last penny was manufactured, uh the presses ended, uh, and uh the penny press now is an endangered species. It will take some time for the pennies in circulation to dry up, but um that is quite a considerable move in currency terms, uh numerism terms, of course. Uh, and are we going to have to create the scent press now?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah, uh, this is, I mean, like penny presses now when I was a kid, I had penny, you know, penny pressed everywhere I went. I've you know, got, I don't know the word, if they even have them anymore, but it was certainly a big important thing, like as a kid to go and do. And so it is a little bit of a you know, a nostalgic loss here. And um it would be interesting to see, you know, if they end up continuing to use pennies or if they'll use like little slugs, like copper slugs or something like that, um, in their machines, and you still put in your you know your dollar or your you swipe your card and you get still a press, but it's now copper slugs that were in there versus actual currency.
SPEAKER_00:It will go from being a coin to a souvenir. Uh and then jumping out of the economy-related business. Uh again, I can't go into too much details because the um the federal lockdown is only just uh in the processes of ending, and we haven't got uh transparency to that. I still don't know if I'm going to be flying, for example. You know, so uh yeah. Let's hope uh future Kevin is happier, Kevin. Uh but to the uh biz um and the reality of the top golf, we had the numbers in from uh Callaway Top Golf. And you know, if you read the surface tension of the numbers, you saw things like uh 1% up uh in certain businesses and flat and uh opportunities for growth and stuff like that. But then when you type the numbers into a spreadsheet and you start looking at it, that yearly curve on revenue looks mighty painful.
SPEAKER_02:It is not a good place that they find themselves in right now. Um, and you know, when when you celebrate, you know, a 1% uh you know ahead of expectation, meaning like by the way, they still had year-over-year decline. It was less the decline though was less than what they expected. Uh right, so let's just be clear, they still declined year over year in sales, and uh this is a this is not a good looking trend um when you are continuing to build tens of million dollar facilities um that are exactly the same as the ones that are losing money year over year.
SPEAKER_00:I would find it a smart accountant would blunt his pencil uh to make sure that his uh estimations are wrong so he can be positive when he has to admit what the final numbers are, but there's only so much, and of course, there's the double impact with Callaway who now are going to just turn around and say we need to divest ourselves as soon as possible from this boat anchor. That said, rumour on the street is that there would be a white knight around this time that's going to step in and make an opportunity available to salvage the situation. So I'm going to stick my neck out a little bit and say by the time of maybe sound off uh number two or number three, we'll have a lot more information to pass you on. Moving on and our agenda moment, uh not just one though this uh this time. Uh I had already pointed out about the inspired acquisition in the UK of over 200 facilities, uh, and they're moving fast. They haven't stayed still. And Play Nation, the 100 facilities here in the UK, have suddenly become Genda Play Nation. They've been rebranded, not all of them, but a number of them have been rebranded. And it's not just uh a different sign on the front of the buildings, they've also had some money put into uh re-themality. Uh, I was looking at one video of a uh Gender uh Play Nation facility, uh one of the first to throw its doors open under the new management, and they have really brought over the US approach to femality, machine placement, and just the general ambience that is uh, I think gonna single out these venues from the norm.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, this is interesting. Um, you know, I had a like I actually was curious, I've I have never looked up what Agenda actually stands for. It is an acronym for Global Entertainment Network for Dreams and Aspirations. So I had no idea. Yes, they do. I had no idea that it was actually an acronym for this. Um, but look, Global Entertainment Network, it's right in their name and it's what they are doing.
SPEAKER_00:From the start of when Gender appeared, the uh I was lucky enough to know the early management team who have gone through a couple of transitions as they've uh repositioned themselves. Uh the original team who worked with Sega uh or had links to Sega had aspirations of what they were going to do, and they wrote it on the tin right at the beginning. They were going to be good people, they were going to make happy places. Oasis, get in the game Oasis, Gaigo. Uh, and now people are beginning to understand that their world domination aspirations are not just a flash in the pan or marketing speak, but serious. Um, they've just expanded their uh crane operation, they've just expanded their um karaoke business uh in Japan, and I know by the end of Ayalpa we will have some more news for the Gender moment. Moving on, and um Hirschland again a family operation with a very strong uh presence in the market, one of the largest of the resorts theme parks uh operations, and they continued what everybody seems to be doing that has uh uh availability to investment money, uh gone on a little bit more acquisition, and they've taken over uh an established park. Um Idaho's Silverwood theme park uh and uh water park is a known entity, you know, it's been going for many years, over 35 years. Uh it has about 70 attractions, uh, but it needs some TLC. It is very clear that it's going to need some love. And I think it's a uh you know, a relationship made in heaven here where uh the family or uh organization can apply their very sharp pencil and their very focused business acumen towards making this park great again.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mentioned this on open and shut during the LBX show a few days ago, but um, you know, I love it when Herschel family comes in and takes over one of these regional uh you know community-based uh theme parks. And you know, Silverwood has been around for a while, obviously, but um I do love it when they come in because they tend to only make the parks that they take over better than they were before, um, both culturally from a leadership and team perspective, but also from a guest experience perspective. So it'll be fun to watch uh where this goes.
