Sound Off #118 - Cinetainment differentiators, Poolhouse opening debrief, & more!

Sponsored by Intercard!

On this week's show we look at CinemaCon as a stress test for cinema, then ask whether cinetainment is a real lifeline or just a costly way to copy everyone else. We connect geopolitics, shifting consumer spend, and the rise of interactive entertainment to the hard math of ROI, revenue per square foot, and why some competitive socializing concepts stall out.

• cinema’s options beyond traditional box office reliance 
• what cinetainment means in practice and why differentiation matters 
• boutique dine-in cinema as a community-led alternative 
• how geopolitics and travel disruption hit entertainment hospitality 
• Sony’s gaming revenue signal and what it implies for interactive media 
• UK cinema pivots toward entertainment hubs and consolidation 
• EVO’s Dolby partnership as a premium immersion play 
• Point Blank’s collapse as a warning to iterate or die 
• Game Face opening as a developer-led test venue model 
• Chuck E. Cheese planning a UK site and localization risks 
• boutique bowling design awards as a blueprint for the sector 
• F1 Arcade expansion and concerns about overbuild and game updates 
• transmedia and fidgetal tech trends from darts to Universal wands 
• VR’s three emerging ROI models and the search for “phase four” 
• licensing and compliance risks for classic arcade content in venues 
• AI-driven ticketing, analytics, automation, and AI-generated games 
• Poolhouse London pricing, staffing model, and competitive catchment reality

Subscribe and visit LBX Collective for more!

Transcript

Welcome And CinemaCon Context

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Are you on the edge of your seat? Because we're about to start with Evan Williams, covering today's latest trends in location-based entertainment. Brought to you by the LBX Collective, your community to connect, create, and inspire. All right, everyone, let's buckle up.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

All right. Well, welcome to Sound Off with Kevin Williams. This is episode number 118 for April 21st, 2026. Kevin, my friend, how are you doing? Oh, I'm I'm doing fine in chaos and confusion, but fine, thank you. All right, good. Good. Well, so then it sounds like everything's normal. Perfect. Um, all right. Well, let's uh let's dive in. How are you going to change my mind this week?

SPEAKER_03 0:51

Well, we're living during uh the recording of this, during the tail end of CinemaCon, and that's brought up a couple of questions for uh for us to consider. The big one being, you know, is the cinematainment model really the only lifeline that the uh the traditional cinema theatre key operation has uh to depend upon. The conversations during the uh Las Vegas event were very telling. We had the situation of the Temple films being revealed, which is the key reason for uh CinemaCon to keep everybody happy, uh, that there are fantastic films in the in the future and that they're going to be looking at great box office. But there was a lot of umming and aring about the list of films, the reaction by the audience in the current uh geopolitical situation regarding how much money people have in their pockets to spend, uh, and if they are going to spend, are they going to want to have a longer dwell time and wider entertainment offering? And so, Sinertainment, uh, for those of you that uh have not been falling asleep during my presentations, uh fundamentally means the deployment of an entertainment mix alongside uh hospitality and entertainment mix alongside uh your cinema. I would argue that most of the cinertainment venues that we see out there, the Evo's and all of the others, offer a slightly higher than normal kind of cinema uh experience rather than just the traditional bleachers and uh soundstage. But from where I'm sitting, uh, and we've touched upon this in a recent uh open and shut, the model needs to be distinguished enough, distinctive enough, uh entertaining enough to stand out from the crowd. Because replacing one problem with another problem, if you haven't, if you're not seeing the box office from films, let's just throw all of our money into box office burgers and arcade machines, I think our friends at Dave and Busters can say that you can't just jump in with that. You do need to have some kind of level of distinction between your entertainment offering and the rest.

