The LBX Show #53 - IAAPA Expo Kickoff, Speakeasy, Market Softness, and more!

Sponsored by Intercard!
Sponsored by Alan-1!

On this week's show, we kick off IAAPA week with a Guest Gab with Bryan Severance and a candid chat on market softness and repeat value, a sweep through openings and pivots with Kevin Williams, and a packed Arcade Corner with Adam Pratt with a preview of the games that deserve a test play. Clear takeaways: evolve your mix, protect your brand, and design for return visits.

• LBX Speakeasy times and Give Kids The World charity events
• QBIX Last Defense, modular unit sizes, redemption integration
• Conductr’s Monster Motel challenge rooms and throughput strategy
• Frontgrid Paradrop VR containerized pods and seasonal deployment
• Market softness, cost pressures, and mindset resets for operators
• Diversification for repeat visits and pricing for value
• Running an IP venue with Spy Ninjas HQ and leveraging fandom
• Data over ego when choosing attractions and layouts
• Openings: Adventure World, Emoji Planet, Netflix House, Genda rebrands
• Risks in brand dilution and mixing family with adult socializing
• 810 Billiards taking over Pinstripes footprints with more entertainment
• Escape room growth and competitive pressures during holidays
• Arcade Corner: Daytona’s return, Bandai Namco’s China-made lineup
• Unis videmption, Andamiro’s Nickelodeon Kart Racers, five-minute escape cabinets

Email BW at brandon@lbxcollective.com to pitch a Guest Gab topic or join the show.

Subscribe and visit LBX Collective for more!

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And IAPA Week Setup
• 2:04 News You Should Know: Speakeasy And Charity
• 3:41 New Attractions: CUBIX Last Defense
• 5:10 Challenge Rooms: Conductor’s Monster Motel
• 6:55 Paradrop VR: Containerized Pods
• 8:49 Guest Gab: Brian Severance Joins
• 10:23 Market Softness And Operator Mindset
• 13:20 Diversification And Repeat Visitation
• 16:22 Running IP-Driven Parks: Spy Ninjas HQ
• 20:45 Pricing, Value, And Don’t Limit Guests
• 24:05 Choosing Attractions By Data Not Ego
• 27:51 Open And Shut With Kevin Williams
• 29:20 Chuck E. Cheese Adventure World Analysis
• 33:12 Small-Market Megavenues And Merch Strategy
• 37:05 Riyadh Beastland And Temporary IP Plays
• 40:32 Emoji Planet Rollout And Clawcade Mix
• 43:40 Europe’s Evolving FEC To Socializing
• 47:22 Rebrand Pivots And Adult-First Concepts
• 51:06 Chuck’s Arcade Identity Questions
• 54:12 Tokyo Crane Expansion And Netflix House
• 58:13 810 Billiards Reclaiming Pinstripes Sites
• 1:01:20 Iconic Piers Under Pressure
• 1:04:10 Genda’s Rapid Rebrands And M&A
• 1:07:22 VR Arcades, Rents, And Repeatability
• 1:10:05 Escape Room Boom And Competition
• 1:13:02 Arcade Corner: IAPA Game Previews
• 1:15:20 Sega Daytona Returns And Namco Lineup
• 1:19:08 Unis Big Booth And Videmption

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:00

Turning you in now to the LBX Show. With your host, Brandon Wilde. Brought to you by the LBX Collective. What community to connect, engage, and inspire.

SPEAKER_04: 0:22

Well, welcome everybody to the LBX Show for November 16th, 2025. I'm your host, Brandon Wiley, and this is a special week because it is IAPA week. We are literally in Orlando this week, checking out all the cool stuff at IAPA Expo. So excited to see so many people and just check out so many things. Have a long list of booths to visit and attractions to check out and amusement pieces to review and just people to hang out with. And so so excited. It's going to be like a crazy whirlwind week. And I hope you are all as excited as me. Um, but for this show, first we're going to dive into uh a news you should know. We're going to cover a few things that we haven't really covered on Open and Shut or on Arcade Corner yet or on Sound Off that I just want to I want to get out there in front of you so you kind of have a few things to go and visit when you're at the show floor. And then we'll roll into roll into a guest gab with Brian Severance. He is the director of Spy Ninja's HQ in Las Vegas, as well as the CEO of Fallout Zone and a board member at IATP. And we'll be talking about all the latest trends in the active play and adventure park space, as well as the importance of evolving the attraction mix in your venue. Then we're going to jump into a pretty robust open and shut with Kevin Williams to again review all the latest openings and closings and the trends from the last week. And then lastly, we're going to hear from Adam Pratt from Arcade Corner as he covers the final round of new amusement releases that are going to be showcased at IAPA Expo this week. So that is our show for today. Let's get started with some news you should know. All right. Well, it wouldn't be a uh news you should know leading up to IAPA Expo week if I didn't talk about the return of the LBX Collective Speakeasy. And it will happen every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week at 4:30 in our backdrop behind our booth. Um so this is where we will be serving up Negronis and old fashions, as well as our very own Galaxy cocktail that uh was super popular last year. And so we'll have more of that available. So come hang out with us inside the speakeasy. Uh would love to have you there and uh just chill for the last hour, hour and a half of the day while we're there. So um on Sunday, then also there is a golf tournament. So this is uh both these events that I'm talking about here benefit Give Kids the World Village, which is uh really focused on providing cost-free vacations for children battling critical illnesses. I don't get involved with the golf tournament, but I've been involved for many years with footprints for the heart. I've been a runner for their 5K for uh since I started going to IAPA, but then I've also been involved on the committee helping do fundraising and stuff for them. Um if you scan the QR code, you can join the LBX collective team either to walk the 1K Thursday morning of IAPA or run the 5K with me, or just donate and support the teams that are going out there and doing that. You can donate to any of the teams. Betson has a very large team, always has uh a lot of uh donations come in through their team, and so you can certainly join any of the others as well. So definitely do that. And uh so a few other things here uh that we are going to cover. Um, first of all, Cubics has a new game, and they are launching this new game at IAP Expo. They're uh in booth number 4274, and you can go check it out, right? So brand new game uh called Last Defense, and it looks pretty interesting. Uh you know, it looks like a like a mobile game meets like a zombie shooter. Um, so it should be fun. I'm gonna go definitely check that out sometime during the week. It's a six-player group gameplay or up to six-player group gameplay, and you know, just again trying to encourage repeat plays, but they also have um some additional units and sizes that they're releasing or unveiling at the uh expo. So venues can now choose between cubics, which is the standard cubics, cubics play, or you can go even larger with the cubix multi-units, which you know, basically then you can choose from a layout that fits your traffic, your space, your business model. Um, so definitely you know, go check these guys out. They're you know continually innovating. They have nine other titles besides this uh latest last defense that are out there. And then one of the neat things that they've done recently is they've now integrated with redemption. So you can now connect the games and as you play to a redemption experience. So it used to be purely just video game, you know, kind of interactive. We used to call immersive immersive enclosures, um, but now they have a redemption component connected to that. So that is cubics, and you you know, you can take a look at what they've got at booth 4274. All right, then the next thing I wanted to touch on is these guys, you know, conductor. Now we talk about conductor quite often, and um, you know, they are uh their their sub subsidiary, I guess, uh you know, called GameVolt, as you know, puts out a lot of different social entertainment attractions like electric shuffle or you know, those kind of things. Um, or you know, interactive shuffle board. They just recently launched a uh clay pigeon shooting experience as well. Well, they are um they have launched this new concept called Monster Motel. They're challenge rooms. Okay, so they're getting into the challenge room business. Challenge rooms aren't new, they're not unique to conductor. Uh, there are many other groups out there that do challenge rooms, but they are built, they've built this so that you can take you know up to 10 themed rooms, which are connected by what they say a flexible routing system. So there's actually 27 different ways to experience the attraction, which I thought that was one of the more interesting things. I mean, a challenge room, I don't mean to disparage, like I think challenge rooms are actually excellent and a great attraction to add into a facility, but you know, at the end of the day, like the challenge room is a challenge room. I thought what was interesting is the fact that by just taking 10 themed rooms, you can actually experience them in 27 different ways. I thought that was very clever. Um, they say that you can basically have about 120 guests per hour through this, which is about 10 times the throughput of what you expect from a typical escape room. Um, but uh, you know, so it's obviously meant for that high throughput, but there's physical gameplay, digital logic, really interesting set design as well. And so there is ultimately a dramatic boss room finale, too. So I don't know if all 27 ways lead to this boss room or if that's just one of the 27 ways, I'm not sure. So definitely intend to go and learn more about them at their booth. And their booth is, I'm not sure. I honestly don't know what their booth number is. I haven't looked it up. Uh they didn't have it in the press release. So uh miss on them, I guess. But uh, you could look it up on the IFA Expo map and go check them out. I'd plan to. All right. The next thing I wanted to touch on here is uh and also the last thing for today for News You Should Know is Front Grid. So I have talked about Front Grid a handful of times, but uh they it hadn't really popped up on my radar until most recently when they just un um unveiled and announced their Paradrop VR uh containerized pod. So the Paradrop VR pod has been around for a long time. That's actually a really enjoyable experience. I've I've I've enjoyed Paradrop every time that I've been on it. Um and I really, you know, again, enjoy their experience. And so what they've now done is create a containerized version of this. And it's you know got a couple of pods. You can see some of the images here. Um that uh and and now you can actually drop them in different places, right? It's it's a you know containerized version. So you can put them into outdoor facilities, you know, outdoor places, you know, you could drop them in kind of for like a cool containerized, like almost triotech feel inside of your FEC if you didn't just want to have a single Para drop VR pod hang in there. Um, but you know, the whole idea is you could have it permanently outdoors because it's in a container, it can be closed up. You could bring it in seasonally for different times for different experiences, or even have it as a mobile unit to go around with carnivals, etc. So um, you know, I think it was an interesting approach that they've taken to have this containerized version. And I don't know that they'll have their full containerized version available at their booth, but they will be obviously showcasing their Cardrop VR experience and product, and you can get them at their booth number 1765-1765 at IAPA Expo. All right, that is some news you should know. Coming up after this, we've got Guest Gab with Brian Severance. They introduced Cash Class technology to the user industry and have been leading the way for over 30 years. Caspa technique for InnerCard increased customer spending and debt satisfaction and boost revenues by up to 30%. Intercard is still proud of the 30 industry. If you are already part of a global family of customers, they hope you will become one too. All right, well, hey Brian, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_07: 9:42