SPEAKER_00:Uh to be controversial, I would argue that their mindset is quite different to what the Six Flags mindset is currently. Yes. Uh Chuck E. Cheese, uh again, Mr. Controversial here will uh stick his head on the chopping block and go, wow, we finally got to see uh what the uh Chuck E. Cheese Adventure World facility looked like. And um I would argue that uh 1989 called and would like its Discovery Zone back. Uh I understand that they wanted to create an active entertainment facility at a certain price, it wasn't a Chuck E. Cheese Pizza facility. I understand that they wanted to ease up on the amusement uh and focus more on the activity, and that they were building a lot on what they've been doing with their superheroes uh addition to their active entertainment service. But from the fly round and uh the feedback to the first opening uh of Adventure World, I couldn't see a lot of world. Thank you, Brandon.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, so I I would agree with you there when you talk about like this adventure world exploration. And I think the only thing they've really done is as you can see along the walls, they've really done treatment on the walls to make it uh feel like there's explorers around, and they've really used the branding and the IP um to tie that in. Like you know, they've got the different explorers checking out different parts of the world, using you know on ships and on planes, etc. And then they've sort of gone for like this like bamboo shoot green and yellow motif on the this very, very much discovery zone feel of their space, but it doesn't really give me like the full immersion that I would have really hoped you would have had. Like you could have really made this an interesting themed environment in space, and they really meant for more like a you know uh laminate laminated stuff on the walls and very straightforward soft play environments.
SPEAKER_00:I would also argue on the amusement machines that they've picked for the audience that they are uh trying to encourage that certain of those machines aren't suitable uh for that uh environment. And again, the camera doesn't show all of the systems. Key lessons. I'm not a specialist in active entertainment facilities, but I had been trained by the best. And one of the things is dumping a slide into a walkway is not a good idea unless you have a drop zone area marked off. It does feel like they've made some schoolboy errors, which hey, again, no one's perfect. Each project is a learning lesson, and you build upon that. And I just hope that they're going to build upon this because we have a number of other adventure worlds currently in development according to the marketing outline. But hey, um I wonder how many of the executives remember that in the end uh Discovery Zone was brought by Chuck E. Cheese.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting. Yeah, which is remarkable to me that that uh you know is lost on them. Um that they uh maybe there are some who actually knew it, you know, but um yeah, it does give them the the Discovery Zone vibes. So you know, I feel like I'm you know back into my uh my childhood.
SPEAKER_00:Nothing wrong with that. Uh one of the aspects that we've talked about in the entertainment social arena is sports tainment. We did a few uh feature on that, and sporttainment is being written large by all those stealth projects that I've been talking about, like uh Ballar and what Toca Social has been doing and all the others. Uh and we've just learned of another project coming out of stealth, Crossbar. Uh, and this wants to be a Toca Social with a much better social hospitality mix. Uh they're going into a facility in Manchester, a million miles away from uh a project I worked on, uh had had dealings with, so we say. Uh, we wish uh Crossbar a lot of luck with their uh deployments into this space, but again, it is the fusion of food, uh the fusion of uh active entertainment, ball tracked player interactive projection screen game base, uh, and hoping that this is enough of a compelling entertainment experience for your young target social millennial uh Gen Z uh audience. From a UK point of view, this is an interesting uh concept to go up against Tocker Social, though they've decided not to launch in London with their first facilities, but play it safe in Manchester. My comment really is going to be is how many Tocker Social light concepts can the competitive socializing market uh uh accommodate?
SPEAKER_02:Well, look, we were just talking about naming for these types of social venues, and while obviously crossbar is referring to the bar that goes across the top of a of a uh a football goal, um it it has the potential at least to be a you know to be reference uh cross-referential uh to other things. And so they, you know, if they find that just the peer football base is not enough alongside their F and B, then they can at least take their brand and it's not a far stretch to something else uh or a mix of other things.
SPEAKER_00:Let's hope that they don't have to wait until the water's lapping around their ankles before they make the pivot to include other entertainments. And there are a lot of projection ball tracked entertainments that they could put into their crossbar facilities. Moving on, and we touched upon this in open and shut. Uh, I'd been alluding uh quite heavily to uh the pinstripes uh situation and how some of the facilities that were going to be closing down may not just close down but may be salvaged by other facilities. And we learned that uh the Illinois uh pinstripes is now being converted, quickly converted, into an 810 billiards and bowling facility. Now there's about uh 11, if my memory, uh if our database serves us right, uh 810 uh eat, bowl, drink, play uh facilities. Oh, I don't think that works for me. But anyway, uh what we're seeing is that they've stripped out the uh uh the batchy ball and the boutique bowling, and they have gone in and upgraded this uh facility with proper bowling. Uh I don't mean that they've taken uh the boutique bowling out and placed in sports bowling, I just mean that they've gone for a platform that suits the 810 model. Uh they've uh also dropped in some virtual sports, there is a lot more amusement machines, and um this will be opened by uh 2026 summer, though I'm led to believe it will actually open a little earlier than that. Uh and this may not be the only pinstripes that gets the 80 treatment.