Cinertainment Needs Real Differentiation

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is it is disappointing to me that this is the direction that we find ourselves in. Um, while I, you know, obviously a big fan of the Sinatment model, um, I'm a fan of differentiated sit attainment model. Let's be let's be clear there. Um, you know, we don't need just another, uh, we talked about a couple of days ago on open and shut, you know, some of the uh new you know hookie that's out there and they're in 10 locations, and you know, they've got bowling and arcade and F and B and granted an upscaled F and B, but then also cinema. But that sounds just like every other Cinetainment uh location that's out there. What I do hope is that we still can find that the boutique cinema experiences, you know, there's a few in my area that are, you know, the dine-in cinemas, for example, that aren't just there to go and watch the movie, but that you can have a, you know, a nice dinner and drinks and cocktails while you're watching a movie, um, you know, unlimited popcorn, that kind of thing. And, you know, there's no other entertainment besides the movies and the food. Um, you know, I think those at a smaller scale, you know, eight screens, seven screens can work, and they do work, especially if they're really tied to the community and the uh they really lean into the cinophiles. They're running, you know, old B movies and C movies from back in the day, as well as then, you know, reruns and as well as the new movies that are coming through. I think that that model can work as well. Um, and it's a much more, I feel like, uh much, much, much more about the films and less about just the pure entertainment.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

There's one thing that wasn't touched upon during CinemaCon, and we've already touched upon it, funny enough, in a previous sound-off, and that was uh secret cinema, really. Uh and if you can't uh get the audience enthralled in uh just the normal cinema experience, then elevate it to a new level of cinema experience with live uh live actors and thematrics and uh uh even a dining model built around that. This is a big departure for most cinema operators to even consider, but it is an example of an immersive entertainment experience that is building upon the uh cinema model. We have at least three different options. Uh, option one is you go for dining, uh, comfy seats or even beds in some cinemas, the hot and cold running stakes uh and cotton tails model approach. You can go for the uh IMAX big uh experience, emotive experience approach, or you can now turn towards cinertment. And you know, from uh the theatre operators perspective, Cinertainment offers them an easier trans uh transference or uh transmogrification, even uh, towards uh uh being profitable rather than trying to depend on the current model that they're using. But we will touch upon that a little bit more as we get into this particular sound off.

Break And Sponsor Message

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Perfect. Well, coming up right after the break, we will dive right into the trends. Cashless systems from InnerCard 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 are already part of a global family of customers, they hope you will become one too.

Geopolitics And The Experience Economy

SPEAKER_03 6:51

Thank you. And jumping into the travail of the uh current economy situation, and I wake up a couple of days to um open political conflict between uh uh my country of birth uh and uh my country of employment, as it were. The majority of my clients are American-based. The Stinger Report's largest uh subscription audience is American-based, uh, along with our European coverage. There's a close-run thing. It's pretty daunting now, uh, with the current uh situation going on where all of the trade deals are seem to be being torn up, and there's uh lots of anger and uh shaking of fists at each other. Um, I am just hoping that uh this situation can calm and more level-headed uh uh political negotiations can be done to sort this out. But the reason I bring this up is this will have an impact. There will now be companies that were planning to be exhibiting uh uh at a number of the American shows coming up that will now have to reevaluate their position based upon uh uh the current political temperature.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Yeah, unfortunate um that we have uh another incident where there's the kid in the candy store who's been told no and is stomping his feet and throwing a temper tantrum. So um, you know, let's uh let's hope that, as you said, cooler heads prevail and um you know that the right people around him uh start to uh you know rein him in a little bit more, as things tend to after he has a chance to uh throw his fit.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