Well, thanks for having me on. I gotta say, actually, that was uh that was a pretty sick intro, to be totally honest with you. I was kind of impressed.

SPEAKER_04: 9:48

Oh nice, all right. Well, thanks. Thanks for that. I worked I worked really hard at finding the perfect template uh that I could that I could be put the words out. So that was great. Umada, right? What's that?

SPEAKER_07: 10:01

I said that's the way to do it though, right?

SPEAKER_04: 10:03

It is, it is, yeah, exactly. Um at least it wasn't AI, I didn't use AI to generate that. It was it was you know, an artist actually made that and I actually copied that from the artist. So uh there we go. Um, but you know, look, given all the different things that you you know, you know, you're you're you're in deep in the trampoline park and adventure park space. And so would love to understand, you know, what what are some of the trends you're seeing in the active play, adventure park, trampoline park space?

SPEAKER_07: 10:33

Yeah, you know what? I'd love it how you brought that up where you were like the the adventure park, active park space. Uh, you know, what's kind of fun is it's it's almost a little difficult to define ourselves now because we're really changing so quickly, right? I mean, you've seen it. You started back when uh trampolines were going. I mean, I was in the number four trampoline park in the United States way back in the day. And then and then to see how things shift to you know larger entertainment venues, experience-based entertainment, uh, you know, all of those kind of deals. Uh it it's it's just interesting that we're in a constantly evolving market that's just totally changing. And we're kind of in one of those uh one of those stages where things are changing again. Right. Uh I mean, we were talking a little bit before the the cast started uh about kind of the big players, you know, you've got your David Busters, you've got your Top Golf, you've got uh even like I would throw Sky Zone and Urban Air into those type of things. Uh uh Launch Trampoline, all of the bigger franchises that are actually doing more than just trampolines anymore, right? Everybody's doing these uh entertainment destinations. Um and right now in the market, uh, you know, I don't want to be the the first one to say it, but in the market, I I get to touch on all of these like non pop shops, big corporations, because I get to consult with those guys all the time. Um, and everybody's kind of in the same space, but nobody wants to admit it. Uh right now everybody's in this space of, hey, things are soft. Numbers are going down, the revenue used to just be humming after COVID. Uh, and now it's it's really started to kind of slow up a little bit, uh, but not everywhere. And I think that's kind of the key uh feature to this is that you've got some parks and you've got some types of uh some types of venues that are actually seeing a little increase there. And it goes along with what you were talking about earlier. It goes along with, you know, people, uh, what are they putting in there? What are the features? What are the uh what are the benefits we're giving the guests? What's the value that the guest is getting? But I mean, there's so many uh different variables in each one of these. I hate to always talk in like uh definitive terms depending on which park we're talking about, but there's just so many variables. One of the bigger ones though, right now, there there is a dip in the market uh and it's coming. It's usually uh entertainment parks are kind of the canary in the coal mine when it comes to you know economic times. People usually kind of tighten up when it comes to that experience experiential entertainment, uh, right before things get rough. So we'll see. It'll be interesting. You know, we did just deal with this whole shutdown thing, and that actually affected parks more than they want to admit. That's a lot of uh 30% of our economy that was not getting a paycheck.

SPEAKER_04: 13:18

So yeah, yeah, absolutely has an impact ultimately in expendable income, especially when you don't know when that is going to end. Um is this gonna carry on for another 60 days, another 90 days? Yeah, you know, how long? And so you've got to save your money to make sure that you can still do, you know, pay for the things that you need that you need versus the things that you want to go and do and experience. Yeah. You know, I think it's what I really find interesting is you know, we we talk about some of those big brands, and you know, we've talked, we we we on the LBX show, you know, we talk about the numbers, especially also on sound off Kevin Williams during, you know, on Tuesdays. We talk about these numbers and we see they're down year over year um in Steam store sales. And I think the the important thing there is like, look, if these big guys are down year over year and you're feeling a little bit like and you're a mom and pop, or you're a franchisee of a larger brand, um, and you're down, you know, a little bit, like look at that as like, hey, I mean, first of all, look, you can always evaluate and say what are the things I should, you know, I can control, what are the things I should be doing in order to improve on that. Um, but also to say, look, okay, there's clearly a trend in the overall market that uh maybe impacting me as well as it's impacting some of these bigger guys. And so it's okay. There's not some maybe anomalous thing happening to me only. Like this is happening there as well.

SPEAKER_07: 14:41

Yeah, yeah. Don't you don't want to get locked down in that fear, right? That just other and it happens as an operator. I mean, I've been doing this since '96. You can get into this uh almost fear paralysis of wow, what did I do wrong? All this stuff is just plummeting, it's dropping. And I mean, I've seen some parks drop 30, 40, 50 percent uh in just the last few months. Just these colossal drops year over year, right? Um so and that's big. Uh that's big, especially when you're dealing with inflated costs, right? We have higher costs now, maintenance costs, uh, even you know, swapping out to new attractions, things like that can be can be kind of costly. Um but there is there is some um, I think the first step, just like you said, the first step is realizing, hey, you're not alone in this, right? Uh we're all dealing with this same thing. Uh, it's going to be the people who get past that fear and make some adjustments and changes that are really going to protect their market share.

