LBX Collective

Sound Off #105 - Netflix House Dallas review, 3D printing spare parts, & more!

• Brandon Willey • Season 4 • Episode 105

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On this week's show we walk through the biggest shifts in location-based entertainment—from 3D-printed maintenance and executive shakeups to immersive enclosures, data-driven operators, and a field report from Netflix House Dallas with concrete operational takeaways. The throughline: execution beats hype, and learning beats denial.

• Using local 3D printing to reduce downtime and cost
• Executive management turnover driving sudden strategic reversals
• Strong IP venues versus weak reskins and light theming
• Immersive enclosures gaining traction over long VR sessions
• Platform power as Fever moves from promoter to operator
• Repurposing large sites into social-competitive anchors
• Retail micro-LBE: crane machines in convenience stores
• Disney shifts from 3D to 2D for smoother ops
• Netflix House Dallas: layout, pricing, F&B, merch, fixes
• Clear rules for throughput, wayfinding, and payment design

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SPEAKER_02:

Are you on the edge of your seat? Because we are about to spend 11 million. Covering today's latest trends in location-based entertainment. Brought to you by the LBX Collective, your community to connect, aid, and inspire. All right, everyone, let's buckle up.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. Well, welcome everybody to another sound off with Kevin Williams. This is number 105 for January 13th, 2026. Kevin, my friend, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_03:

Fine, on the road, but fine. And yourself?

SPEAKER_00:

Also fine and on the road, yeah, here at the IntelliPlay headquarters in Columbus, Ohio. So uh hanging out with the team, doing some annual planning.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, glorious snowy London at the moment. So uh I suppose it's that time again.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Let's do it. It's how are you going to change my mind this week?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, uh, one of the things that has been uh playing a part in uh some of the evaluation I've been doing of facilities is maintenance. And uh some of the excuses that I've been hearing about of why maintenance hasn't been done uh uh on certain machines links itself to a problem that we seem to have in the uh sector. And that would be the control of the maintenance, and that maintenance in many cases can be offset rather than waiting for spares to be delivered from a distributor or from a manufacturer to the distributor and then to uh the operator, is the the progression, I think, towards uh utilizing for some of this process the uh uh 3D printing. Uh and 3D printing comes in three fruity flavors. We have uh the metal 3D printing systems, which are incredibly expensive, we have uh the normal conventional plastic single part 3D printing, and then we have the liquid-based 3D printing that can handle various different materials. When I talk about maintenance, there are the three flavors. There's the the maintenance of the machine, there's the operational problems, and then there's the electronics. Obviously, you're not going to be printing a circuit board and chips uh uh here, but uh the majority of failures with uh equipment in the field is with the interface that uh the player is using, the broken joystick, uh the broken solenoid inside, uh the gun system, uh, even uh simple components like the fan mechanism breaking, uh, and that can be solved by the utilization of 3D printing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, super interesting. Um, and how do you see this being implemented? Is this something that you would see, all right, like a venue is going to have um you know some 3D printing capabilities in their venue to be able to produce parts as needed and be able to download the the you know the CAD files and load them into the system and then print them and then you know put them in themselves? Or is this something that the you know distributors will have like in their local offices to do some of their parts? Just really curious where you see this manifesting itself.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm seeing distributor shops, sorry, uh 3D printing shops being created at the moment. Uh a couple of printing facilities uh uh in the US have now, Kinkos, I think is one of those, uh, has added uh capability of having a couple of 3D printers at the back of their shop uh that uh can produce one-off items. I don't see or envisage the distributor uh having this. Um I think it would be a big reach for them to get their brains around what would be uh needed to support this kind of approach. But I could see specialist batch 3D printing facilities being now gone to as uh an alternative for waiting for the manufacturer to uh dispatch uh your uh your sphere part.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, indeed. Indeed. Yeah, interesting. And I love the idea of having local 3D print shops that are just uh you know around and being able to go to your local Kinkos and grab something off the Thingiverse and you know, there it is, waiting for you when you're uh when you show up, just like your photocopies.

SPEAKER_03:

We're seeing large corporations do this. Uh I know our friends at Creative Works has uh quite an extensive 3D printing set up in their shop that we always look at when we're doing the uh tour. Uh recently, our friends at Disney announced that they had partnered with uh a particular company that specializes in 3D printing towards uh creating components and prototypes and elements. We are beginning to see that. From a distributor's point of view, this could be uh a pivotal moment where they are removed from the mix uh and an alternative is found uh towards the support. That said, it still needs someone to put that spare part, that component, into the system and understand what they're doing. So uh again, there's there's still some wrinkles that need to be ironed out here.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, interesting. All right, well, coming up after the quick break, we will dive into the trends. They introduced cashless technology to the amusement industry and have been leading the way for over 30 years. Cashless systems from Intercard increase customer spending, get satisfaction, and boost revenues by up to 30%. Intercard is so proud to be serving the amusement industry. And if you aren't already part of a global family of customers, they hope you will become one too.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, thank you, Intercon. One of those uh uh aspects of the uh current economic and uh business structure that we're going through at the moment is uh the you know the shakeups. Uh, I've been touching upon this on a number of occasions that we've seen uh corporations changing their C-suite management uh and that new replacements are coming in, and it seems to be a fundamental component of uh the new year that a lot of uh corporations are parachuting in not just mid-level executives, but they're bringing in brand new CEOs and CTOs and COOs uh into these positions. It is concerning because any top management structure changes means that we have a period of time where that management gets their feet under the table and then applies the colour, the flavor of uh how they want to move forward in the management. So we are really going to be going through some restructuring of corporations that will have major ramify uh ramifications going forward for our sector.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and it sometimes does have the implications of creating some whiplash, you know, as we've seen with some of the announcements recently with Dave and Busters and what they're intending to do with uh you know with removing the social base. And not that that's the wrong decision, it is though a uh you know a reversion uh basically from a direction that had been really had a lot of investment over the course of several years uh to move in that direction. And now we're seeing that reverse course. And I think we you know you you have that potential to see that in some of these other areas where you're seeing that uh executive restructuring.