The situation has doubled uh regarding its impact on entertainment hospitality, uh especially airline and the hotel industry has woken up to the realization that the FIFA World Cup this year is going to not be what they were hoping for. We have seen massive um cancellations of airline tickets and uh of hotels, and we're now seeing massive discounting of hotel uh units during the uh expected games, though we're now also faced with the possibility that certain teams that had been expected to come over for the uh World Cup may not be able to do that for various political as well as logistical reasons. Um, the expense in uh shipping so many people under the current uh conditions uh due to the conflict in the Middle East, the impact of uh certain countries, uh citizens feeling uncomfortable uh uh about the immigration uh and uh the siding in into the United States, and also the just the general cost of uh the tickets for the World Cup. A lot of people were complaining even before this situation. And that ramification is hitting across other sports uh as we wake up to the news that as I talked about in the last sound off, that the Saudi uh fund had been uh the Saudi Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, uh give it its full title, had started to make noises as the uh start of the Middle East conflict that they would be pulling back on certain of their investments into Western uh opportunities due to uh the situation. It is now being uh alluded to quite strongly that uh the P uh PIF is going to be pulling out of their investment into Live. Uh this is the contentious soundbacked uh golf uh tournament, the one that was taking on, that had pulled in all of the big stars from the golfing uh stage and uh created this multi-billion dollar enterprise that was going to take over the world. Well, when the tap gets turned off, the bath empties very quickly, and now we have some very overpriced golfers now scratching their heads about what they're going to be doing next because they may have burnt their bridges in one direction and someone's stolen the well taken away the bridge in the other direction. Very embarrassing situation. Uh, and I I expect to see a lot of Mel Cooper uh uh being uh uttered by uh professional athletes.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, this this could be the the the nail in the coffin for live golf, um, unless some other large investor comes in to pour the crazy amounts of money that they were sending and throwing to the golfers uh to get them to move away from the PGA tour. So um, you know, it should be very interesting to see how that plays out. Uh on a personal note, uh, while uh it's it's incredibly disappointing that the world is losing demand, uh, as uh somebody sitting here in Phoenix looking to go to the World Cup, you know, things just got a lot cheaper. So um anyway, no, I mean I'd much rather us not have the geopolitical issues and the financial concerns that uh you know we're kicking up, you know, the all the hornet's nests around the world because of uh, you know, because of our uh political leaders uh would much rather it be a uh steady state and have a great World Cup that everybody can come to.

SPEAKER_03 12:19

You may be the only one in the stadium that may not be any teams on the pitch the way.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yeah, yeah.

Sony Gaming Revenue Changes The Map

SPEAKER_03 12:27

I I get the feeling that the the the dam is going to break on a lot of this because of the financial implications. The money men uh don't care about the flag, they care about their bottom line. And uh I I I I have a little faith. Uh it is uh it is being stretched, uh, but uh I have a little faith. But anyway, moving on and talking about the direct implications to our biz, and Sony gets up on stage or the CEO of Sony Group, and he breaks the uncomfortable news to the international investment and development market that the 60% of their bottom line, their total revenue, is coming not from their film business, not from their electronics business, not from their investment houses, but from video games. This got a lot of people surprised, shall we say, to be the least, and especially during CinemaCong, um having uh the head of uh Sony uh make this statement kind of makes people turn to Sony Pictures and go, well, that's very telling. Sony Music, that's very telling. Sony Electric, that's very telling. You know, fundamentally, we are looking at a situation where the consumption of interactive entertainment media is playing a bigger part than all of those other operations combined. And that should be enough information for anyone that was doubtful about where interactive entertainment fits on a total global market, than anything else that I can tell you. I know some people still look at interactive entertainment media as a kind of, you know, it sits alongside music, it sits alongside film. But in reality, it's bigger than all.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Yeah. This is uh this is surprising to me, given you know the fact that they have uh, you know, it just seems like they've the console, the console gaming uh space has uh feel like has just simmered, maybe like calmed down. And uh so it's really surprising to me that Sony's uh you know, gaming is now the top revenue driver at uh at Sony. That's just uh really, really remarkable.

UK Cinema Chains Become Entertainment Hubs

SPEAKER_03 14:53

As some investment houses stated, it really tells you how badly their other operations are doing. Uh I don't want to jump on uh on that one. Uh we do know that Sony Pictures has had uh its fair share of restructuring over its uh its operation, Sony Music. We know about what's going on there. Uh and I would argue that Sony Electronics has also uh been uh in trouble times, though you could argue that Sony Electronics does include their console division, so you know there is a silver lining. I would also point to that Sony doesn't just sell content for their own console, but uh their their content and their IP. Going back to my transmedia, uh if you're selling uh a Sony Pictures film to be turned into a location-based entertainment or into a video game, then that is part of that 60% uh of the revenue. Uh how the cookie crumbles. But it was very telling, especially during CinemaCon Week. CinemaCon Week uh forces a lot of companies to make statements or to uh reveal developments, and the real cinema chain uh turned around and uh you know made it clear that they're going to be doubling down on their investment in the UK's uh cinema sector. And they also pointed to their new development, and real cinema is now pivoting towards a cinema style of application, but specially focused. They're really seeing their next uh big transition into this market as being the centerpiece in a particular town or region with uh a multiplex or an entertainment hub rather than just focusing on cinema.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Yeah, this this feels right to me uh from uh from a synottainment or just retail attainment destination. Um, this isn't just about cinema. This isn't a cinattainment destination like that we've talked about, like the encapsulates and bowling and a few other things. I really like the fact that they've gone again, boutique cinema, five screens. You've got a family-oriented competitive socializing space, you've got extra restaurants that are probably subbed out. Um, and then, you know, again, creating a retailtainment destination. I'd like to see probably some shopping as well here, but at least uh you have um, you know, like you know, a pop-up store that's gonna be related to some of the movies coming out, that kind of thing. Um, you know, maybe we should get fever involved. I don't know. Somebody, somebody let fever know that there's some maybe some space here that they can create some pop-up experiences. But I feel like something like that that that's you know needed, um some other additional experience here. But uh otherwise, this feels this feels good. This feels like this is a you know, uh it could be a really good opportunity here.