SPEAKER_04: 15:38

Yeah. Yeah. And I think what we've seen even with some of those large brands is diversification in what they're doing. And so I'll use Chuck E. Cheese or C entertainment really as like the bigger, the broader thing, right? C C Entertainment as an example of a brand, um, but you know, both at the brand Chuck E. Cheese level, but also at this EC entertainment corporate level, of looking to really diversify. They've added the Chuck's arcade, so these smaller format arcades to you know into malls. They've recently just launched their Chuck E. Cheese Adventure World, which is almost like a almost pure throwback back to Discovery Zone, right? Like this, so like pure active play, like crawling around and soft play tunnels and everything else. But they're really trying, and obviously they still have their arcade component, but they're really trying to diversify their approach to uh, I think take experiments about what the guest really is looking for, and and looking also at the markets they're in and saying, okay, well, maybe there's not a market for a classic Chuck E. Cheese, but maybe there's a market here based on what else is around in this area for a Chuck E. Cheese adventure world. And so they go and put in an adventure world. Um, and I think it is important to take these uh these times where things are maybe just not humming along and we're not taking for granted the fact that guests are flowing in automatically, but taking these times to reevaluate and think, okay, are there changes I can make to my attraction mix, to my entertainment experience, to my guest experience, et cetera?

SPEAKER_07: 17:06

Yeah, adding that value that we kind of talked about, right? Really giving uh being the only destination that these people want to go to because you've got this added value that really nobody else has. I'd like actually the term that you used earlier on when you said they experiment, you know, and that's what those guys are doing. They're they're putting out a bunch of these like satellite locations and they're testing it out, you know. And I think the best and the smartest part about that is that they don't get emotionally invested in one or the other, but that they're just open to the numbers. They're open to kind of see what's gonna, what's gonna happen, what's gonna change, right? Uh, but it does, it does go. The key point of all of this is really diversifying and making something that people want to come back to over and over and over again. Because it's so expensive now to get a client, right? To get a guest to come to your park or to come to your attraction, it's so expensive. There's so much competition out there. Everybody's doing ad spend and ad words. Once you get them in, though, right, you got to give them those experiences that just make them come back over and over and over again. And and you got to make it worth your while and it's got to be uh the right price, right? You you can't uh you can't white glove this mess and and then go into a tough economy and expect tens of thousands of people to show up every day at your park. You know, you're gonna get those individuals who uh you know who have the extra money to spend, but there's gonna be less of those uh, you know, in the in certain markets. There's just less of them.

SPEAKER_04: 18:32

Yeah. Yeah. And you talk about the cost of getting a new person in versus repeat guests. When I was yo hound, we were, you know, we were a promotion platform and the we always I always talked about the fact that it costs five times more to get a new person in for the first time, first visitor, than it does to get a repeat visitor. And so um, and and the if if your attraction mix isn't one that will bring in repeat visitation, then you're going to have to continue to spend so much more in marketing than if your guest experience, your mix, your you know, your entertainment experience is going to just naturally bring those guests back in and you're now able to recoup that cost, that upfront marketing cost, over multiple visits and get a better and greater ROI from that marketing spend on a per cap basis.

SPEAKER_07: 19:18

Yeah, and but yet how often, you know, when you were with Hound, did you just see that ball drop? As soon as uh, you know, like they would spend the money and they would say, Hey, well, well, there's a great ROI here, right? We're we're we're paying money, we're getting more back from our guest, you know, uh retrieval. We've got it, but then they just drop the ball. No email lists, no SMS, no, no, uh, no programs to bring them back, no, no nothing. Uh and uh yeah, that's that's really one of the things that uh that hurts these parks over time. Now you can overdo it. Uh, you know, there's uh I won't I won't say names, but from one of the companies that's having kind of a rough time in the stock market right now, I think I get texts from them three, four times a week of, hey, please just come down. It's free. Just come down to our place.

SPEAKER_06: 20:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07: 20:08

You know, and and you gotta be careful, you gotta be careful, you gotta watch the numbers, right? Because there's always that bingo point. Uh, that's what we always call it. I don't know if it's a flight term where you can, you know, you either got to keep going forward or you got to turn around because you only got so much gas. But it's the same thing when it comes to you know, marketing, ad spend, uh, even attractions and uh and additional value. Uh I've seen parks put too many attractions in or too much value into their ticket, and then they have no way of uh of monetizing that. Their costs are too high and they're unable to monetize the uh uh the park appropriately, uh, which can be the downfall of a great place.

SPEAKER_04: 20:48

Yeah, and you know, I think you've got uh, you know, with Spy Ninjas HQ done a pretty good job. I've obviously, yeah, exactly. I've I've obviously been there um in your facility, spent some time walking around. Um, and I think you've you've found a good mix of things that will drive the repeat visitation, you know, but you also have the benefit, frankly, of the Spy Ninja's brand. And so like we can talk a little bit about what it's like to work within an IP and a brand for an adventure park or trampoline park. Because that really hasn't been done um other than like the actual like ninja um ninja warriors, right? So Ninja Warriors has done that, especially in the UK. Um, but really in the active play space, there hasn't been a lot of IP pulled into it. So maybe you could talk a little bit about that experience.

SPEAKER_07: 21:35

Yeah, and this was the first one done, especially when it comes to uh YouTube personalities. So Chad Wilde Clay and V Quank, the the married couple, by the way, salt of the earth. These guys are like the best people ever. Uh, I love working with them. I I they ruined me. I can't work with anybody else because these guys are just amazing. Um they were key, and I mean 100% key in the opening success of Spine Anchor's HQ. When you talk about um you know return visits and things like that, the YouTube crowd gets that. Chad and V get that, they understand it. Their entire industry is based off of acquiring somebody, entertaining that person, and then keeping them through subscriptions, notifications, uh, you know, even doing shorts and things like that to keep them engaged with the intellectual property, right? Very, very, very important. Um, the entire story behind Spine Engine is just an amazing story. So, I mean, I highly recommend anybody to go and look it up. It's it's they're pretty amazing. Chad, Chad and V are amazing. Um, and you know, here's the other cool thing. Before we opened, you know, since we just talked about advertising, this is kind of interesting. Before we opened about a month, I was getting a little edgy because we hadn't spent a dime, not a dime on advertising. Not one. And and so I was a little edgy and I was like, hey guys, you know, we're gonna open here. We need to we need to start putting some money into advertising. Uh well, Chad and I were talking about it, and we actually got to the point where like, no, let's test it out, let's see it, let's see what happens. So our opening day was exclusively Chad and V. So all based on the intellectual property, all based on them just filming in the park before it was open, them presenting that the park was going to open. We had a line, you've seen you've seen the parking lot. We had a line from the door, double stacked from the door all the way to the back wall of the parking lot. That's for those of you that don't know it, look it up on Google. It's it's huge. Huge. Uh and and uh March to this date, whenever Chad and V come down and do like a signing, it is our biggest month of the entire year. So Marches are our biggest month always. It happens to be Chad's birthday, and we opened the park right around his birthday. So it's like the Chad anniversary, um, but it is ginormous. So these guys, um these guys, the intellectual property is is vital. Can't can you open parks without intellectual property? Absolutely. Totally can. But then you're recreating something new, right? And then you gotta spend a lot of that money on that acquisition of new guests. Um now that being said though, Chad and V have kind of given Spine Engine's HQ, the HQ brand, to guests, and now it's our job to make sure that we keep bringing them back in. And we do, we have uh we don't have any membership program currently, but we have guests that show up every week. Every single week they come in, they pay full price, they come in and they play. Um, and that's just uh, I mean, that's kind of proof that you know, once you have a good intellectual property, good brand, and good guest services, then you can keep those people coming back in. But we're actually starting a whole new advertising campaign. I just looked at my calendar, I think it starts in four days. So for the first time ever, we're gonna be out there just pumping spine inches HQ, uh, because we know what we're doing now, so we can handle the masses. Uh, and uh we want to get outside of the reach of the intellectual property, right? When it comes to 12-year-olds, everybody knows us, but we want to go outside that reach. We're now looking for the couples, the adults, the parents, um, really, because that's uh that's where you can expand your revenue. Uh far too often, I think a lot of parks, I mean, this is kind of a side subject, but I think far too often uh parks tend to uh limit their clientele. You know what I mean? In their design, in their layout, whatever it is, they just tend to limit their clientele by being too childish, too adult, whatever it is, and and not allowing individuals just to come in as a whole family.