SPEAKER_03:

As we go further on into this sound off, that you will see that there are certain operations that are going through major changes that will reflect in the removal of the original management team uh purely because they cannot carry on with the direction that they've gone down. Anyway, the Biz straight to the uh the problems, and uh I had to look up how to produce uh pronounce I Chi, uh the what I would call the Netflix of China, uh though obviously uh uh China would argue with that one. They had been rumored to be developing their own facility, and now they have accelerated the announcements regarding their first ICEE land uh opening, um, which for me is a little bit more than just a wannabe Netflix house. This seems to be a much more focused theme resort facility with dedicated recreations of popular show uh show areas for people to uh walk around and immerse themselves. It feels really where Walt Disney was in the 1950s and 60s, where he was sort of leveraging off of the success of his animation and his television work to create uh an entertainment facility uh that used that as a leverage, uh as a way forward. It will be fascinating to see uh when the doors open on this, and they promise to have quite a high level of XR technology application in this. So we went with bated breath.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, this is definitely one that's high on my list to keep an eye on and see how it develops.

SPEAKER_03:

So our friends at uh Palace Entertainment really have cleared house. Uh and you know, part of that clearing house was the handing over of certain properties and uh and venues. One of those was the Troubled Cartoon Network Hotel that was under their tutelage. Um, part of uh Cartoon Network, obviously part of the Warner Brothers Discovery, a very troubled project. Um opened 2020 in the middle of uh COVID, uh near enough. Um, you know, reviews were appalling. Uh the layout was questionable, the applications of uh attractions was questionable. They went through quite a considerable number of C-suite executives uh regarding this project. It never caught on, it never found its footing. And now uh a safer pair of hands will be taking over the building. Uh, I'm familiar with the uh Dutch Wonderland resort operation, but it'll be interesting to see how they apply that kind of uh mentality to a hotel hospitality approach. Uh it's not easy to do this, uh, and as we've seen, the only really successful hotel uh entertainment venues that I've seen, leaving aside our friends at Wolf Lodge, uh, are the ones that are kind of attached to a theme park, what we see at uh Alton Tales, for example.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the more we talked a little bit about this and open and shut, but the more that I look at the photos uh of the facility, it's just kind of mind-blowing that they went through all of the work to and expense to buy uh to you know, basically get the access to the Cartoon Network IP when all they really did was put up some wallpaper, some some signage and pictures and photos of the different characters, and then put some like bed sheets and things on the thing. There's there's very little uh Cartoon Network immersion other than the fact that it just happens to be like artwork. And and it's just uh it is a little bit wild to me that they went down this path and then you know, looking at these pictures, not surprising at all that they have now had to sell their facility to uh you know to the Dutch Wonderland.

SPEAKER_03:

The most important component of the attraction to the venue was the themality at the front of the building. That's how bad things were. Yeah, yeah, and that's rough. And the disappointment from any family going to this after reading the website and making the booking to find out that it was a themed hotel rather than an entertainment experience, uh, is part of the reason why this was a major black eye for all involved. Again, C-suite restructuring took place, and uh, we hope that uh the lessons were learned. Uh, our friends in South Africa, the uh Durban uh entertainment facility by the coast has been tired and needing to be restructured. It closed down in July. It has uh now been announced with pretty renderings that uh they're going to be dropping in uh was it one billion Rand, uh which I think you calculated uh at being about 50 plus million.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, 50 to 60 million, yep.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you. Uh it's it's offering everything they claim. Uh it's going to have a fantastic roller coaster, it's going to have this, it's going to have that, it's going to have a virtual reality uh game room inside it. Um whether this gets completed by 2027 to the level of the quality of the renderings. I question, and I just question from a professional, personal point of view. Uh, I wish them all the luck in the world to achieve this, but uh there's a lot of work there, and you know, the money may be large at the beginning, but it will soon be eaten up if they have to develop it to the levels that they're proposing. Yeah. Our friends at Conductor have uh uh been involved in a number of new projects. Uh one of the, you know, obviously we've talked about their rivals uh new facility concept that will be opening up this year, but another one that was uh revealed uh that will be opening up in Manchester is a concept called Game Face. And it's going to contain, I don't know. Uh all we've got at the moment is the name, and that it will be comprising conductor uh and game vault uh game systems. Uh whether it's going to be pure competitive socializing, whether it's going to be uh a mixture of an FEC, I can't really say. Um the game face logo looks interesting, I suppose, is as far as I can go with this. And knowing the conductor are working very hard to expand and to cement their position in the market, it will be fascinating to see what comes from their furtive minds.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, I mean it is interesting that they're testing a couple of different concepts. They're rival social, which again, you know, I we had I had my issues anyway with that name. Um, but uh but now they're trying out this game face and also still can selling their equipment to other operators. And so they're gonna find themselves in competition with other operators at some point. Um, so really interesting to see this path that they're taking.

SPEAKER_03:

It's the Atari problem. You know, I always remember when uh showing my age, uh when Atari started up its um it wasn't Chuck E. Cheese, but uh it's uh party's pizza. Showbiz pizza party time uh venues, uh that people raised an eyebrow in the amusement sector saying, you know, is the vampire running the blood bank? Uh and I wouldn't be surprised if our friends at Conductor and GameVall maybe have to create a separate operation uh that handles their entertainment facility running. But again, early days. Fever, uh another vampire uh running the blood bank, uh, as it were. Uh, we are familiar with Fever's involvement on the ticketing, promotion, and marketing of a number of immersive attractions. They uh have very close relationships, they even fund the development of uh certain attractions, mostly on the pop-up side. Um temporary facility openings utilizing available space in certain localities uh internationally. Well, then, surprise, surprise, after their appearance for the first time at IALPA, um, we suddenly get to see that they've now entered the permanent facility business and they've opened a chain, Fever Hub, the first site, uh uh at a less than stellar location in Orlando, away from International Drive, away from the mainstream. But that that may be method to their madness. They may be testing the water away from the glare uh uh and publicity of uh being front and center. Anyway, Fever Hub uh offers an active entertainment, uh what I would call uh a mission room style experience called Glow All Go. Uh very crystal mazey from what I've seen of the video uh and the pictures. Uh created for Fever under commission. Interesting. And then they're also running a virtual reality, uh, what I would call an interactive adventure experience, though using off-the-shelf consumer technology. So this isn't uh, as we've seen with uh the other, the universe uh and the X-room style approach of large audience VR experiences. This is just a onesie twosie foesy uh walk around wearing off-the-shelf uh MetaQuest uh threes, um, and seeing the Titanic in uh all its uh standalone glory. I I I raise an eyebrow regarding the quality of that VR experience, but if it brings in an audience, then you know who am I to complain? It's clear that Fever now want to be uh a vehicle or a facility for these attractions to populate. So they're controlling more of the venue, they're using their own ticketing systems, it's their own enclosure, their own staff. The only thing that's being added to that are these attractions, which I'm sure can be rolled in and rolled out simply based upon the popularity.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I mean, so what's interesting too, and I talked a little bit more about this on the LBX show during my news you should know, um, but the the fever is really beginning to also make the move to be a destination and location-based entertainment search vehicle, too. So they are not only promoting on feverup.com their own attractions, they are also promoting nearby attractions, depending on where you are and reselling those tickets. And so, you know, they you go to Fever Up and you're in the Orlando area and you're checking out Fever Hub, which I was doing, you can also see tickets, you can buy tickets to Crayola Experience and to Legoland and to other things that have no uh connection to fever whatsoever. And so they're really trying to be that hub, I think, of location-based entertainment experiences in the areas where uh you know across the across the the um the US at least. And then you know, it's really interesting too, their glow or go concept, basically arguably almost a straight ripoff of uh beat the bomb. And so um really interesting that they're you know have decided to go this path of like basically creating you know competitors now, even to other things in the market.

SPEAKER_03:

The poacher becoming the gamekeeper, sorry to use these idioms, these English idioms, but uh it's descriptive from uh from my mind. They will have access to what is hot in a certain area. That transparency will allow them to consider maybe, hey, there's an opportunity for us to open up uh a direct competitor to beat the bomb because that's doing very well in uh this particular area. Or there isn't a uh equivalence to beat the bomb in this particular area, and we could open up a hard there. That gives them a transparency which I know a number of operators will start to question uh whether it gives them a little bit too much access uh to their bottom line data, especially if you're having to depend on FIVA for ticket sale. We have the first uh proper renderings of uh what the UK uh universal. Studios Great Britain TBD is going to look like. Nothing really earth-shattering from the pictures. The vagary of the roller coaster is to be expected until the deal is done with the manufacturer there. But now, with the UK government's blessings and with the uh you know the staff being relocated as we speak to the UK site, you know, we get a glimpse of what in 2031 will be throwing its doors open. And I'm looking forward to both of us standing uh at that courtyard doing a podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I uh yeah, certainly hope so.

SPEAKER_03:

Interesting. What do you do with uh a ski zone that uh uh uh you don't want to use as a ski zone anymore? You put a yoga course inside it. Um in Scotland uh the you know the the X site was very popular. The X site group had developed a number of skiing, indoor skiing facilities, you know, the automatic snow delivery systems, the the constant smell of uh uh well. I I've never been a fan of indoor ski resorts. Uh I think the best one I've been to was in Dubai, funny enough, where the rest always smell of bleach because of the problems of uh operation. Anyway, this uh facility in Glasgow uh has come to an end. They've uh started the process to strip it out. It's a$12 million uh pound uh project by XPE Group. Uh the grid will be one of the largest multi-level uh karting facilities with an extensive entertainment uh and social entertainment component to it. And we uh look forward to seeing this throw its uh doors open maybe in the next 12 months.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh well look, you know, creative approach to solving uh you know to swapping out a giant facility. So it'd be interesting to see how it how it does. But yeah, it's really interesting.

SPEAKER_03:

It'll be interesting. One of those uh stories that was bubbling around at IALPA that we couldn't touch upon. Uh now we have confirmation that Doff Robotics is going to be putting in about 20 million dollars uh into uh a what I like to call a tourist uh tourist entertainment resort uh in Turkey. This is very much a historical uh installation. It is not it is more edutainment than it is a resort entertainment facility, and it will be uh mainly indoor uh the site. And there are several several immersive attractions that are going into this facility. One of those is a balloon ride using a large uh um dome display and motion base to give uh an audience a feeling that they are floating over the uh uh the locality, um, especially created uh film. A soaring experience, but from a balloon's perspective. This is great positioning for Dolph Robotics. It allows them to support the local uh culture and also the local community with their expertise in technology, remembering that Dolph Robotics has also revealed that they're developing two uh competitive socializing venue projects uh within Turkey. It's clear that the uh the company is moving very hard uh following its flotation uh on the market. And of course, we'll have a little bit more information because as we're recording this, the Turkish uh amusement trade exhibition is taking place in Istanbul. Uh, and I know that there's some developments that need to come from there.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, this is. I mean, I've I've never been to or seen Neo-Kappadosha, but uh definitely a place that looks interesting and and look forward to to uh to visiting the next time I'm in Turkey, you know, visiting DAF. So it'd be uh exciting to go there and check it out.

SPEAKER_03:

Definitely worth a visit. We touched upon uh the Brighton Group and that we were concerned by their uh offloading of their uh entertainment resorts to our friends uh at the Mella group. We've also pointed out that they were selling their mini golf operation, and we were sort of concerned that would they be selling the crown jewels uh and divesting themselves from the market. Well, it has been confirmed that uh Brighton Pier is up for sale. No numbers have been quoted on how much it's going to be sold for or who the likely buyers will be. Uh, but uh it was originally valued back in uh 2023 at about 17.3 million, and by 2024 that had dropped to about 13.7. Um, if they sell it for anything lower than 12 million, then there will be serious concerns about the validity of uh this aspect of the entertainment market, but it does look like the company is getting out while the going is good.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, good good placement of the the question mark there. Uh going is uh good. Um yeah, well, yeah, we kind of uh had a feeling that this uh there was a full unwinding and that does look like what it is.