SPEAKER_03 17:41

This is going back to something I used to talk about 10 years ago, which is the entertainment mall, where it is uh rather than a shopping mall depending on a entertainment anchor, the anchor is now running the ship. Uh, and you would have the cinema, the competitive socializing, the entertainment, then supported by uh the food uh and the retail. UK version, this will be repeated uh a lot more. And the growth of certain chains over other chains in location-based entertainment uh and the cinema sector, uh again, points uh where the barometer or the needle is uh heading our friends at the light. We touched upon them before. They offer a cinema model of their own unique making. They they have a very distinctive mixture of entertainment, competitive socializing, and a very comfortable um uh cinema experience with the cocktail capability and all of that. Uh, and then surprise, surprise, we wake up to the uh the news or the rumor that they are now actively looking at showcase cinema, another chain uh in the UK and wanting to add that to their mix. I think that this was partly spurred on by CinemaCon and people delving into the journalists delving into all cinema-related stories and opportunities. But we're seeing here 14 cinemas in the uh the light chain looking towards adding 16 additional uh cinemas that will then have to be brought up to the standard of how the light uh pushes their particular entertainment model. You can kind of see how this is taking over um the traditional cinema approach. And remember, we were talking uh only a couple of months ago about the investment money that uh our friends at The Light uh had uh received towards growing their operation.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Yeah. I mean, this is uh look, you're either going to get consolidated, consolidate, or you're going to evolve. Um, and so uh this is the consolidation we're seeing on the other side of the evolution that we're seeing.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

Yes, there's there is one other option which uh is a little messier.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

Let's let's stay positive. Uh we were touching upon Evo, and Evo has also uh wanted to trumpet that they're uh they're doubling down on their investment and support uh of their platform and that they're taking it to a new level. Uh we have the first renderings of the new style of uh Evo facility, which is now going for a very fidgetal kind of uh approach on their branding. I'm not sure what it looks like inside, but uh we we have already seen that they've gone for a particular layout of their cinema with their amusement and attraction component as well as their F and B. And we're now uh at the point where they're really upping their game uh concerning the cinema component with the announcement of a partnership with uh Dolby Laboratories to uh add the brand new latest projection technology to their screens. Uh um, you know, this is if you can't drop in an IMAX, then you push your technology to give the best immersive uh level that you can. And uh, you know, I am interested to go into one of the next generation Evo facilities and not just nose around or mooch around the arcade and maybe have one of their hot dogs, but I will actually have to take in a film experience to then quantify how much they're pushing that level of engagement.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Yeah, I mean, look, we talk about differentiation in the what I would call the standard Cinetainment model, arcades, bowling cinema, um, which is what Evo has in almost all of their venues. And if you're going to differentiate and stand out, then it's going to have to be both in the way that your facility physically and literally stands out amongst the crowd, but also in the experience you're delivering to the guests when it comes to watching cinema. And if I have the choice to go to the Santicos down the street from an Evo or, you know, or the Synergy around the Corner from the Evo, and my uh and I can watch the film um you know Dune on a BVision Atmos TN uh TN, then I'm gonna go and choose Evo if that's my option.