SPEAKER_04: 25:37

So yeah. Yeah, and I think to that point, it's sometimes maybe they don't even limit it with the design or the layout, but they limit it in their minds in what a guest actually wants to do. So they make assumptions for their guests and say, oh, parents aren't gonna want to go jump on trampolines with their kids, or they're not gonna want to grandparents are gonna want to like go and do this zipline thing. Like they're they make these assumptions and um they really shouldn't, right? Like just create a great experience and then let the guest explore and see who ends up being uh you know, really the right thing, you know, the right guest type for your attractions.

SPEAKER_07: 26:13

Absolutely. Yeah, I it you do need to just be open to that experiment. I I'm surprised at some of the attractions that are most popular attractions, right? And you we did Google Analytics, we checked search terms, all that kind of fun stuff. But there's a couple of attractions that just are fan favorites. They the kids love them, the adults love them. We had a 92-year-old on our zipline the other day, she loved it. So, you know, it's uh yeah, you can't don't limit yourself. Definitely don't limit yourself. But you'll you'll find a lot of uh a lot of operators do that. A lot of operators. There's kind of a rule of thumb we have at HQ, which is um, you know, when we're picking either a new attraction or we're picking a new like arcade machine, uh, we always ask, well, do you love it? Like if I love the arcade machine, um, I don't buy it. I have to stop because I've I've picked some stinkers that I think are the greatest arcade machines ever. I've got to wait and kind of see what the market says uh and what the people say. You know, I we had a big uh discussion in our park, uh I think it was less than a year ago, where we bought toilet toss. I don't know if you know that machine.

SPEAKER_04: 27:16

Oh, yeah, I know toilet toss, yeah.

SPEAKER_07: 27:17

Yeah, great machine. You toss little balls of little turds into a toilet and you think, hey, that's not an upper class place. No, no, it's not. But you know what? It's the top five earner in the park. Um, and uh yeah, it does great. So it doesn't matter what I think about it, it doesn't matter if I think it's lowbrow. They love it. Let's let's put them up front, you know, and you and you gotta be willing to do that. You gotta be willing to take like your pride aside and just be like, eh, my pride doesn't matter. I'm still doing the greatest job on the planet, still the greatest place ever. Let's just push that off to the side and let's make sure we give the fans what they want.

SPEAKER_04: 27:49

Yeah, I love it. I love it. All right, well, Brian, thanks so much for joining us for some guest gab. And look, I'm sure we're gonna have you on again in the near future. So it was great talking with you.

SPEAKER_07: 27:59

Oh, anytime. We love doing this, love talking about the industry. So you guys are great. We love you guys. Awesome.

SPEAKER_04: 28:14

Whether it's perfectly fine three, so it's a good thing. Alan One is updated. Every venue is not 504. 15 is also gas. Alan Dash One.com to learn more. That's Alan Dash One.com. All right. Well, that was awesome. Spending some time talking with Brian Severance from the Spy Ninjas HQ, which actually gets a reference as well in uh sound the upcoming sound off. So you know definitely um you know go and give that a listen. Um, that being said, if there is ever a time that you want to join me on this show, on a guest gap, you have a topic that you want to cover, let's fucking go. Let's do it. So hop, uh you know, shoot me an email, Brandon at lbxcollective.com, or just reach out through our website, through the contact, or whatever. But I'd love to figure out different topics to talk about here on the show. So um please do reach out if it's something you want to do. All right, coming up right now, we've got some open and shut with Kevin Williams.

SPEAKER_00: 29:33

Hey, welcome everybody to uh the latest uh open and shut. I hope I find you well, Brandon.

SPEAKER_04: 29:39

Doing very, very well. Looking forward to spending a week with you in Orlando.

SPEAKER_00: 29:46

Not many people have said that. Uh yes, it's going to be a packed couple of days, and I'm looking forward to it. But a lot to get through here. Uh, and we jump straight Straight into yet again another large selection of uh new openings. Uh some interesting ones here, as always, and also an interesting ending. But uh more about that in a couple of seconds. So we jump straight in, and the one that a lot of people have been talking about. Well, one of the two big ones that people have been talking about has been the uh doors being thrown open on Chuck E. Cheese Eventual, which is from some people's point of view, the uh entry of Disney into the active entertainment facility business away from their eatertainment pizza and play uh model. Uh the walkthrough videos that we've seen show a uh minimalistic uh approach to the uh amusement and activity center. And it is clear that this version is a very strong test model towards the other facilities that are meant to be in development as we speak.

SPEAKER_04: 31:02

Yeah, I mean, I really wish I knew the next time I was going to be in the Dallas Fort Worth area, especially on the west side, you know, up in Arlington to be able to go check this out because everything I see gives me, and we've talked about this before, but gives me like Discovery Zone vibes. I grew up in Discovery Zone, like I was a little bit on the upper edge of that when it was uh when it was really popular, so I didn't get to go a whole lot, but it gives me those vibes so much. It like is a just from the videos, is like a little bit of that nostalgia. Um, but you're interesting that you say it's you know feels like very clean. Um, I think it does, but they've done some really interesting branding and stuff as well, like little shop windows with their characters, and they've really infused all of their IP and their different characters into this adventure world concept and done some really interesting like storytelling and narrative, at least from what I can tell on some of the walls, uh, to get people engaged in this adventure world concept.

SPEAKER_00: 31:59

Now I'm going to apologize to our audience. I'm going to be using this phrase a lot during this one. Uh, we will go into this in more detail in the coming sound off. Uh there's some definite things that we need to unpack, uh, especially some of the research that I've had to be doing uh looking at what this brings to the table. Moving on, and a family entertainment operation. So we don't get that many of them uh at this level, uh, but a family has decided to enter into the karting and amusement sector. They've uh developed a uh facility uh in Idaho, and we're interested that it's just thrown its doors open. Now, you can tell it's a family operation if you try and do a search uh on the uh website, as Brandon, I'm sure, is doing at the moment, uh, and also on their Facebook and all of the things that should be in place aren't really a hundred percent in place at the moment. But from the information from the local media, this seems quite an ambitious uh uh entrance. I was actually surprised to find that the Extreme Rush brand name hadn't been taken. So someone's doing some research. Uh I would say that this is one to watch because if they get this right with this particular facility, especially in the locality where they are, then I expect to see many more opening up.

SPEAKER_04: 33:24

Yeah, well, and we we don't have it on this logo here, but they you know what makes me think that they maybe have some aspirations of doing more than one location is that they did introduce this like sloth uh character. So yeah, I feel like anytime I see IP being created and brought into something, especially early on, that like tends to, at least for me, tends to think that they're thinking bigger than the single location. Um, that being said, I really do get concerned about these types of large facilities going into areas of population that are like sub-100,000 people. So there's 57,000 people in this in this town. And you know, you could say, oh, well, we maybe know what's surrounding area. Well, the problem is you zoom out, it's Idaho, you zoom out, and you're you're 30, 45 to an hour from any other near nearby city. And so that does um create a concern for me for these guys. But you know what? Like they definitely are trying to put something out there.

SPEAKER_00: 34:24

If you're uh supporting corn or uh military silo personnel, then uh you're you're you're limited uh on your uh catchment. That said, uh I I'm I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one, though I also get the vibes that they may have attended either one of my conferences or a Foundation's Entertainment University conference because they they're they're applying themselves in a certain pattern. We will see. We will visit this again.

SPEAKER_04: 34:52

Yeah, and real quick before we move on, because I think this is really interesting. Uh, you know, so I went um obviously on their site, and and um, you know, the site's not great, by the way. Um, it feels very like early 2000s, maybe late nine 1990s, um, you know, website vibes. But I clicked on Black Friday Deals are here. You know, first of all, look, they're already thinking about Black Friday, it's two weeks in advance, like they're doing the right things, and actually I would I would uh congratulate them for that. And when I do click on it, what's interesting is um that I can get a bunch of like logo, like branded merchandise. And so they're already thinking about selling merchandise. Again, this like leads me to think that they're thinking bigger than the single location. Um, but the fact that I can go and I can buy this now again, not a great store, not functional, like the visuals and all those things need to be.

SPEAKER_00: 35:43

The foundation is there, the branding isn't.