SPEAKER_02:I hope that's the case for these pinstripe facilities, especially for the employees who are already there. Um, you know, I think that the 810, you know, I mentioned this uh you know previously, but I do think that the 810 mix is better suited for this type of facility than Pinstripes was. The Pinstripes has a massive amount of uh dining space that now bringing in billiards, bringing some arcade games, some virtual sports. Like it's gonna chew up a lot of that way too excessive space that Pinstripes had built out. And you will now have probably the proper balance between entertainment and full service dining that pinstripes should have done and probably could have survived if they had done, and had we we had mentioned multiple times prior to leading up to the time that they you know filed for BK.
SPEAKER_00:You can take a horse to water. The uh issues are now that from the investors' point of view in the uh pinstripes uh and uh some of the uh advisories in pinstripes have seen that they really did um drop the ball considerably about understanding the hospitality and entertainment. And that kinds of leads on to the comment I was making about certain companies now beginning to wonder that it isn't about the food and the booze as much as about the complete package, and maybe entertainment is not 40% of the mix, but maybe 80% of the mix compared to food and booze. But we can touch upon that after uh the other big news, of course, uh this week was the final opening of the doors on Netflix house. Uh the media was allowed in, the uh the first of the customers were allowed in. We now got to see what you get for your payment. We were broken to the concept that it is a free-to-enter facility, but to take part in the uh various attractions you have to pay or activate a card membership. We got to see uh what the Wednesday environment was like, we got to see what the uh One Punch area was like, uh the mini golf, um, the food area, even the virtual reality, and uh the theater, the cinema component. And we were underwhelmed, personally speaking. I was expecting a lot more. Um, I thought Netflix had learned a lot of lessons from their pop-up facilities uh that they've been uh activating over the years, and uh I really had expected them uh to go all in for the first two facilities to create a uh unique environment where what I think they've been doing, and maybe this is the smart play from the current uh position that they're in, they've created uh a solid foundation uh without over uh uh spending on the themality uh and the application, but they've created an environment that will be attractive to their core audience, and from that they can base on how much more or how little they need to uh add to the entertainment. This isn't the final. Obviously, we will be getting to see the uh uh Dallas facility opening next month. Uh, and some yeah, these videos here uh are very dangerous because they bear no resemblance to what you're going to see inside. These uh those of you who have slept through many of our sound offs will remember that I've been adamant about managing expectations, and I'm just not happy that these trendy videos uh that they've been or teasers that they've been rolling bear no uh reality to what you're actually going to get.
SPEAKER_02:Uh, totally agree with you, which is the intention of bringing it. Up here on screen. If you go and watch, and I should pull up some of those, but you know, watch people who have done their own, you know, TikTok or YouTube walkthroughs with their phones, it definitely does not. I mean, these are very dramatized, like there's nobody throwing blades at you on a wall, right? Like that's just not happening. Um, now I do think there's some really clever cool elements that they have done um to pay homage to some of these shows like One Piece and Wednesday. Um, but uh but but managing, and again, we we talk about this a lot, managing guest expectations. When I come in, and this isn't the environment that I'm I'm walking into, but it's what I saw on your website on your homepage above the fold, then it's going to create a mismatch of expectations and going to be a disappointment right out of the gate. And now you have to provide an even better experience through to the finish because I'm already starting behind the starting line.
SPEAKER_00:And there was no reason why they couldn't have created this uh image. You know, I I have actual pictures there, if you zoom in, of uh what the facility actually looks like. And the Wednesday experience is not an exact recreation of uh that uh teaser, but it's okay, it could have been used. Uh though I argue that maybe the Netflix boys are more used to a little bit of hyperbole in their uh marketing promotion rather than uh exact recreations. Though they're in the bricks and mortar hospitality industry now, and they're going to come across uh the difficulties that our friends uh at Sony uh entered into uh when they promoted their Wonderverse being the second best thing since sliced bread and director uh recreations and examples uh of the films, only for people to start complaining about how watered down and limited they were. We can't have this. We can create admirable recreations of immersive entertainment experiences based on media. We do this all the time. The if you look at the Minecraft experience, if you uh you know look at uh all of the other experiences based on property, we achieve it. Uh and we achieve it very well. Once we have a permanent facility, especially uh one that's going to be constantly changing out its attractions, like Netflix House, they need to get a grip with the entertainment. Uh less hype uh and more focus on the uh guest engagement. And for me, a fundamental concern that I have is that the mentality of the executive or the C-suite team is correctly placed. I am worried that both with Wonderverse as well with uh Netflix House, the management team are thinking in a theme park resort mindset rather than a location-based entertainment mindset. Understanding that location-based entertainment industry is about my favorite mantra, repeat visitation. Moving on, and uh India continues uh to blossom uh as a home for location-based entertainments and our friends at uh Hello Park after the success of uh their uh digital immersive entertainment experiences. They have about 50 of them dotted around uh the globe. Uh, they've just signed a major agreement with uh Indian-based uh franchisee, who is going to be rolling out a lot more Hello Parks and Hello Figital Parks uh into that diaspora. And I think it's going to be a good fit, uh, especially understanding the level of guest uh entertainment engagement that uh Hello Parks has achieved with their platform. One of the few of the projection mapped uh educational uh and interactive entertainment environments that really does uh you know achieve guest engagement, and not a lot of people talk about what which maybe is a benefit for them rather than a hindrance.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean I think these guys have been doing a good job for a while. Obviously, you don't get to be part of the facility chain if you haven't done some things right, at least along the way. Now, the thing is they're going to have to continue to make sure they evolve and stay relevant and keep their experiences fresh, which fortunately in a projection mapped environment, you have the ability to do that a little more easily than others, as long as the type of engagement you do have with those uh projection maps uh spaces is unique enough, is novel enough from what it was before. You can't just put a new skin on the same space necessarily without really changing the level of interactivity. I think one of the benefits that Hello Park, or not benefits, one of the things Hello Park has done differently than some of the other projection map spaces is the fact that they have interactivity, period. Like you can actually interact with interact with the spaces versus just walk around and like look at pretty things.