Competitive Socializing Shakeouts In UK

SPEAKER_03 22:11

Destination experience. That's really where we're heading at the moment with these types of developments. We touched upon this in uh open and shut. We promised that we would go into a little bit more detail here uh at Sound Off. I mentioned that we'd lost a competitive socializing operation from the lineup in the UK. I also pointed out that uh this was an earlier uh operation that could uh chart its establishment to the beginning of the competitive socializing revolution that we've seen it. Uh our friends at point blank, they um had facilities. Well, they they really cut their teeth at the beginning with their Newcastle uh sites, then they opened up uh their Manchester and their Leeds uh operations, the north of the country, uh, and uh aiming at a very unique market. The point blank experience was shooting bays, bay enclosures, big projection screen, pneumatic, weighted, realistic uh machine guns and automatic pistols that you could take uh use in digital shooting gallery experiences. This was you know Hogan's Alley with cocktails. And a lot of companies looked upon the point blank model and emulated it. Uh and you could actually kind of say that uh the our friends at Clays have a very similar model to uh what point blank was offering, that they have taken it in a particular direction, building upon the interactive service through touchscreen and through much more themality and much more uh player engagement through the games. And it is that the that's the point I really want to make, which is just because you were first doesn't mean that you got everything right. And just because you were first, if you don't update and reiterate and redevelop yourself, then you will get left behind, your stickiness will uh come to an end, your audience will go to your competition who has emerged around you at that time. And uh really we were faced with a situation uh a couple of months ago uh where the Manchester landlord just had had enough, he wasn't receiving his payment, he locked everybody out, took away the keys, uh, and we had a situation where the Manchester facility of point blank couldn't operate, they couldn't even contact people who had uh made bookings. Uh this started a cascade uh where you know we now know that the company's in trouble. Uh they then try and pull themselves out of that trouble, they find that they can't find investment to support their operation, and they fall into sadly administration. And that is where we are at the moment. The point-blank chain has closed down. And I would say this is a line in the sand for many other single entertainment cocktail-dependent offering um competitive socializing venues, because this could be a ticking time bomb. If you aren't iterating, if you aren't improving, then you will go the way of the dinosaurs.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

Yeah. This is uh this is this is um not I mean, sort of not surprising. I mean, part of it is uh that you know they were one of the first, but they didn't evolve. Uh so I think that's that's part of it. Their name, um, while uh you know is difficult to search for in a search engine. So if I hear about point blank and I want to find them, even in the UK, I changed my search engine while you were uh speaking to uh to be the UK and I still search point blank and I had to specify venue, shooting range, etc., to try to get there. Um, so there's a number of things going on here. Also, there's an element of you know, like picking up a machine gun and other things. Like that's what's nice about clays, where you know, it's look, it's a shotgun, you're shooting clays, you're shooting other things. It's not just the clays, right? So it's a little bit more of a casual social experience, um, a little less aggressive than uh than here. So anyway, it's it's too bad uh that they weren't able to evolve. Uh, but you know what? Sometimes uh they were uh they were a trailblazer, and some other models have certainly uh evolved and and were born because of them.