SPEAKER_04: 35:46

That's exactly what it's like. They are thinking of things, right? They are thinking of this stuff. Family fund packs, like heavily discounted for Black Friday, you know, two hundred and hundred dollars from 150. Like, so they're thinking through this stuff already, which is a good sign.

SPEAKER_00: 36:02

Uh, we will revisit these guys again. Moving on, and uh Beast Land. Uh, I touched upon it in a sound off. I've now been given the uh uh 411. Uh the the issues are that this is funded by uh the Saudi royal family as part of the season. Um they wanted to have entertainment as a major component of the season. I've actually had the the pleasure to present uh two years ago at the season uh in Riyadh, and uh they drop quite a coin for the entertainment aspects, and it was felt for their audience that they would create Beastland. It is off-the-shelf uh attractions, rebranded and dumped into a parking space uh which will offer multiple attractions. Um I'm I'm gonna stick my neck out here, as I always like to do, uh, and say that this is a cookie-cutter approach to IP. This is trying to make up for what happened uh with uh the Las Vegas event and uh other events. It's a reinventing, and the most important part about it is a large bag of cash. Um, so you know, this is a no-brainer if you're doing it off the shelf. There are a couple of companies that I normally work with regarding season, uh the season in Read, which I wouldn't be surprised if they have, you know, gone to their warehouse and pulled uh products out and re sprayed them and uh positioned them uh correctly for this. This is a temporary installation. All of those media services that jumped on the uh Mr. Beast opening up a permanent theme park have now uh I noticed deleted a lot of those posts. It is a temporary installation that will be gone by December, and like the sands in Riyadh, will be forgotten.

SPEAKER_04: 38:05

Yes. I couldn't have said it better myself.

SPEAKER_00: 38:10

Moving on, and we have the opening. I I think I've gone ahead of myself a couple of times in the past, uh on especially in sound of talking about the opening of the first North American uh emoji planet. The first North American uh emoji planet will be opening in Canada. This one is supported by our friends at Player One, uh Amusement, uh uh who are by Gender, just for our Gender moment. Uh, and obviously they have gone for a mall installation. You know, I've flown through the video that has been created by a couple of colleagues of ours. It it looks a very interesting approach to a branded entertainment facility. And anyone that's been following what we've been talking about in the Stinger report recently, we've been following how IP and branding is important to our sector. My only point of reservation here is how quickly they can roll this kind of thing out that can then compete with the clawcades, because I was surprised to see a much larger entry of claw components to the emoji planet uh property than I was originally led to believe.

SPEAKER_04: 39:25

You know, I am happy to see that this thing has actually gained um traction at last, right? I mean, I think we were together meeting with uh, you know, Steven, I think Amusement Expo maybe a year and a half ago. Um and you know, he had just I think was just developing this emoji planet concept. He had developed a number of machines that branded around the emoji uh IP, but then had was like creating this emoji planet and you know, glad to see that it's been picked up by player one to be rolled out and operated. And obviously, you know, player one being uh you know now a part of Genda, I think it'll get some juice behind it.

SPEAKER_00: 40:01

I think we we've got that supercharged moment where it'll go from pro uh proof, because obviously we've had the UK opening in Blackpool. I don't know how much of the information from that has gone towards uh helping uh develop this this one, and then I expect to see a rollout, especially with what player one's up to at the moment, but uh more after I apple regarding that. Moving on through, and obviously, you know if I go through too quickly some of those, you've just hit the pause button. But the one that uh came to mind interestingly for me was uh uh another French uh karting, bowling, well, sorry, no, not karting, no, I have to be clear here. So bowling, quiz rooms, uh virtual reality, laser tag, billiards, amusement facility. I am very familiar with the the game factory, uh the games factory operation. They have 13 facilities out there, but to start to see this kind of migration from the traditional FEC European approach to more what I would call a competitive socializing kind of environment where it will apply to the younger audience at the beginning of the day, but is definitely aimed at the older audience at the end of the evening, is telling us, you know, quite literally that we're gonna have to come up with new terminology, not just for mule, but also for FEC.

SPEAKER_04: 41:28

Yeah, and I struggle with this brand a little bit only because each of their locations is it has a different mix of attraction. So some like that's why you said carding, right? This particular location doesn't have carding, but some other locations do have carting. You have uh some locations that just have a quiz box and like their quote unquote present island, which is like their escape game concept. And so like there's very there's there's like a wide variation. And I think the problem with that is like you know, there's both a benefit and a problem. One of the benefits is that you get to try different things and you're obviously adjusting your mix for the particular region and what other things are there. That's the benefit. The downside is if I am going from one games factory and I travel across the country to another games factory and I walk in and it's not what I was expecting, then you know, we have a brand disconnect and an ex a guest expectation disconnect.

SPEAKER_00: 42:23

It's easy to manage something like that with uh correct branding and guest experience expectations. At the moment, their marketing team just has uh gone for the cookie cutter approach, and hopefully they'll learn that maybe some color coding, maybe some uh coming up with uh games factory light and game factories max, as our friends at Gravity have gone for, uh, is a way to manage those expectations. The last thing you want is someone who's expecting a karting experience, like my brain obviously seems to be trying to do, goes to this facility and then is disappointed.

SPEAKER_04: 42:59

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 43:02

Interesting derivation, or should we say, pivot? Uh, I've pointed to uh our French facility friends uh moving towards a more uh mixed entertainment audience. Here we have an example that could have fitted into the uh closings and sales section, which is we had a escape entertainment facility, which I think I actually touched upon in one of the earliest of uh the open and charts. Uh and they threw their doors open, they operated their bowling facility and their escape rooms, and obviously it didn't go the way they wanted. And now we see the opening of Rebel. Now, this still seems to have the bowling facility, but the lights have been turned down. Um, a lot more edgier design uh and facility. I have two problems here. Nothing wrong with the entertainment facility that they're creating, as uh as long as their mix is correct and they've got enough uh hospitality uh to support their move or pivot towards competitive socializing. And I'm led to believe this is a brand new operations team who've come in and take this as a going concern and reprinted it. The problem I have with is the brand that they've decided on. You type Rebel into a search engine in the UK, and you're going to be inundated with a retailer that sells clothing, a retailer that sells women's shoes, you're going to be also inundated with uh other rebel companies, which are part of the lingerie, uh, because the name Rebel, uh both with double L and single L is linked to the fashion industry. And why they picked this particular brand name will escape me. And I wouldn't be surprised if we're going to be sitting here in a couple of days' time hearing them change their brands to Rebel Social, just so that they become a unique search engine.

SPEAKER_04: 45:03

Yeah, I'm actually surprised. I would have expected them to do a Rebel Social anyway, like just because when you see these types of social halls, social you know, competition, um, social entertainment, you tend to see the social after that, right? Like it you know, just kind of tells you what's going to be in it. Um, it tends to anyway, as we've kind of gotten used to that. And maybe that's just because we see these names all the time. Um, but I think generally I would have expected them to do that. And you know, when you look at the the site too, they actually have a um a breakdown in their own branding. Um so you know, I'll quickly throw this up here. Um it's uh share this task. All right, here we go. Um, so they've got the capital R, the lowercase E, the capital B, you know, then whatever. So capital can sort of camel case is what we call that. And then rebel social. Yep. And then you have here it's all lowercase RE with the big B, like every every one of their attractions instead of the capital R, lowercase E, capital D. So I just some of those things are just little inconsistencies that they need to like fix with their branding and shouldn't be inconsistencies, frankly. And then, you know, I appreciate their approach to uh having place for kids with the you know, kids, this mini rebel area where they can go and bounce and jump around and climb around, but really the entire focus here, both in branding and styling and everything else, uh uh is is like for adults, and they're trying to sh like jam kids in here as well.