SPEAKER_00:They are a fidgetal, interactive, immersive experience. And every time I bring them up when I'm doing a presentation about active entertainment and fidget, a lot of the people scratch their heads because they're not familiar with them. But again, maybe keeping your secrets uh under a bushel is the best way to go in this current market. I don't know. Uh I touched upon this in open and shut, and I I just really wanted to ram home how important I felt this was. Our friends at the escape industry news site uh gave a breakdown in just a snapshot for the month of October of how many brand new mission rooms and escape rooms have opened up. The reason why there is an increase in the openings of facilities is, of course, of the seasonality. A lot of individuals are now thinking about for the holidays uh that they will go out in social groups, they'll do a private hire event, they'll, you know, the work team will go out and play. And the ability of opening up an escape room or a mission room is a lot easier than starting up an FEC. So if you look at the constant tirade of new location-based entertainment facilities that I've been listing in open and sharp, and then you have to add on top of that that this business is under competition with these number of uh brand new escape rooms opening up in North America, Canada uh and uh the UK over just a month period, you suddenly understand that the competition has changed a lot in trying to get that dollar out of your audience uh uh regarding that social group, that private hire, that party group. And again, from an industry standpoint, I am really surprised that our friends in the uh escape room and in the mission room business are kind of on the outside of the Venn diagram in our industry rather than being brought into the font.
SPEAKER_02:This is one of my biggest frustrations when I was on the Family Entertainment Center committee at IAPA, frankly, which was the fact that they didn't give enough credence to all the other location-based entertainment activities. Escape rooms were always one of my biggest examples I gave when saying we need to look beyond such a narrow view of what is considered entertainment and also what's considered family entertainment, etc. And I think that they get a uh definitely a short trip on um the like the attention that they deserve because they are continually expanding and they've built an incredibly loyal fan base that travels around the world to go to new openings and top escape rooms in the countries that their people live in and then also in the world. And so um it's definitely something that should be looked at more closely.
SPEAKER_00:Repeat visitation. Uh I it's easy to you don't have to shout as much in an echo chamber, and I understand why the associations would rather talk to their members and rather than shout outside of the tent, uh as it were. But uh again, I feel it's time that uh some of uh our executive team extend the hand of freedom to and friendship to uh the escape and mission room industry because they bring a lot to the table, especially when you're looking at competitive socializing, all of the attributes, staffing skill, and femality that is employed in a competitive socializing venue is already being developed and applied in a escape room or mission room. Anyways, that time.
SPEAKER_02:All right. Well, coming up after the quick break, we'll dive, we'll continue to dive into the trends.
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SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Alan. I'm looking forward to playing their uh missile command uh at IL. Yeah, yeah. I need to get up to date on that one. Anyway, moving into other of the tech trends that are out there. And we had a world record uh esports event, one of the largest live audiences watching uh an esports event based on a game which I'm sure many of uh the listeners and the audience here will not be familiar with. Uh Honor of the Kings is uh MMO uh mobile game. Uh it falls into the traditional Dota kind of style, but is incredibly popular within China, uh, with over a hundred million daily uh recurring or active members uh playing on this. And you know, if you have that type of audience, you can fill up a stadium to watch the the final and you can whip out$20 million to uh parcel out amongst the players. You know, uh each one of the team's uh members in the winning groups walked away with about 2.3 million. Now you can understand why esports is so important. And the most important part of it from our standpoint is that you can't do an event like this without it being a live event. You have to be in a facility to do this. You well, in a stadium in this particular case. The the uh the heats and the league buildups to the big games were not done in someone sitting in home, they were done at esports venues. And again, we talked about our friends in the uh escape room industry not being recognized by our industry. I don't think our friends in the esports lounge business are being recognized by industry. And don't come to me and say, oh, this is China, because then I'll have to take you to Korea. And if you go, oh, it's just Korea in China, then I'll have to take you to Japan. And then if you go if it's Korea China, I'll have to take you to America, and then I'll have to take you to UK because esports is still hot played in esports facilities as much as it is played at home. And I think our industry needs to understand that the competitive nature of uh this kind of live league performance is very profitable. And if you need an example of that, I'll give you Big Buck Hunter and Golden Teak Golf.