SPEAKER_03 26:37

And we will be seeing other screen shooting realistic uh experiences, but not as standalones, but as additions to other facilities as entertainment. Uh our friends at uh uh Shootaway and uh other manufacturers of those types of systems offer this kind of experience, but in a package that can be deployed easily into other venues rather than having to be sold as a standalone. And then that jumps us to the new openings and uh our friends at Game Face through the doors open to their uh Manchester facility uh at Printworks. You've you've got to kind of uh uh wonder that um as point blank in Manchester fell onto hard times, we then see a brand new uh competitive socializing venue open up uh just uh down the road, as it were. The the issues that I uh want to point out here with uh the opening of Game Face is that this is developed by a company that comes from the competitive socializing sector. So this is, you know, as I like to call it, the vampire running the blood bank. It's a developer of uh applications now running their own site, it gives them direct um uh communication with their audience and they can see what works and what doesn't work. This venue is interesting. Uh the print works uh location offers uh uh uh already uh a mix of entertainment. It has a boom battle bar in there, it has a 10-pin uh chain in there, so you are going up against quite uh uh an established entertainment hub. Uh I I speak from personal experience. We uh briefly consulted on a project that went into uh printworks, and it found it difficult to uh offer something away from the norm for this particular audience. So again, our friends at Game Face are going to be working very hard to ensure that their entertainment mix suits the distinctive audience that we see in that locality.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Yeah, I mean, first of all, yeah, like the Game Face, uh, it's actually a pretty good brand. I I I like it a lot. It obviously looks very similar to the rest of the branding, the game vault and conductor branding that they have. Um, but uh if this is just a single location designed to test their gameplay and put things out there, uh, you know, look, this is done a lot by a lot of manufacturers uh of these types of systems. They'll have their own venues that they can test these things in. It's one of the best ways to do it. Um, but if this is something that is intended to be a future model that's rolled out internationally or even nationally, if we're talking about the UK exclusively, um, then I begin to get a little bit uh concerned here for people, you know, it's hard when you have a vendor who's supplying these types of attractions to other competitive socializing venues and then also potentially opening up as a competitor right down the street. Or if they have some sort of agreement with their buyers of their of their games where they won't come within a certain thing, certain area, then also severely restricts their ability to expand, uh, given who, you know, depending on who is actually deploying these uh some of these systems, like for example, uh Dave and Busters, as they were for a period of time. Um and so I think that uh this uh this is an interesting model. Again, um Printworks is a great place for this, I think. Uh it is non it is not directly in competition with the things that are already there at Printworks, uh, although it is still obviously entertainment is entertainment, but printworks is a entertainment destination, and this is a good location to test out some really innovative games.

New Openings From Chuck E. Cheese

SPEAKER_03 30:40

Yeah, it's it's a it's a perfect location to test. I would argue that uh because of the low-key uh realization of conductors' involvement in this, they they may be just using this as a test facility to start with, and then if it becomes more successful, that's something that you could franchise out and so keep your hands clean, as it were. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. The dust is only just uh uh dying down on the opening, and uh we're looking forward to seeing some of those trip advisor reviews to see what the reaction is from the audience. England again, and we're soon to be recipients of a uh Chuck E. Cheese. Chuck E. Cheese has toyed with uh coming to Europe and the UK for uh over many years, and now we have the clearest information that uh the third city of the UK, Birmingham, will be receiving uh a Chuck E. Cheese facility in their destination entertainment uh locality, Star City. Star City has quite a large cinema component to it, but it also has food hubs, bars, and entertainment venues, and it is felt that an entertainment chain such as Chuck E. Cheese would be a good mix. This will be under the previous Chuck E. Cheese management's dream of global domination through franchise deployment. Uh, and it would seem that uh as this project is still uh making headway for a 2027 launch, that uh the current or the new Chuck E. Cheese management is still rolling that uh uh that ball.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Well, be interesting to see how well they do in the UK market.

SPEAKER_03 32:23

I look forward to seeing how much they change from an American Chuck E. Cheese facility or a Philippines Chuck E. Cheese or a UAE Chuck E. Cheese facility for a UK facility because there is a very big danger that you if you have too many different flavors of your entertainment uh facility, then uh it's very hard to wrangle. But again, uh I think that Chuck E. Cheese could work in the UK market from the research I do in that particular demographic. Uh, there aren't many alternatives to this other than the uh active entertainment trampoline facility for the birthday party for that type of age group or the ballpits or those types of things. Uh again, the uh growth of the uh the new generation of the bowling industry, which we touched upon in the last sound off. Uh we just were a little bit out of time to include uh mention about the uh annual bowling centre architectural design awards that took place. Um and our friends at Brun Brunswick Bowling, uh one of the leading manufacturers of the bowling technology in the sector, uh, was you know supplying us information, shall we say, about the winners. And it was interested that it was two Europe well uh two mainland European facilities that won, one in France, one in Estonia, and both of them were heavily on the boutique uh and entertainment bowling approach rather than the more traditional sports bowling. So um this kind of underpins a lot of what we were saying in our uh our last comments about really where the bowling industry is looking towards uh their future success. The same way that the cinema industry is looking at cinattainment, uh, it is clear that the bowling industry is looking at the boutique competitive socializing approach.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Yeah, and you know, Hall You Need also was a finalist for the IAPA FEC of the Year Award. They did not win it, but they were a finalist. And, you know, the facility is truly beautiful uh and uh really unique, and they obviously have more than just bowling, they do have a full suite of entertainment um, you know, in in various forms. So uh yeah, good to see that they were also you know, at least recognized as a uh as an award winner for the design.