SPEAKER_03:

Great aspirations they had at the time when they took this on board. A number of uh restaurateurs and hospitality experts were involved in this uh operation. It was going to be a uh a leading uh entertainment uh operation, and I think all they achieved in doing was uh wrecking up some really good first-class flights, but that's a personal opinion. Uh told you so. Told you so.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep, yeah. I didn't even need to visit the facility when we when this thing first opened to know that this was never going to succeed.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh so the loss of Wonderverse Chicago is not a great surprise. It's just why it took so many pictures so long to admit failure, I think. Most of the executives involved in that project are no longer with it, and the loss of face, I think, is considerable in the face of Netflix house opening, as you'll understand uh later on. Uh I'm just going to say a failure to understand your market, a failure to understand the market, uh, regarding uh what you're trying to develop with the technology available, uh, the utilizing utilization of brands that were inappropriate or badly thought out, and finally a basic design concept overall that missed what was needed. Jump in a time machine, go back 17 years, and the list I've just given you of failings were exactly the same reason why the Metrion, Sony Metrion concepts uh in uh Berlin, Tokyo, uh, and San Francisco went to the wall, though they lasted a few more years uh in failure than our friends at Wonderverse have. There are going to have to be serious questions asked internally at Sony Pictures why this was allowed to be such a bad failure, why the executive team that was brought on board had so little knowledge of the market, but were allowed to play with the crown jewels. And of course, this isn't going to be the last time that Sony is going to put investments into location-based entertainment. And it will be interesting to see what they will do next. The cryptic message uh on their website regarding the closure says uh concluding operations as the venue transitions to a new concept. It will be interesting to see what that new concept is.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Uh yeah, I mean, I predicted beginning of this year that Sony would uh would basically announce a new concept and give us some sense for what that looks like. Uh so whether they put it in the same location, which I actually think might be a mistake, um, versus doing it in a new location um will be interesting to watch.

SPEAKER_03:

Go-karting, uh, immersive adventure, uh projection mapping. Um, those are the kinds of things I think that uh uh a lower management would jump to, but uh a higher tier management is going to have to think about the big picture and future-proofing. But anyway. Surprise. Uh as we touched upon in Open and Shut, we feel that this is an outlier situation rather than a route. Uh it's way too early for us to actually be seeing any problems with the Chuck's arcade brand new concept materialize. So to see one of the first venues that was turned into a Chuck's arcade close after 194 days kind of tells us that there was uh an underlying problem: a uh bad location, a pro problem with the management, uh a problem with the landlord, or just the wrong product for the wrong place. Uh, that would be my uh personal uh opinion from this, especially as it was picking up the legacy of the uh Peter Piper pizza uh pizzeria uh component. Oh dear. Uh the issues I have though is that it puts more scrutiny on the remaining 10 uh Chuck's arcades. And I still feel that the Chupps Arcade, while it may be a good idea, its application and implementation uh may still be a little bit iffy and need a little bit more time in the oven, pardon the pun. But uh this this issue of seeing one of the first sites go so quickly is a kind of a mini black eye for the brand, which may not be of its own making.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, they really should have just shut down Peter Pepper Pizza. For those that don't know, that's also another brand owned by CC Entertainment. Um, it was acquired uh, gosh, I don't want to say like 15 years ago now at this point, but if not longer. Um and they should have just shut it down when it was clearly not succeeding as a Peter Pepper pizza instead of trying to uh you know go go spend all the time and money rebranding, reopening, and then only to go and shut down six months later.

SPEAKER_03:

Kind of a uh a trend we're seeing with these comments that we're making now about the news that's appearing. You could point to the Wonderverse, you could point to the Peter uh Peter Piper pizza and say that they're some cost fallacies where a management group has put a project forward, it's been badly executed for whatever reason, and rather than saying, okay, that's not working, let's take a step back, close it down, restart, they've held on for grim death, hoping that uh somehow they're going to rectify the problem until now they have to bite the bullet. And that's going to be common across a lot of what we see in the coming months. Some sad news. Sega has really uh been seeing uh its founding uh members uh passing on the veil. Uh I had the pleasure of knowing David Rosen, who was the man that created Sega, one of the founders of Service Games. I'm not going to go through the uh the history here of uh how Service Games transformed itself into Sega and then how that management team took it to the next level to become the mega Sega amusement and video game operation that we know and love. Um suffice to say that he was instrumental in the Japanese operations consolidation as an amusement company as the video games industry was taking off. He was instrumental in the form factor and the development of hardware from the Japanese side. And even when he transferred uh over to opening up uh the Sega of America operation, he uh really established most of the video amusement uh constructs that we still work with today. Uh, and a lot of what I've done in the video games amusement industry has been shaped by uh what foundation him and his team laid down. Uh seeing him pass at 95, we can say he's had a good innings. Uh, and I would just like to tip the hat and say thank you for all that he's done for the sector.

SPEAKER_00:

Indeed.

SPEAKER_03:

So on to the techs and trends. And we are definitely into the immersive enclosure market taking strong hold. I've been jumping up and down and saying that this is going to be a major part of our future. XR investment as we move away from sticking a box on your head to sticking people into a box. Uh our friends at uh Innerwise have celebrated now nine games on their platform. Uh, congratulations to the team. We also touched upon in open and shot that they've also rolled out a number of uh installations. So I think they're in the 80s now of machines out in the market, so they've they've really proven themselves.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, very happy for them. Uh such a great team, and uh still really love their box that they've created with the gate and so you know, this unattended model, although you know, everything is better with a light attendant um component, but uh it still provides the opportunity anyway for an attendantless model. But uh either way, they've uh they've they've got a great product and I'm excited to see them continue to expand.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I think they've got some surprises coming up in the next couple of months as well. Uh our friends at Immersive Game Box, uh, another box that you get into, uh projection uh mapped environment. They've pivoted uh a little bit away from the norm of their licensed game content. Maybe they don't have as deep a pocket, as it were, to buy the latest um license from our friends at Netflix. That said, they've created uh box party, which is what I would argue is a competitive socializing game style for their uh enclosure system. I would have argued that they should have done an immersive social entertainment kind of game experience some time ago. And maybe again, the new management that's just been parachuted into the company saw that that was an obvious uh omission and have now encouraged that to be created. Uh, we will look forward to hearing reports uh on how well this mini game-led uh experience system uh works. Uh again, they don't control the hospitality that the people have had prior to getting inside the experience, but uh hopefully it's an experience that suits the uh the mentality of the audience that some of these uh units are being placed in.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, this is encouraging. I mean, one of my biggest complaints about immersive game box is the length of time of their experiences. 30 minutes is tends to be their minimum, upwards to 60 minutes, and it's way too long. And so it's uh great to see that they also have decided to create their own content and really go with a with a fun, you know, uh like I love the box party concept, and and so they've done a great job here. And uh hopefully this is a better experience for those who have already invested in immersive game box to drive usage of those things that tend to sit empty in a lot of the venues I've been to.

SPEAKER_03:

This is a make or break year for immersive game box. They've taken on new investment, they've taken on uh new management structure, they have to turn the ship of state and prove that this is a viable entertainment concept, especially as they now have a lot of competition. And some of the competition that they're gonna be going up against is uh uh Smash Swing with their projection immersive multiplayer social entertainment uh experience, though it may be based on golf. This company has also uh invested in licensing IP for uh from my friends at Atari. Uh, but they are also now started uh to develop more and more of their experiences to focus on the audience that they want to support in the sector. They've just developed this uh new four uh player tournament-based game experience. Uh I I look forward to seeing this installed. Uh, I haven't come across a facility that has uh placed uh Smash Swing in their uh their site yet, but uh I know that will happen soon.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. And um just as a quick plug, if anybody wants to get more information or see more detail about Smash Swing, um we did do a reveal with uh the founder of Smash Swing. And um, so you can find that on the LDX Collective website. Excellent.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh our friends at Ectwall have uh developed an enclosure. A couple of sound offs ago, we talked about the opening uh at uh Hollywood Entertainment Center in the Netherlands. For me, it's another immersive enclosure facility building on a proven form factor. This is really borrowing very heavily from Tocker Social. Uh I I I had the mistake of thinking this was Toca Social uh when I first saw the pictures, it's that close. But again, it's based upon projected uh wall, the kicking interface, the trap ball experience with a strong competitive socializing environment. Uh whether this is the beginning, uh, the battle square concept is just a one-off for Hollywood uh entertainment centers, or if this is the beginning of a rollout uh of the concept as a drop-in, we will have to wait and see. Our friends uh Maya, uh we have talked about their platform before, as well as their uh first installation of their first facility, the virtual reality uh active entertainment audience-driven uh uh experience. The owners and the developers are very passionate about what they've created here, and they feel that it has a uh a lot of legs, pardon the pun, uh, to uh to run around in the market. What we have seen is while they've only opened one facility in North America, they've managed to uh uh party with uh key players in the Chinese sector, and they've installed two systems uh in well, sorry, three systems in all, but two systems in cinema entertainment side of the business and one in their entertainment facility. Well, they've actually been lucky enough to partner with the uh Jackie Chan cinema chain, which is a very strong cinema chain in uh China, and it will be interesting to see how the cinema works uh within this environment.

SPEAKER_00:

One of my biggest issues with their experience is uh that you know, while we talked about the um the importance of being able to spectate um, you know, with uh with different smaller attractions, that tends to be spectating with your friends or family and your small group around the small attraction that it is that you're doing. The issue I have here is that uh you are actually in front of a Large audience. You are you're perfect you're basically competing in front of the entire facility, right? Um effectively, and all of the guests that are there. And if you're not comfortable doing that and getting up there and potentially making an utter fool of yourself, then I think they're going to struggle. Um, and and which is potentially why uh they have not rolled out as quickly through the US market anyway as maybe they had originally preferred or intended to. Um, because there could be some cultural dis uh differences and why it maybe is finding more success in the Chinese market than in the US market, potentially.

SPEAKER_03:

That that that's a very valid point. I call it the game show approach uh to uh uh immersive entertainment, where you know you're near enough pushing the people up onto the stage to make a fool of themselves for everybody to feel better about their lives and laugh and consume more uh alcohol and food. That game show approach may work better in the Chinese market, but it's also dependent on there being enough of an audience. Uh and virtual reality systems kind of blindfolds the people on stage so they can't share in the joke. So that adds to that level of uh embarrassment. Uh I have heard mixed review uh reviews regarding the uh the immersive entertainment experience that uh the VR system offers. One individual said to me that they thought that it could work without the headset more than with the headset. I need to try the system myself before I'm I'm gonna go down that rabbit hole. But I would argue that full facilities is going to give them a much better foundation to work out what needs to be done to increase the rollout that they need to achieve. We touched upon this uh very briefly in open charts. I'll just say that the fitness industry has been looking for something that will bring people back to their facilities. Whether that is going to be virtual reality play, I am not sure. Um, you know, the hygiene and uh the operational issues of using head-mounted displays in commercial fitness is raises a lot of questions on my side of the fence. Either way, uh our friends at uh LA Fitness and Whitby in the UK have taken the plunge uh and installed the VR Fit system. Uh, VR Fit have got a lot of money at the moment to try and promote their VR uh fitness app uh in the consumer side, and they've also now looked towards uh promoting it in the commercial side. Uh and uh we will see what uh human sweat and salt will do to a consumer headset.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we'll see. I'm skeptical, but we'll see. We'll see.