SPEAKER_02:I yeah, the one caveat I want to throw out here is don't hear what Kevin is not saying, um, which is that you should embrace this esports thing and try to put in an esports component into your existing uh you know family entertainment facility. So don't hear that that you know that it's been tried, it hasn't succeeded, and people continue to try it and it doesn't succeed. So that's not what you know he's saying here. What rather what he is saying is that we should be embracing or at least recognizing that esports facilities and venues are a key component of you know the location-based entertainment industry.
SPEAKER_00:I'm uh grateful for your translation of my poor explanation. The the fundamentals are we need leagues, tournaments, and competition to generate repeat play. We don't need to parachute esports into our facilities. Moving on, and uh another championship uh competition. Uh, our friends at MeLeap with the Hado system. Uh, for you that are not familiar, it's an augmented reality see-through system where you know player versus player shooting virtual lightning bolts at each other and uh using virtual shields. It is a very strong competitive game, and the Japanese company behind this has expanded its tournament play away from just its normal tournaments to now including uh the younger, the junior operation. So we're seeing this not just standing still, but now trying to incorporate as much audience as possible. And being able to incorporate a younger audience, you can link this to the STEM and educational kinds of components because physical activity and students is a big thing internationally.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, we've talked about these these guys uh and their particular experience, and you know, definitely am not a fan of the way that it's promoted, you know, very similar to what we were talking about with Netflix, where you know what you see on the screen is not necessarily the experience that you have when you come in. But look, you have something like this, it makes sense at some level, depending on how what you know how many players you have on a regular basis to build a tournament and to build uh you know an esports component, um, you know, aspect of this to drive that repeat visitation. People need to come in to train, teams need to come in to train, and that's going to drive that repeat visitation as well. So uh, you know, good for them for moving you know the needle on the championship element.
SPEAKER_00:I I would like to see uh Mealy try and re-reapproach the amusement sector here in the West, though the agent that they used last time didn't understand either markets, and so caused uh quite conf uh lot of confusion and wasted a lot of money. I think this could work, but it as you said, it would have to be presented correctly and less of the hyped CGI imagery and more of the reality of the play. Uh talking about the hyphality, and we get the details of what this Mr. Beast Land was uh going to be or is going to be, currently just about to throw its doors open as uh we go live on this. It is a temporary facility, not a permanent facility. So the media that was calling this a permanent theme park are busily trying to uh redact their press releases. It is part of the Riad season, which is the investment by the uh Saudi royal family into creating an entertainment period during a kind of a holiday uh uh time during uh the Riad uh I I I I've actually had the pleasure of uh presenting at a couple of conferences uh at uh during the season, and they you know they populate uh some open space uh around the capital with phenomenal uh temporary structures, uh some with entertainment, some with food, uh, some with conference spaces, and the esports uh uh organizations hold their big playoffs. Gamer 8 holds uh one of their major playoffs here. And what I think has happened here, or what we can from reading between the lines, is a large bag of cash has been uh deployed in front of uh Mr. Beast's team to create a themed uh venue that will appeal to their target audience. Uh the uh the Riyadh area is full of influencers and avid social media rights. Uh it looks like uh from the CGI images that have been created that it's off-the-shelf attractions, rebranded for the color scope of uh that they have decided for Beastlands. Uh, it looks like it comprises a number of temporary attractions, and it's going to be open from November till December, and I don't think anyone will remember it after it's gone. But enough of my flippancy aside, it is the beginning of the redressing of the Mr. Beast image after the failure of Las Vegas and a number of other projects, and I wouldn't be surprised that once the reactions are in to this uh light touch Mr. Beast Land that maybe someone will think about creating a more permanent location.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know, a few things here. One, you know, we've talked before on sound off on past sound offs about the concept of transmedia organizations. And, you know, we're seeing now he's attempted to do some location-based entertainment, but it's mostly been like event-based things that he's done, where this is the first actual what I would call like physical space that he's drawing people to with his name, besides like the Beast Burger, you know, thing that uh you know was obviously around for a while, right? Um, so this is um you know, this is a YouTuber who's uh now moving into transmedia world in the same way that Sony has done and Netflix has done, and you know, others are beginning to do as well. And so um it would be unsurprising to see other really popular YouTube stars do the same thing. In fact, you know, we actually on the LBX show just two days ago had one of the general manager of uh Spy Ninja's HQ in Vegas, which is a YouTube channel, and um and and they went and they built a physical ninja course uh you know and and family entertainment center. And so you know you're already seeing that in in a couple of examples. I would not be surprised if this were repackaged and then brought to other large parking lots, etc., to uh potentially be uh something that's moved around the country or moved around the world.