F1 Arcade Growth And ROI Reality

SPEAKER_03 34:43

As well as Aloma, uh they also have a mixture of uh uh what I would call amusement entertainment, as long with bowling, along with FEB, uh F and B. This is uh this is the future. 41 years on from the award, I think that going forwards this will be the standard that will have to be matched. I'm looking forward to seeing the first string bowling facility uh to uh actually receive some kind of recognition. But hey. We had uh again in mainland Europe uh the appearance of a brand new brand. Um we've had F1 arcade open in the UK, we've had F1 uh open in uh North America, and now we're at that stage where they're uh the franchise deal that they signed uh I think a year ago with uh a very well-known um Spanish entertainment uh and sports uh uh corporation, shall we say, they uh finally nailed the opening of their first facility ahead of schedule. It actually had been, uh I was given information from the last press release that it was going to be end of 2026, beginning of 2027. Well, obviously the winds moved favorably for the development, and we have the rollout of the first Madrid-Spain uh facility. Uh yeah, here am I in London, and the families in Madrid, and yeah, well, the gods are like that sometimes. You know, I have to point out that um F1 Arcade has received quite a considerable investment from a number uh of funds. Uh they are seen as a key leader for franchise rollout and world domination, and so we get a we get a glimpse with the Madrid facility of really what we're touching. And you know, 1,500 square meters, similar size to the Las Vegas facility that we were uh at um on two floors, seeing a pattern here. Um the restaurant and bar area looked very similar to what they achieved uh with the London um St. Paul's facility, more than the darker uh approach that they went with with the Las Vegas facility. 65 uh of their simulators, usually we see 70 and 80 uh being dropped into their site. So 65 seems to be mid-ground. And I would say from the video of uh people walking around at the uh the media event that the themality is still good, still strong, but not uh as intense as we had seen at some of the other F1 uh arcade facilities directly owned by the operation. All in all, uh a franchisee comes along, looks at what will work and won't work with their audience and what they can and can't afford, and they roll that out. And from all uh reaction, it is being well received, though we know the most important number to consider is how well it generates revenue.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you know, revenue per square foot. That's the name of the game. Uh, we are in a uh while we are in an entertainment business, we are in a real estate business as well. Um, and it is a revenue per square foot number that's important. And my concern, as is as has always been my concern with F1 Arcade, is how overbuilt they really feel uh in both the number of simulators as well as the amount of space for their F and B. And you know, we saw this as an issue with pinstripes, obviously, very different entertainment model, different brand. Um, but I do worry about their level of uh square footage that they or square meterage, minerage, because that was the square meters that they deploy towards their venues.