SPEAKER_03:

Our friends at Walt Disney. Uh, we talked about the Ratatouille experience uh a few sound-offs ago, uh removing one of their projectors and going for a non-3D immersive projection environment. And I gave the list of pros and cons, and I raised an eyebrow saying, I wonder if we'll see other attractions uh going this way. Well, surprise, surprise, surprise. Um, Spider-Man at Disneyland Paris uh has also decided to remove uh its 3D component and go for a 2D uh approach without the glasses. This is particularly interesting because the attraction actually played about the usage of the glasses uh in the experience that you were putting on the uh the web uh um vision glasses, uh that was part of the reason. Uh the game attraction is uh uh a flat ride where you use your hand gestures to shoot uh webs at the rampaging robots uh all on screen. Removing the 3D aspect is telling for especially for an interactive game uh as well as for a uh a dark ride attraction. If Disneyland Paris is going through this process, I wouldn't be surprised to see it being evaluated that the other Disney parks may be removing their 3D components, feeling that it's just too much of a muchness.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, this is interesting. And you wonder, because uh, you know, obviously Ratatouille is not only at Disneyland Paris, they have uh a number of uh installations, but the one in Epcot. Um, do we know is this is that one still 3D, the Ratatouille experience in Epcot?

SPEAKER_03:

Trying to get information on this is like pulling teeth. Sadly, most of my colleagues that I used to work with at uh Walt Disney Imagineering have moved on to offer occupations, and uh the the remaining Imagineers uh uh aren't as uh uh gabaceous uh about sharing details. So, really, we're gonna have to uh uh spend some time next IALPA and uh actually stick our heads in uh and uh see if that's still operational. I get the feeling that it's been removed. This is a bit of a black eye for the technology team, and so they don't really want to promote it too much. London Dungeons has bit the bullet. Merlin Entertainment has been rumored to be evaluating cost-cutting measures across uh their operation to try and uh rein in uh their uh expenses and focus on their core business. The London Dungeons facility had relocated from its previous site in 2013, and everything was transported to the new location by the Thames. Uh, their coaster attraction was one of the many things that was relocated in its new home. The Tyrant's boat ride, which is a mixture of a drop boat uh uh experience as well as a little bit of narrative from cast members. Well, uh information was uh revealed a couple of months ago that it was closed for maintenance, that maintenance has now become permanent. Um, I think we're gonna be seeing a lot of this kind of, shall we say, sophracy uh uh regarding information sharing where it's closed for maintenance, uh the dog's gone to a new home up market, uh Santa Claus exists, um, you know, I'll love you in the morning. Uh it's uh all of the uh all of these issues are bad PR in my book. You know, to to have an entertainment facility that charges a flat price and then to remove an attraction, you would then expect the facility to change its pricing model uh to reflect that it it's lost an attraction. Um again, uh you touched upon in your crystal ball gazing the structure of what Merlin will look like in 2026, and I'm not going to argue with you on that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, this is this is just one more sign that uh I may have got my 2026 Merlin um prediction uh correct. So we will see uh you know how things continue to shake out this year.

SPEAKER_03:

Don't pat yourself on the back too early.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. I'm just saying this is one more sign in that direction.

SPEAKER_03:

It does seem that way. Major deal from our friends at uh Taito in Japan, uh, one of the largest of the 7-Eleven style convenience store chains out there, Family Mart, with thousands, several thousands of locations dotted around Tokyo, the convenience store that uh many tourists like to go into to see all the unusual flavors of Doritos and stuff like that. Um, they have decided that they're going to be placing uh crane or new wave crane machines into their site. And this is history repeating itself. You know, I remember the time when 7-Eleven added arcade machines uh to their makeup uh to ride the uh bandwagon. Well, it seems to be uh that our friends uh at Family Mart are riding the successful bandwagon of new wave crane machines in Japan by adding uh these machines. And this will be a considerable installation of machines uh across their chain, and I think that will have an even greater impact on the revenue from amusement business that certain corporations are making.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, uh this is interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a similar move made, a similar partnership made with a 7-Eleven or Circle K or some other type of uh system, you know, uh like large brand system throughout the US as well.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, uh it's obvious that North America will follow suite uh based upon uh the success of this, but you know uh let's hope it's not enough agenda moment.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Indeed. A brief AI uh trend here, really, our friends, uh, in the consumer gain sector, as we were saying in the last sound off, it had taken a pounding. Uh, most of the leading uh console machines saw a drop in sales, uh, and there was a straight gnashing of teeth and concern. But there was some bright uh sparks uh or bright areas of success. One of those is a company uh, you know, next playground is what I would call a next generation Wii uh approach to the machine. It it is a simple console game with many uh mini-games on board. Uh the system automatically tracks the movement of the players in front of it, and you control your character. You could argue that this is a simple play model that our friends uh immersive game box are emulating with uh uh their kind of system. I would even argue that our friends at Innerwise's game experiences are mini-game, uh, highly active entertainment experiences. It is still very popular with the audience. Though our friends at uh Microsoft failed uh to ride this bandwagon with uh their uh motion tracking system that they had to abandon for uh the uh the Xbox. The the application that Nintendo Wii generated is still strong with the next generation, and the next generation has jumped on board this particular system, which was an incredibly successful seller over the holidays and Black Friday, and incorporate a lot of AI in it. There's a lot of machine learning in the tracking of the players, movements represented on screen, and also in the game applications that were created. So, you know, the full circle, active entertainment, a bit of AI, and uh consumer video game.

SPEAKER_00:

This seems to me to be ripe for acquisition very quickly. I would not be surprised if we see next playground being acquired by a Microsoft, for example, or something to try to revive their console, uh their console market. Um and you know what, they've done some amazing things already too, for such a like independent startup. Uh there are they're partnered with Hasbro and Mattel, Paramount, Sesame Street, Universal, BBC for um IP, IPIP, for experiences that uh they can do and that connect with the kids. And so um this is really interesting and uh you know be fun and exciting to watch how they evolve or how quickly they get acquired by one of the other uh game companies.