SPEAKER_00:I would agree with you there that if this does the type of numbers in Riyadh, the doors or the floodgates have been opened, and someone in the Western market or even in the Asian market will think we can just emulate that, get Mr. Beast's name slapped on it and roll it out again. Uh, I you know the Spy Ninja facility we had the pleasure of uh visiting uh a couple of years ago as part of uh the AAMA um uh uh conference sessions where we you know actually sat down with uh the influencers behind uh the concept. And it it is clear that if you have an audience, uh then you will be able to create uh some following towards a facility. Uh I think Mr. Beast's PR team is trying to find the right mix for that. And I'm looking forward to visiting Sound Off Land when we uh get enough followers uh uh uh to be able to create this. But yes, taking up a parking lot, populating it with reskinned off-the-shelf attractions, uh, and doing this as a short-term high-gain uh environment is open to any influencer out there who has an audience. And that's something we in the industry need to be mindful of because there's the benefits of that of brand new entertainment opportunities and new audiences, and there are the deficits of that of if you get it wrong, then you've got another Wonka world on your hands. Moving on, and uh talking of STEM or STEAM from the UK's point of view, STEM from the US's point of view, uh the inclusion of an educational component uh to your entertainment offering means that you can promote to a wider audience. And our friends at Dave and Busters have uh added a STEM program for young audience members to their facilities, which they're promoting through their web uh and their marketing. I've touched a little bit or looked into this a little bit. They're not the target audience that I normally deal with, and my involvements with STEM and STEAM-related education programs is usually through governmental investment rather than companies developing their own. But at least it is trying to appeal to a wider demographic and try to be inclusive rather than exclusive to your audience. So we cannot complain about that. How much of this is a serious investment into uh the educational field for uh their audience, or how much of this is a bandwagon, we will have to look and see.
SPEAKER_02:Oh well, I'll just leave it there. I I want to see how this plays quote unquote plays out.
SPEAKER_00:Um, you know, it's I don't want to be Debbie Downer on this. We we we need to see them uh uh actually achieve something.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, look, like the STEM has worked really well for you know, there's a STEM program for the bowling industry, there's a STEM program for the roller skating industry as well. So like this whole thing works really well. It just feels like a little bit of a stretch. Um just knowing what their game mix is and their attraction mix is at Dave and Busters to really be able to stretch out an actual real STEM program. Um, but again, you know, we'll need to see what this how you know how this plays out.
SPEAKER_00:It is a surprise that us as an aged industry. Um let's see, it's uh the uh eight uh 108th IALPA, allegedly, to my database. Uh why we have not come up with platforms for educational and STEM inclusion within entertainment facilities is a question we need to ask ourselves as an industry why it's taken so long. And you know, these small attempts by uh franchise chains uh to include something is uh you know is honorable, but it needs to be more focused. Uh around the time of uh uh this particular sound off going out and amusement expo will have taken place, but the dribs and the drabs of the information about what is being shown at the Japanese Amusement Expo event taking place a couple of days before the big uh Orlando bash uh have finally come to the surface. And our friends at Sega Fave uh in Japan have uh confirmed that they're going to be celebrating the UFO Catcher platform with a museum and a unique immersive experience. And from the video I've seen of this unique immersive uh experience, it looks like someone's been playing uh Vallo Arena uh and uh they've created an uh in-player game experience where the crane grabs you and your virtual representation game. It's at least an attempt. I don't know if this uh particular attraction is going to have a life outside of an exhibition uh component at the show. Um, in an ideal world, uh Sega Fave would have a conversation with Valomotion, and maybe that would be a fantastic license. That's the free consultancy. That's the last free consultancy you're gonna be getting from me, guys.
SPEAKER_02:There's no reason for this to exist independent of a Valor Arena or something else. So I would uh I would I would double down on that uh recommendation.
SPEAKER_00:But what do we know, Brandon? What do we know? Uh I couldn't talk about this last sound off. So uh those people that uh typed in the comments, uh, what was I alluding to? I was alluding to this regarding uh a new augmented reality uh experience uh appearing in the market. We were held under embargo uh uh the day before we were going uh going live. So that was really annoying. Thanks, guys. But anyway, our friends at Dream Park, as you know, have been rolling out two examples of their virtual theme park concept using uh head-mounted displays and pass-through so you see the virtual environment around uh a real world and you can interact so you can create a physical or fidgetal theme park without actually having to build physical elements. The company has rolled out two examples of this as test facilities, and now they have announced that they're going to be offering this as theme parks as a service. Suppose it doesn't roll off the tongue that well, but uh whenever someone says as a service, I sort of get that cold shiver remembering video games as a service that EA uh and uh uh other console and uh consumer game uh manufacturers did. Either way, you will be able as a facility, if you have some open space, to uh buy this product or license this product uh and uh have it operational in your facility. You will receive the headsets and the software, you'll be able to lay out the boundaries, uh, train your staff, and away you go. I look forward to trying the experience out at IALPA uh in a couple of days' time. Uh I haven't had the pleasure of trying the latest version of Dream Park. Uh I'm looking forward to seeing what you get for your Theme Park as a Service package, knowing that you're going to have to be paying a license fee for its operation. And I would love to know what the reaction was to their two soft openings that they have uh uh operated. Not the reaction from the staff or the audience, but revenue-wise. I would like to actually have some transparency to that because if you're going to get me to jump in and um dedicate space and staff to Theme Park as a service, I'd like to know what the return on that service is going to be.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, totally agreed. And um look, we're I think we're both scheduled to go check this out um you know this week at the uh at the expo. And so I am looking forward to trying out the experience for myself. Um you know, I have uh like a healthy level of skepticism, um, but also like a healthy dose of of like hopeful optimism too, that it's gonna be a great experience. Um, I do appreciate that the they're trying a new model, uh, right, like trying to sell this like almost as a quasi-franchise, but it really is um you know more like a an ongoing monthly license or annual license fee. Um, and it's an interesting business model that if I can drop it into an existing space or my parking lot outside of my FEC for some, you know, for some usage there if it's not being fully utilized, then maybe this makes a lot of sense for me.