SPEAKER_00: 46:28

If you don't understand the market that you're getting into, you don't understand that it is oil and water to mix young uh guests uh uh amongst uh older guests, especially where alcohol is involved. I understand the venue has access to the traditional uh uh escape entertainment soft play components, and maybe they thought it was a good idea to keep them. But if you have not worked out a way to separate your audience or delineate your audience separation, you will regret that. The one thing you never want to have is young children running around when adults are trying to relax in social entertainment. That leaves a message in their brains that they never want to go back there. And again, these are the lessons that anyone that works in the sector would know, but uh those that are entering this market for the first time that don't understand that you don't use a soft R and a hard R in your marketing material may need to learn very quickly. Moving on, and we have the latest opening. Uh so Chuck's Arcade. We had 10 of those uh what which were really funspot facilities that were rebranded into their interpretation of uh the Chuck's Arcade concepts, which has been described to me now as uh a retro entertainment enthusment, uh, whatever enthusment means these old days. Um the concept now uh seems to be a deployment into available space, and so we can see the uh the black and the orange uh and the red that was quite uh prominent with the uh last 10 facility rebrandings. We now see that this uh location in Florida, not a million miles away from where we're gonna be, um, is really a population of a space with amusement machines. Uh I've I've just looked at the photo, walked around this space, and I couldn't see anything that really jumped out at me to single this out as a Chuck's arcade uh compared to what we'd seen previously, and more like an uh arcade rec room 40 uh facility, uh 40 machine uh installation uh with uh uh professional support. If this is where we're gonna go with the Chuck's arcade, it will be very interesting to see uh how this migrates. Are they going to be competing against some of the other um street route arcade facility operators? Again, a phrase I'm using a lot now is it seems that the account has turned up with a sharp pencil on the femaleity here.

SPEAKER_04: 49:14

Yeah, I mean, so this is part of Coco Beach Pier, and um, and so it has like the interior and even like it leads right out to the boardwalk. So it has like a very beach boardwalk feel. Like if you zoomed in, if you were able to zoom in on these images, though the the walls and the the like are actually like wave type stuff. Like it's like they came in and just took over an existing arcade. This really feels like this could have been like a family entertainment groups um in the game or something like that. Like somebody just come in, like you took like you've sort of alluded to, like just some other operator, uh, instead of like a very specific Chuck's arcade brand, um, which is disappointing. I think they really should lean into the uniqueness behind their brand instead of just like coming in and being some like basic arcade operator.

SPEAKER_00: 50:00

It's very dangerous at this early stage for them to lose uh their identity, especially in a target-rich environment. But I'm just throwing it out there. There is also the possibility that this Broadwalk uh facility has very strict rules uh about how much themality can be uh added to uh their units. Again, I'm I'm not gonna read too much into it, other than saying that this looks light or what they're trying to get forwards with the Chuck Arcade. Our uh second part of the Gaigo moment, it seems, uh, is uh the latest opening in Tokyo. Yes, you can still find places to open uh Gaigos in Tokyo. I thought you'd have run out by now, but no, no, no. We have uh 80 cranes, uh 60 amusement, uh photos, sticker machines uh going into a retail component, part of the vast uh metropolis that is Tokyo. Um just the continuation of the growth of their brand.

SPEAKER_04: 51:00

It's wild.

SPEAKER_00: 51:02

Wild. And then the other uh pivot, uh the other big announcement that's uh taken place this week in the build-up uh is Netflix House finally threw its doors open in Philadelphia. Um, the hundred thousand square foot facility. We now get an a much better handle on what the guest engagement is, the two key amusement components, the uh attraction components, the mini golf, the amusement, the food, the merch, the screening. We get an idea now. You can walk around this facility free, but then if you want to exercise any of the uh attractions you have to pay, and the payment is a little higher than we were actually led to believe because of the combine and the deals that you have to do. We're gonna talk about this a lot more in detail uh in sound off, but the point is it has begun. And uh with this beginning, we can now start the stopwatch towards how much of what they've just done at the Philadelphia facility will be modified when they throw the doors open at the uh Dallas facility in the following months' time.

SPEAKER_04: 52:15

I will reserve any future any any comments currently for the future sound off, or we'll cover that, we'll get we'll dive in a little bit more. So I'll hold off my comments there.

SPEAKER_00: 52:24

Thank you for that. Uh and then we come to the shots uh and the restructurings. I talked about how long it would be before someone jumps into the empty spaces of the uh pinstripes uh venues that were made available and uh our friends at uh 810 uh billiards just gone straight in uh uh to one of the facilities in uh Illinois and stripped it, burnt it, started again, and made it one of their entertainment uh facilities. Uh luckily keeping the staff, luckily rebranding, luckily keeping the momentum going. And I'm led to believe uh that uh 810 have got plans for some of the other facilities that are open. So, an example of uh that transition where, you know, it may not work for you guys, but there's someone that will make it work.

SPEAKER_04: 53:20

You know, and so I I was a little bit skeptical that somebody, and I know you were you this is something you've been mentioning, you know, since we first you know heard that pinstripes was going down the drain. Um, but you mentioned you know somebody can come in and make it work. And I'm actually really encouraged that A10 has come in to do this because one of the biggest issues or or things that I had with pinstripes is that they really were overbuilt as a restaurant and they had very little entertainment mix and they were primarily restaurant. They had some bocce, they had some bowling here and there in some of their locations, again, not all of them. And what I like about A10 is they sort of flipped that on its head. You know, there's obviously still going to be the restaurant and bar components, it's a central part of their pinstripes facility build out. But now you've got arcade games, you've got billiards, which is gonna take up more space instead of dining tables. You've got the virtual sports, so you've got their, you know, their their um bays, their their golf bays um and simulators, and then you know, obviously the full service dining. So I think this is uh it's a good partner to come in and rework these facilities into something that's gonna fill up more of the space with entertainment.

SPEAKER_00: 54:29

I was having a conversation with uh uh a possible client, shall we say, uh, and they were defending the food and hospitality components, and I was trying to explain that we're in the entertainment business. Uh I I think after the 810 announcement, they they kind of had to change their opinion. Um I I have been going to the Brighton Pier uh for most of my career uh while in the UK. It is a major seaside tourist venue. Uh it is a multi-attraction and amusement component, and it has been through numerous hands. It traces its roots back to the Victorian period when uh creating uh seaside piers was the Deriger thing to do for the uh Polite Society. It it's gone through many phases. Uh, it's appeared in a number of popular films. Anyone that knows Quadrofinia will have seen uh uh the the silhouette of uh the glorious uh Brighton pier there. The problem is that the UK is definitely going through some changing times regarding if you have an established uh entertainment facility trying to redress your pricing model and your rent model and your staffing model to the current conditions of uh the finances uh globally uh as well as the economics of uh dealing with local government is difficult. And the threat has been made by the owners of uh Brighton Pier that they are if they don't see some relief from the local council and if they don't see some relief from government, uh then this thing's going up for sale. And that's kind of blackmail, and I'm not a fan of blackmail.

SPEAKER_04: 56:19

Yeah. Yeah. Uh you know, I'm a big fan of boardwalks and and these types of piers and entertainment destinations, and so it's always disappointing to see something that's got so much history like this, uh, you know, being potentially on a chopping block.

SPEAKER_00: 56:37

I I assume that who would ever want to get their hands on it would be part of uh a major conglomeration rather than a single acquirer. And I wouldn't be surprised if Merlin's name wasn't mentioned, but uh at this moment in time it's a threat rather than activity. So again, watch this space. Uh our third Genda moment, uh, and I am amazed at how quickly uh Genda has moved forward with their acquisitions. Uh so I wake up after only a couple of sound-offs talking about uh Genda acquiring from Inspired the uh mini arcade operation and the Play Nation arcade operation, and then I wake up to a video of one of their staff walking around uh their uh one of the first of the Gender Play Nation facilities now rebranded, uh uh and it has been given such a lick of paint, such a rebranding, such a uh breath of fresh air that it kind of uh underlines the point I was making previously that our tired industry needs the kick in the pants that Gender represents. And hey, I'm not retained by Genda, I'm just stating the facts.

SPEAKER_04: 57:52

They just uh they are they will be the single biggest powerhouse in the world if they keep moving at this pace that they have been this year. It's been absolutely unbelievable. They're in a tear.