SPEAKER_03:

Anyway, set time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. All right, coming up after the break, we'll have a special report, I guess we'll call it. Power up your game floor with arcades by Allen One. Whether it's perfectly foreign dreams and doctor photo playing, grabbing official buttons on things plushes, or defending cities to attack and midst of command recharge. Alan One has something for every venue in arcade floor that will delight your guests. Each game is also enhanced laterally useful. Free app attracts player top scores and brings guests back to your venue for more. Visit AllenDash1.com to learn more. That's Alan Dash One.com.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you, Alan. One and uh thank you to uh one of our uh clients and supporters. Uh uh you ask, they deliver. Uh, I raised the question about what the actual amusement component and the attraction component of the latest opened uh Netflix house was. Uh and thought I was going to have to wait until we were out there, but uh luckily uh our source was able to uh go through the facility early uh and take some extensive photographs and give us a snapshot, which I wanted to uh impart to uh our audience. So the 100,000 square foot facility is the second of the Netflix houses to uh open. It uh has some components that are similar uh to the uh previous Philadelphia facility, but it also has uh gone down a direction of having its own unique attractions uh and has removed uh some elements and added others. So one of the elements that they removed was they don't have a sandbox VR component, but they do have a replay uh experience, and that uh replay experience um is uh is is more of a video game arcade that uh bases itself on uh the uh the properties that Netflix has, particularly stranger things. Netflix replay, original name, comprises uh a selection of re-badged amusement products that we're familiar with, with a number of exclusively created uh attraction experiences. Very Dave and Buster-esque. Though Dave and Busters doesn't re-re-strip the uh the machine to remove the namings, it it they do uh like to have special uh uh creations for their facilities, and I kind of get that feeling from uh from them. We have a unique payment infrastructure here uh that uh allows, you know, it it is an off-the-shelf uh card swipe system that has been, or contactless card system, that has been modified to support the uh the Netflix replay system and also store a little bit more data about the player's experience. The pricing seems high from from my point of view uh regarding the uh the pricing to play, but you would also expect that because um you know it is Netflix, as it were. Uh, and the aspects about the unique uh, or should we say the customization of these uh attractions within their replay sector seemed a little bit light to me. Um it was uh in one case uh putting a Stranger Things sign on top of uh a Killer Queen cabinet. Uh it was um you know covering up the name of uh a step uh uh step revolution machine. It was taking one of the uh interactive stage uh uh interactive floor panel game machines uh and re-theming it lightly uh as the floor is lava. There were some other surprises. Uh there was a cabinet sitting in the corner, uh Lucky Gilmore 2. I'm not familiar that that's uh uh a film in production at the moment.

SPEAKER_00:

Are you talking about Happy Gilmore 2?

SPEAKER_03:

I'm sorry, Happy Gilmore, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, Happy Gilmore 2 did come out on Netflix last year. Uh but but again, like it's it's not a Happy Gilmore game, it's just a reskin, rebranded game that you can play in other places. And this is my anyway. Uh I'm not I could get on a rant. You're covering everything. I can get on the rant about the the replay for that.

SPEAKER_03:

There's room to rant at the end, though. All right, all right, sorry. The the layout of the machines drove me mad. They broke every rule in the amusement layout book. It really did feel like uh cluster socketing. And what I mean by cluster socketing is that you find out where the power socket is and then you cluster all the machines uh around it in a clusterfuck. Pardon my English. The uh the issue is that it makes it difficult for people to play, makes it difficult for people to move around comfortably. If the facility gets crowded, then you have flow and play problems, which all cannibalize off of each other. They just they just made every rookie schoolboy mistake from there, clearly showing that certain individuals on this project had experience in amusement and certain uh the others didn't. And you know, I'm sure in the breadth of time we will have that one diverse moment where we'll actually find out why those decisions were made. Uh, the unique attractions were interesting. Whether they will be able to stand up to the test of play is another issue. And one of those hard things, speaking personally, when we were working on the Disney Quest project, we made a number of exclusive systems to put it to our facility, and we learned a very hard lesson about how uh the player base will damage your lovely shiny concept system and break it into brand new pieces, and then you need to parachute in someone with a little bit more experience on batch manufacturing and how to ruggadize these systems against nine-year-olds uh exuberance. Uh, a number of interesting, unique products there. Whether these products will be ever considered to be made available outside of the Netflix house was a question that some people raised. Um I'm just wondering if these were vanity projects that will be superseded by the next uh branded concept based on the next IP. Uh, and that may be just something that Netflix is prepared to eat, or maybe move these machines around uh their venues. You know, maybe the machines here by the time uh Las Vegas opens um next year, end of uh next year, uh they'll go into that. We don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And you know what, maybe that's what we'll see is that as they're developing, they'll develop more and more of their own games and not just slap something on somebody else's game as a quick fix to fill up the space. Uh, so that may be the path they're moving.

SPEAKER_03:

They had branded areas within the replay uh environment that was specifically themed on IP property and that were much more than just a cabinet or a game, but they were an enclosed space. Um I I I'm you know, the jury's out on this. We need to get some revenue numbers to see how popular these are. Uh, the branding and the signage of what was the game and what was the branding was very confusing. And if you look at the video that was shot, uh that uh we were lucky to uh to receive, it is clear that it is a very dark environment, very heavy on the reds and the blacks, and washes out a lot of the information. So people were struggling to understand what the touch screens were doing or where the card swipe system was. Uh a red and black card swipe system on a red and black machine is always a difficult problem. And then the other components uh which we were touching upon a little bit for us was uh the Netflix Byte, which is their restaurant uh and hospitality component. They have a bar uh as well as a sit-down uh dining component based upon their previous pop-up venues, including the Netflix Byte that opened up in Las Vegas. Uh all run off of uh a card ordering system, you know, pretty standard fair, and it did feel kind of standard. It didn't really jump out as being uh a comfortable and entertaining environment that you're going to want to spend a lot of time in. Uh, and maybe that's purposely done that they want to have a uh a relatively quick throughput through this space, but even the bar setup seemed like it was a a second-tier approach to the concept compared to what we had previously seen done at other locations based on the Netflix bike idea.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I'm really surprised by this one. I mean, just just given, I mean, looking at the menu here, I mean, and and some of the pictures of the food um that's available online, and it feels very much like other than just naming things like the Hellfire Club, which is a club sandwich, okay, great. There's nothing really unique about it. It's just a club sandwich. It happens to have the Hellfire name attached to it, and um, you know, the Hollywood hangover Kier, which is you know, another uh type of drink. And so anyway, I'm just uh a little bit disappointed. It looks very much like round one-esque level of food, you know, maybe Dave and Buster's level of food, and that's about it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's it was a surprise. Uh again, there are other attractions within the space. Um, there is the themed mini golf, there is the themed uh what I would call active entertainment or mission room kind of experience. All of these kinds of experiences you have to pre-book. And in pre-booking, uh disappointment follows because at the moment uh you get to the facility, you whip out your app, or you go up to the terminal and you find out that all the slots have been taken. That never bodes well in this. If your facility can't accommodate the people that you've brought into the space, so they've come into your tent, and then you say you can't offer them what's inside the tent, that breeds a level of dissatisfaction on whatever level that uh you've got to be prepared to handle. And again, I think that the team behind this will be learning lessons about how much entertainment they need to accommodate the audience that they're going to attract to the facility. I can understand why they may have erred on a lighter touch to begin with so they can then expand into the space rather than overpopulate and then have to pull back. But again, we we we need to have a few more months under the uh belt before we can judge how well these attractions are working in comparison to the facility as a whole. And merch, merch, merch, merch, merch, merch, merch. To be expected, merch is everywhere. I would argue it's the one aspect of uh the facility that uh has been nailed down pretty hard. Um, you know, when you go out, uh, because this is a facility that abuts a shopping mall, and you know, they lead you through the front. So you can come through uh from the shopping mall site, but once you've gone through the facility and experience, you exit through the merch store, like every good uh attraction and uh extremely high-priced uh merch based on all of the popular properties was there in exuberance. And I wouldn't be surprised that going forward, Netflix House will be the place where if you want the latest um uh Bebop uh um merchandising or uh what was it, K-pop uh demon hunters uh t-shirt, then it will be found there. That is good for the retail component of Netflix House, but we cannot live by merchandise alone. And again, this is uh an area of the facility where you may argue rather than just having it centralized in one place at the exit, that you may have incorporated merchandising throughout the whole of the facility. Personal opinion, uh again, based on my experience. Anyway, rant to plenty. From my side of the rant, the areas that shocked me the most about what they've done is uh the payment system issues. They seem to have made a number of rookie errors over the pricing, the operation, and the placement of uh the payment infrastructure. And that kind of forgets why you're running an entertainment facility uh if you don't know how to impart the payment uh and satisfaction to the audience. Signage was very weak at this site, and I'm sure that would be one of the first things they touch. Uh the quality of the hospitality we've already touched upon, it was a surprise after seeing what Netflix Byte has achieved in Vegas at least, and other their pop-ups. Uh, I thought it was going to be comparable to that, and it isn't. Um, and really the attractions mix. I think they may have made some fundamental mistakes on the way they laid out their machines in the amusement area, and also the amount of entertainment value is available from their unique development as well as their attractions. These are things that can be easily fixed. We are at that stage of suck it and see. Um, this is the second facility. They've paused now. They're going to take stock of what they've created, collect all the data, and I'm sure when Las Vegas opens up, end of 2026, beginning 2027, we will see how Netflix House has evolved.

SPEAKER_00:

So from my end, I will say when I first look at this and I think that wow, I think the the on a on a revenue per square foot, their merchandising area will do more than anything else in their facility. When this is an entertainment facility, I think it's probably not a good that is not a good thing. At the same time, I will say that I do look forward to going and visiting both Netflix houses and experiencing them myself myself, primarily because I am a Netflix uh fan of a lot of the content that they put on uh that they that they you know create for Netflix, um, but also because this at least this is this is leaps and bounds beyond what Sony Wonderverse has done, um and you know, which is why we're seeing the you know Wonderverse just closing. Um, this is better than I would argue any of the other transmedia organizations' first steps into LBE that we've seen. And so while I think they have some major messes, all of misses, all of which you have identified and that I agree with, um, I am interested to see how they evolve from here to bring in more entertainment, to fix some of the value for money issues that they have and the amusement mix and some of the other entertainment that they have, um, and to improve on their F and B, which arguably should be one of the easiest things to fix right here. And so, anyway, it would be interesting to see how they evolve. I think this is at least a good first foray into LBE for Netflix, and uh I am excited to go and check it out myself.

SPEAKER_03:

It is not about not having failure, it's about having opportunities to learn. And no one gets it right first time, no matter how big my ego is, I may say a lot of suggestions and I may miss certain points, but it's the ability to understand what works and what doesn't work, and have the metrics at at your fingertips and to learn from those lessons that uh that singles out. The individuals behind Wonderverse would never admit that they had made a mistake, they would never admit that they had problems, and they would never admit that uh certain of their concepts needed more time in the oven or a total rethink. I get the feeling here that Netflix is open to learn, and that means that their stumbles offered them a much better opportunity to spring up and run forward. Yeah, agreed. We have uh Amusement Expo in March, and the reason why I'm talking about it now is uh that I've just found out that I will be presenting uh uh at the event, uh talking about competitive socializing uh in its perspective for the amusement sector. More news to follow. Also in June uh next year, middle of the year, talking about the middle of the year at the beginning of the year, yeah, always scary for me. Uh we have the LBX uh VR Zone or LBX XR Zone within the Augmented World Expo. We'll be attracting a lot of the location-based entertainment developers and operators to that event and again much more information on that coming forward. And finally, uh, if you have information you want to share in confidence or publicly, and uh if you want to ask any questions or correct us on the mistakes that I constantly make, uh then please uh do that through the uh LinkedIn or through the email. Uh the last of our Stinger reports covering IALPA have concluded, and we're now going to be moving forward, talking about the developments for 2026, and there are a lot of them to talk about. But anyway, that's it from me. Thank you, Brandon, for your help.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. All right. Well, it was a great sound off, Kevin. I'm glad we got a chance to really dig into Netflix house in Dallas, and uh see you on the next one next week.

SPEAKER_03:

See you on the next one.

Head Shot

Brandon Willey

Host