SPEAKER_00:This could be the first of the digital theme parts as a service platforms. Uh, and this could be the beginning of Laser Tag 2.0. So I'm, you know, even though uh I may be the yang to your yin or whatever uh regarding uh the positivity, I am a skeptic and a realist uh when it comes to this industry uh because I I'm I'm more here about the achievable rather than the hypothetical, where our friends the word hype comes from. And I'm I'm a little concerned with this kind of concept, which is they've received a very small amount of investment uh from their uh Dragon's Den uh rollout uh and proposal, and now they need to go from the proposal to the reality, and I'm looking forward to actually trying that reality out in Orlando. Moving on, and uh some names of uh bounce back from the past. Uh uh Simtech is a well-known uh what I would call media-based simulation attraction company. Uh, I've had the pleasure of dealing with them over many moons. Uh they are both a simulation company. Their parent operation works in commercial simulation and training. So the motion bases uh and the dark ride technology they use comes from a commercial simulation background. And the company is known for its uh Hexobot uh platform. Uh they use motion bases as well as tracked systems uh to uh to move audiences through the Large e uh e-quality style attractions, e-ticket attractions. The company made an announcement, uh press release, uh, that they have now worked on a brand new concept, which will be shown at IALPA, which is a dark ride, a flat ride, um, and uh uh Blast from the Past. They're partnering with The Void. Now, this is the uh the remnants of the original The Void that uh uh worked with Disney on the Star Wars virtual reality experience and the Jumanji virtual experience for Sony uh as well as a number of other Wreck It Ralph and uh other kinds of experience. Um The Void was very famous for being boosted and hyped uh as a arena virtual reality experience, one of the first, received lots of support and interest, and then just before COVID crashed and burnt um for various reasons, which we haven't got enough time to go into. Anyway, the salvaging of that operation took place, and uh the void LLC emerged from that and actually developed an attraction that went into uh Wonderverse based on their uh Chamanja experience. That VR experience has been brought to the table again to create a dark ride uh experience. You're going to put a headset on, uh you're gonna stand in the queue line, you're gonna see a virtual world uh interposed, you're then going to get onto the ride vehicle, and that ride vehicle will be able to take you through an experience which will be augmented by the XR headset capabilities. That's as much as we know at this moment in time. Uh, we'll know a lot more at the press, the full press event uh at IALPA. Uh and be sure that we'll be watching this very closely, uh, especially because of uh those companies that are involved in this process.
SPEAKER_02:Do you do we know um at this press event if there will be the actual ride vehicle? Like we'll be able to experience that there, or is this just a demonstrator will be there? Okay, all right, interesting. I would have preferred it to be something where you know Dolph Robotics does this, you know, in their booth where you can actually experience their different rides and their ride vehicles and their different experiences. So that would have been the preferred path here. Um yeah, uh it is interesting that SimTech is going down this VR path. Um, you know, they're partnering with the Void when Dolph Robotics, you know, arguably one of SimTech's main competitors, at least at the location-based entertainment level, is uh is going the opposite. They're they're moving away from their VR experiences, although they still have them on some of the ride vehicles, but they're really moving into a wrap-around screen environments that are, you know, again, providing the same type of immersive experience, but without the complexity of adding a headset to the guest onboarding.