SPEAKER_00: 58:04

We will touch upon this, uh I think a little bit in sound off. And another thing that we will touch on in a little bit more detail in sound off is the big news uh about Heshen's uh uh move towards uh Silverwood uh and really what that means. This is one of the largest of uh the family entertainment uh resorts and attraction companies, very large, up there with the Six Flags, up there with uh the Disneys, up there with the Universals, who are now broadening their acquisition. That MA uh period is still continuing in our sector where many of us thought that it was going to calm down a little bit, or we've been dead wrong here. Uh, and I wouldn't be surprised if they have a couple of other parks that need some love uh under the uh under their watch.

SPEAKER_04: 58:54

I think the one thing that makes me happy about this is that uh when you talk about needing some love, that is one thing that the Herschel family does when they come in, and they do truly have a phenomenal culture, and they tend to put a lot of care and effort into the parks that they acquire and uh and in that transition. So looking forward to seeing what they do with Silverwood. Definitely.

SPEAKER_00: 59:19

Uh interesting from a point of view of understanding the state of uh you know an operator's perspective here. We have uh a UK VR arcade facility. I I feel a little bit uncomfortable here because it is mainly the Chinese off-the-shelf uh VR systems just dumped into a space. I know the operators will beat me up and say that they've given it some finality, they've given it some love, uh, but it still feels to me that it is the Chinese VR systems placed into a facility, and then they've suddenly noticed over the last couple of months that they are not generating the same amount. Amount of numbers that they used to. I would argue that most of these systems didn't have that repeatability built into them, but again, a personal opinion. Anyway, they've gone to their local council and they've said, hey, we're we're doing bad. Can you give us some leeway? And of course the local council said you know, suck it in, boys, get good. And so now the again we have an operator threatening the closure of their facility. Though I'm hearing rumors that it may not just be the closure of the facility, but they may actually be looking for a new site close by that they can place these machines in at a more favorable rate.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:39

Nothing to say that you haven't.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:42

Rent is tough and business is tougher. Competition. Now, I don't it's not going to become a regular one here, but our friends at uh escape industry news, the escape room admission room, uh equivalent to the Stinger report, I would like to say, but I feel that these guys are much more detailed in their coverage of the market from uh the operators' point of view, rather than just talking about trends. Uh, they did a lovely rundown for the month of the number of new escape rooms that have opened. And if this is not an eye-opener to operators in these territories about the new competition that is coming and eating their lunch, then they need to be in a lot of these escape rooms are feeding off seasonality because they know of the corporate parties and the Christmas uh and new year audiences that they can attract by opening up either permanent or new temporary escape rooms. We will go into this in a lot more detail and sound off, but I just wanted to put it out there the number of new facilities are just in America and the UK and Ireland and Canada, of course. But if you think about this, escape room business is not just a turnkey business, but it employs a number of individuals, it can go into utilized space, and it can promote itself through TripAdvisor and all of the other tools as a place to have a party during the holidays. And sometimes people want to have something different to do during their holiday socials, and where you would have thought that this was automatically your business, you may wake up to a brand new competitor.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:35

Yeah, it's and I think one of the really interesting things about the escape industry as well is that they have like they're the only I would actually argue, except for maybe bowling leagues. They're one of the only industries that has a deeply loyal fan base and a deep like follower base. So they will travel from one escape room to the next, and they will travel across state lines, across countries. They use this app called Morty, which we've referenced before on the show. And so it like that is one advantage they have is like they just have this voracious fan base. Now, you can get totally trolled if you don't deliver a good experience as well. Um, but uh, but it is one of those advantages that the escape industry does have.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:24

I would uh add one more to that list esports.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:29

Yes, that is fair.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:31

So competition, yeah, and trying to get some of in our industry to understand what I mean by competition, tournament, and attorney play is difficult. But the esports has a following. Audience watching, uh, people playing, people competing. Uh LaserTag has a following, especially some of the people that play LaserTag to a certain level. The bowling you hit the nail on the head, the bowling leagues from the bowling sports, and the bowling boutiques uh for the competitions, and then you have the escape rooms and the mission rooms. And we ain't seen nothing yet, but if you just scroll back or watch what we're going to talk about and sound off about that list, you'll understand that maybe your perception of who is your real competitor and your long-term uh uh disadvantage if you don't know your audience can be deadly. Anyway, I've thrown enough out uh for today. Uh hopefully I've covered everything, but obviously you can jump into uh our latest sound uh sorry, our latest Stinger Report and our latest entertainment social arena, uh which are out now. Uh and also don't forget that you can uh contact me via LinkedIn and I thank those individuals that passed me some detail recently uh via LinkedIn and also don't forget our email address.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:55

Perfect. Another great sound off. See ya in uh in like two days. Two days in counting.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:13

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SPEAKER_04: 1:05:45

All right. Well, that was a great open and shut. And next we've got arcade corner with some Adam Pratt.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:00

Greetings everybody, welcome to iAppa Week. It's finally here after what well, uh obviously since last year, I was gonna say after a while. But I don't know. For me, 2025 has been a little weird. It seems like the year has just flown by at the same time, whereas some other things have seemed to have taken their time. But anyways, enough yapping. Let's get into preview. Because of my limited time, I'm not gonna be able to cover uh really re- I can't re-tread everything that I've already covered in previous weeks. Um, but uh this is gonna cover the latest as to what's there, and of course, everything that I have been able to talk about, it's not everything that's gonna be at the show. Granted, I'm just covering arcade games and not being really getting into a lot of the other stuff that's there. Really, it just feels like four days is not enough. But uh if it was a say in October, the middle of October instead of the week before Thanksgiving, I wouldn't mind uh five days of a trade show to be able to go through all that. But uh starting off with the latest news from Sega, we have Daytona Championship USA is coming back. It's the same software that they had with what's called the new season edition, which did include some updated graphics, better handling, a few other game fixes and such. But I don't know how many people out there gave the new season edition a chance or even knew about it. And so it's that software inside of the this new cabinet that you see here, which is based upon the Apex Rebels design, which is a racing game that was released last year. Personally, I enjoy that one, and it has a motion base, good motion base on it, and all the other features you would expect from Daytona. It can link up to eight units if you really want to set up the uh pure Daytona uh type um setup where or type dill uh like used to exist back in the 90s when there were a lot of arcades that had eight Daytona's linked together for um some crazy race in there. But uh it's been pretty rare in the modern age where we've seen a lot of um eight-player setups, like I've seen some H2 overdrives that have been up to eight, um, but uh can't recall seeing stuff like cruising or superbikes 2, even all the way up to eight, just usually up to four. And then we had some information from Bandai Namco Amusements come through this week. Wasn't sure if we were going to get any previews on them at all, but as I shoved all into one slide here, they have uh a few machines from China coming in, which is a little bit of a pivot for Bandai Namco, who has usually had things designed in Japan as opposed to uh looking to China for some of those things. Uh, speedrider 4DX is the one in the upper left-hand corner with the motorcycles. Now, if you've never heard of the Speed Rider series, that's okay. It's a motorcycle, a modern motorcycle series. But what's really interesting about this particular cabinet is that the swivel bikes, in addition to having some really cool LED effects and then having the motion base underneath the bikes, which we've seen before, um, it does introduce something that I've never seen before, and that is the ability of that swivel bike to actually shift, like the back of it will shift, you or you can push it to shift to cause it to cause your in-game motorcycle to drift. And so instead of like hitting the brakes or a drift button sort of thing to drift, um, you literally drift your bike, uh, which gets it more into simulator territory than is typical. Uh, and then the graphics on this and the sound system on this are both fantastic from the specs, and uh also has an micro LED billboard up top there for the marquee, so it should be a pretty impressive one to see there. Um, also designed by the same company, uh IGS, uh, who's out of Taiwan who designed um Asphalt Moto Blitz, if I'm remembering all my companies correctly, getting those straight. But uh for some new stuff that uh if you follow developments in China closely, you might have heard of this, but otherwise these would be new. Uh, you have a light gun game called The Future, which is uh from a Chinese company called Superwing, which they've been making some strides in recent times, not just with video games, but also with redemption stuff. And then Mini World, which is a Minecraft-inspired type deal, where um I guess it's based on an existing IP over in China, but wouldn't be as well known out here, but would have a lot of the similar aesthetic, but instead of being you know Minecraft-based, it's close enough, so a lot of people will probably see that and be like, oh, it's Minecraft, or at least kids uh would. And it also has three mounted guns in it instead of two, but it looks like the space is very similar as to um what you would be getting there. From the future that I've seen, that it's uh like a sci-fi shoot-em up, a little bit more teenager adult uh level, whereas Mini World is more catering to kids. I would also throw in that Goldstorm Pirates by Bandai Namco is still also being sold. Um it just looks like they've decided to lean a little harder into light gun games and offer locations a few different options as to what best fits their needs. And then as you see in the lower right hand corner of the screen, there we have a new uh line in the Pac-Man Street series, as Bandai Namco calls it, where this is a uh Pac-Man basketball game for kids, which would have two hoops on it. Love the topper there with Pac-Man and the Ghosts. Uh, and so uh that will all be there in addition to some other things that you would expect to find at the Bandinamco Amusements booth, including uh their latest redemption games, uh, the big one that was there last year, Tacono Tatsu Gene, uh Goldstorm Pirates, and uh a few other items that also are not Bandai Namco, such as Raw Thrills and Adrenaline Amusements product. The reason why, in case you're not familiar with uh IAPO or how Band Dynamico Amusements works, is because of Bandinamco Amusements Europe, uh, which also serves as a distributor since IAP is an international show. They like to show off some things for their European and I think Middle East customers who may be seeing what it is that they can get from Namco there. So that's why they often have a mix. Next up is Yunis. Um, they have two huge booth spaces. I think they're either 40 by 40 or 30 by 40 uh each, and so this doesn't cover everything that they're going to have there at all. However, uh we see a couple of new Videmption games such as Spin City with these enormous trackballs. They're just as big as the screen is, if not a little bigger, they make the screens look smaller. Um, this was seen at GTI Asia China Expo in September and uh kind of a racing game, but you're like I think from what I saw of it, you're controlling somebody who's running, and so of course the faster you can push that giant ball, the faster they'll move. There's also a foot pedal to activate a turbo boost, which I assume is limited in its use. And then next to that is Monster Jet Riders, which is already kind of a sequel, or at least in the same universe or spirit as Monster Kart, which Eunice has repeatedly said has been a success for them. And so don't know if it uses the same monster characters and similar track, same tracks, or just similar tracks, but uh you stand on something that's kind of like a jet ski, has a motion base and all that uh to um sort of fly race as opposed to driving race. And then, of course, they'll have a lot of the emoji games, they've been promoting a lot of those in recent times with basketball and other redemption style games with the emoji license. Uh, there's a new Frankenslam game that they've uh recently put on their website as well. There is something that I found that was over in Europe uh called Ski Hero, which is listed as a Unis game, and I think from the Schaefer distributing pre-IAPA preview, it initially mentioned Ski Hero and then it was removed. So I don't know if that's going to be there or not. If it is, it would be something like Alpine Racer. I remember several years ago, about well, actually over a decade ago now, uh you had Roth Rills and Bad Dynamico teamed up to do Super Alpine Racer, which was a modern take on that game. If you've never heard of it, it's a skiing game, uh, which first came out in the 1990s. But it most everybody that does a ski game seems to follow the Alpine Racer formula for that. I mean, it's skiing, uh video game skiing, so it's kind of hard to uh deviate much from that. Um but so that might be there, but it also might not be. And there's several other things that Yunus has shown off either in China or on their website, where it's also uncertain at this moment whether or not they'll have it there. But with two giant booths, I'm sure they'll have something for everybody there. And then Endiro USA, they don't always have a preview, but this year they decided to preview a lot of stuff, and also surprisingly, they have a couple of video games. Oftentimes they just have, say, like Pump It Up for their video games, or there's the Rylix uh SpongeBob VR bubble coaster. Uh, but uh this year they're introducing two new video games which do have redemption options to them if you want to set them up that way. Uh, there's the Nickelodeon Cart Racers and Marksman. Now, Nickelodeon Cart Racers is based on a console game that's been out for a little while. I've not played it myself, but um typical cart style racer, but it has a lot of characters from the Nickelodeon universe. So all four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from I think it's the 2012 through 2017 uh TMNT uh 3D cartoon that they did. Has Garfield, uh, has Invader Zim, uh, has several other characters that kids would definitely know. SpongeBob SquarePants, of course, which is uh Andamero's big license there. So I'm gonna be interesting to see that. Um it's been a little while since we've seen uh somebody take a console racing game and port it into uh arcades. Uh I mean maybe I'm wrong about this, but it seems like the NFS heat takedown that Adrenaline Amusements did is the most recent one. Um, but I could be wrong about that. Uh Marksman, it fits in with these shooting gallery games with the realistic pistols and air power, air compressor-powered force feedback in those pistols, has 11 different levels on it. And whether it's shooting bad guys or shooting just static targets or moving targets or even shooting zombies, it has a variety there and uses the two screens to look like one, which has become kind of a trend with uh different Chinese games out there. And then there's a new SpongeBob Swish redemption game that they have where you're throwing uh shooting little basketballs into one of the three hoops, and you can use a joystick to control the direction of those. They also have a new redeem machine, which I didn't put a photo of on here that uh you can look at. And then finally, for our preview here at the ABS Company's booth, which as I recall is 1918 in the Games and Arcade Pavilion, it's going to have what is potentially going to be the most innovative games of the show. Now, can't say that for sure until we get to the show and get a chance to see everything, which probably won't know until Thursday or Friday, what all that might be. But uh, from what I've gathered, uh, these are uh miniature escape rooms, they're five-minute escape rooms, and so they take up a roughly the same space as an environmental arcade cabinet, which would be say like the mini world or the future here that uh Ben and Namiko had. Uh, but uh you close the door, it locks, there is a button there that will end your game and unlock the door if you panic for whatever reason, get too scared, maybe. Uh, but uh you just need to try and figure out the puzzle to unlock the room there within five minutes. And one is an Egyptian ancient Egyptian mummy-themed game with uh a mummy character inside of it, and then the other one is clown around where there's been some murders, and you have to figure out which killer clown murder did committed the murder. There's a bunch of different uh stuff. They have all of the items within these machines bolted down using, I think they said, airline cable. And so with testing, they didn't have any problems with theft or damage to the cabinet. Uh be very interesting to see uh how these games perform on location outside of just one location test, but also I'm just curious to see how these are going to be uh at the show as well. But uh that's it uh for our preview. Uh stay tuned. We're going to have a lot more here at the LBX Collective, not just myself, but uh uh all I think most others from the crew here are gonna be discussing IAPA afterwards, so stay tuned for that. But uh yeah, we're all excited. Safe travels to everybody out there. I'll be leaving tomorrow, and uh hopefully uh everything on the airlines is gonna be cleared up by then, and so we'll see. But uh again, safe travels, thanks for watching. We'll see you on the next one.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:36

All right, well, that was awesome. Thanks, Adam, for walking us through all of that, and yeah, I mean, there's so much to check out. If you haven't watched last week's show as well, there was actually two arcade corner sessions because there's just so much to cover on the amusement front um for the IAPA expo. All right, that being said, this is uh, you know, we're coming down for a wrap. Um, just some quick new um updates. Next week, there will be no IAPA, excuse me, there'll be no LBX show after IAPA because we will not be able to record one during the IAPA week. Um, but there will be uh the the Sunday following the US Thanksgiving holiday, we will have a special IAPA Expo review. As Adam alluded to, we were gonna be getting together with a group of us and talking about all the things we saw on the show floor. There'll be video, there'll be discussion, it'll be a jam-packed episode, and it'll only be exclusively about everything we saw at the IAPA Expo show. So that's uh we got coming up. And then this Tuesday, though, during the week of IAPA, we actually have sound off number 99 with Kevin Williams, and that's going to come out on Tuesday, November 18th at its normal time. Whew! That is a wrap for this week's LBX show. I'm Brandon Wiley signing off. Stay tuned and keep kicking out.