SPEAKER_00:Uh I originate uh prior to working with Disney, I originated from the commercial simulation side of transferring the ideas of the amusement and the gaming industry into simulation to then turn you know commercial simulation into entertainment attraction. So we've dealt with these types of companies, dealt with SynTech and uh all of the others before. I'm I'm mindful of how long it took for the commercial simulation boys to work out that uh gamification and interactivity was an opportunity for them only to jump on it just as the um interest went in a different direction. I'm hoping that this isn't the situation here where uh SimTech has finally jumped on this bandwagon just as the horses died. Uh, but that said, um the attractions industry liked new concepts. And one of the most uh populous uses of virtual reality has been on theme park attractions. Um, you know, going from the Merlin, uh Darren Brown ghost train experiences uh to what our friends uh at uh virtual coaster VR Coasters and uh Mac Wright do with their systems. We will be fascinated to see how the remnants of the void have now applied their skill set towards working with a attraction company. Uh, and uh there's a lot of expectation on the table that this will have to be something special to warrant the uh level of engagement that is going to be needed. Uh a lot of uh publicity created by AI. Uh so that's uh a no-no from me, but uh you know, if they need to get those pictures out quickly, I'll give them a little bit of latitude on that. Our friends at Sally have uh, you know, well known for their interactive dark ride systems as well. Um we are seeing this as a pattern in the market. If you can create a compact, dark ride, maybe even trackless uh um uh experience that it fits into a smaller space and so it can be utilized outside of e-tickets and be deployed into resorts and to location-based entertainments. Well, if you can do that for location-based entertainments, then you can also do that for aquariums and zoology uh facilities and museums. And Sally are going to be showing an interactive um dark rider experience utilizing interactivity and utilizing their unique guest turnaround feature for throughput uh at the show. I'm not sure if they're gonna actually have a physical version of the system there or if they're just going to be showing us uh potted sequences from their interactive experience. The only thing that I have, you know, I'm spread very thin trying to cover all of the industries where location-based uh X XR technology or immersive technology is being deployed. That is my specialty. And I have to, you know, I think maybe for the uh hundredth uh sound-off, I'll draw up the Venn diagram of all of the different areas of the market in which we have to be mindful of. And one of the things about thinking about this uh XR immersive technology being deployed into the aquarium, uh zoological and historical sector is that the individuals in that market don't look at uh gamification the same way that we do in the theme park industry. And sometimes it's a harder sell to deploy this type of entertainment into a uh water park or into an aquarium or a museum or a science center than it is selling it to a resort. Moving on to the AI trending, and it's that time of year where we get the latest Coca-Cola uh advertising, and Coca-Cola doubled down on last year. They received an amazing black eye from their audience for the AI Schlopp uh of their uh 2024 advert uh commercial. Uh, and uh for 2025 they've uh partnered with uh Real Magic and uh created another AI laden or uh uh 100% part work commercial. Um the AI is a little better, the schlopp is still schlopp, and the backlash is still there, and I think that uh maybe Coca-Cola is getting the message that uh maybe the audience doesn't feel comfortable of seeing their honored uh seasonal commercial tainted by uh the high level of AI, and there are many videos on YouTube I can point you to that just go through ripping this commercial, a brand new one. And there's suggestions, uh, you know, even I I think people are even suggesting of just going up to Pepsi and getting paying them to make a live action or handcrafted animated alternative to what Coca-Cola has created, whatever the reality is, um, it's not going the way that they want it to.
SPEAKER_02:I'm not sure what they wanted really from this, uh frankly. And it's it's a little bit mind-boggling. One, because the holiday Coca-Cola commercials have always had so much heart and emotion to them and nostalgia. For decades, they've done such a good job with their holiday commercials, and then to just make this pivot and turn, and then actually to double down on it. They're their head of marketing, like said, Hey, you know, we we can do with AI in a week what it would normally take us a month to do. I'm like, well, then spend a damn month to do something that you you know did in a week. Like you guys have the budget and the money and the time, like just get out ahead of it, and this just seems like somebody's laying down on the job instead of really thinking through what that narrative should be.
SPEAKER_00:I'm seeing a scenario in C-suites in certain corporations of um sunk cost fallacy where they've thrown their arm onto the chopping block and the arm's been cut off, and so they feel that they have to throw the other arm onto the chopping block just to be proven right and not to back down and admit uh failure. Um this schlop is not helping the brand. Uh the the comment, no such thing as bad publicity, always misses the next part of the statement, which is as long as you manage it uh and they're not managing this and it's getting out of control, and we're talking about the AI schlopp in the Coca-Cola seasonal advert rather than wow, wasn't the seasonal advert for Coca-Cola really nice this year? Uh I get the feeling that that extra uh weeks uh of development time that they've saved may be a good time for them to brush up their resumes. Moving on, and I feel very strongly about having my data uh acquired without payment or knowledge by the AI platforms. I've moaned about this regarding the archive of the Stinger report and all of the other articles that I've written that have ended up being utilized by uh uh as training data for large language model systems. Well, our friends at Meta have opted us all in. Uh so if you use Facebook or any of uh the Meta platforms, you're automatically opted in. The nice thing is though that you can opt yourself out. And that link there will send you to uh information on how you can opt yourself out of uh having your data used. I'm not suggesting you do that, I'm just giving you information uh that there is an option other than taking it. Um I leave it all for you. It's not that complicated, but again, it is important that you keep a record that you opted yourself out, because if you ever find that your data's being used without your permission, then I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg's got some money that he'd love to give you. Anyway, that's enough of it from me. Uh, please uh utilize our LinkedIn if you'd like to share information or our uh email. Please catch up with uh the latest of the Stinger Reports as well as the entertainment social arenas that have gone out. And uh if you have any information you'd like to pass on, or if you'd like to point out how wrong I am about my opinions, please don't hesitate. Did I cover everything, Brandon?
SPEAKER_02:Uh another phenomenal sound off for number 99, and really looking forward to that uh 100 and and the many different discussions we're going to have. So all right. Well, we will uh see you all on the show floor at IAPA Expo, and we'll catch up with you all next week.
SPEAKER_00:Have a good one.