Tech Trends From Darts To Wands

SPEAKER_03 38:53

With my uh development hat on and my immersive technologies and entertainment hat on, the concern for me stays the same from the first day that I was allowed kicking and screaming into the media launch event for the first F1 arcade, which is the game. We are now over uh four years into the race that is F1 Arcade. And how much have you heard about the enhancements, improvements, redevelopments of the entertainment component that makes this place tick? Zero. Zero. And I am concerned that if they have neglected the game and entertainment component, then they will be sharing the same fate over a larger time and model that our friends at Point Blank have just gone through. Uh again, there are people that will argue with me that the F1 brand is strong enough and that what will happen is the F1 arcade will pivot towards being more of a place you go and watch F1 racing and uh seem to be seen and drink the cocktails and enjoy the fine food, and the entertainment will be a tertiary component to that. I don't believe that. You don't have arcade in your name uh to push it to third place. That said, we still wait for ROI numbers, and no matter how much the F1RK team may want to sit on those numbers, uh there is always a way, and we will find out very soon what the uh what their earning numbers have been like and the impact of their entertainment machines on their bottom line. Moving on, and we've had some uh changes and some movements. Uh only one uh this particular sound off. Uh uh congratulations to our friends at uh candymachines.com who uh we were speaking with at the AEI show uh uh last month. Uh last month. Uh uh we uh congratulate uh Matt on uh taking on the senior sales executive role, uh especially with what we've seen from the company, their plans uh regarding how they're going to place their particular approach to the uh claw uh and uh prize machine business is going to be interesting. Baptism of fire, so I'll say. Indeed. For all of you that uh like uh The Tourist of Pain, uh it looks like I might have some airline time to actually tidy this up. Uh we we will we will try at least not to get to May with it still being in its original format. Jumping on into the uh trends of tech, and uh for me the big one uh is that Dart, uh the Japanese Dart system or Darts Live system that Sega runs, and many people forget, is a very successful uh tournament uh soft nose darts system that is run across many hospitality facilities across Asia. Uh they have attempted to try and ship it into the Western market and it's had minimal success, but it is already a complicated and difficult market, already the Dart sector, and bringing a new machine to that is difficult. But anyway, this is the one part of Sega that no one ever talked about that still has a presence in the amusement industry, as I would call it, or the hospitality industry, and they've just done a uh transmedia partnership with uh our friends at Capcom, where the Street Fighter 6 product, which is now predominantly a consumer games release, even though there is a very small release of these as uh standalone amusement machines. But anyway, the brand is so popular that they've now created for their digital darts system uh branding based upon the Street Fighter characters uh and the updates, and they're running tournaments based upon this. This is the Darts Live 3 systems, uh, and is very popular in the Asian markets. But again, it's one of those systems that kind of gets ignored or neglected by uh some of the industry.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Yeah, and I think part of that has to do with its limited exposure here in the North American market, and uh, and so that's why. But I mean, great opportunity to integrate uh the the renewed attention that Street Fighter will get with the upcoming movie. Um, and so to see this uh this was a good move by Sega to leverage this IP um and collaboration with Capcom to roll this out across their platform.

SPEAKER_03 43:41

Sega's been working very hard upon its licensing and IP positioning, and this is just uh a reflection of that and keeping it uh at home well or keeping it with your friends and uh Capcom's products uh have always uh had some relationship with either Bandai or Sega over the years. Universal, that transmedia interactive gamification component. Um, Universal in Orlando was one of the first to really push the interactive uh entertainment element around the parks. I know Disney had toyed with uh a number of uh promotions and tests of concepts, the impossible uh smartphone. Uh I I speak from experience uh being around Disney at that time. But Universal really cemented this with this you know, knocking it out of the park with the wizarding world, and they have now upgraded that to the second generation of these wands uh through the unique movements of the wands over at certain localities throughout uh the park, uh, then certain uh animated uh effects take place, certain props do certain things, uh certain uh images appear in front of screens, and now with the version two or the gen 2 version, it is also synced quite closely with a smartphone app that will continue the enjoyment of uh the wand beyond just park usage. This is it. This is interactive, entertainment engagement, away from riding on the roller coaster, away from experiencing the 4D film, away from playing the home video game version or the smart app version, you now have an interface that mixes the physical with the digital.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, this is also gamification. So, in addition to the new features of the wand itself, which is haptic effects, light on the tips, you also have new spell locations because there's Bluetooth connectivity. So now you can connect also with your app on your phone. You can cast a digital patronus and learn how to do that. But on the gamification side, they actually have a leaderboard that you can join your um, you can earn points for your Hogwarts house. So are you a Slytherin or are you a uh Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff or whatever? Um, you can now earn uh and unlock new spells and locations that you have access to. There's a new dueling club tent that you can experience and unlock special access to, interactive pixies and um some really interesting things that you can do now. And so not only is it enhancing the fidgetal experience that Universal really pioneered uh with their original ones, uh you now have the gamification side as well, where you're competing with others in the park to you know unlock special secret access.

SPEAKER_03 46:44

I I totally agree. It's that gamification element that is the most important here. That connectivity with the app, that leaderboard is going to go a lot a lot a long way towards popularizing this, and there will be FOMO. So people will say, Hey, well, my friend's got this and he's having a great time, and he's I want it, I'm a big fan uh of uh Harry Potter. We have the other Harry Potter films uh due. So you could also roll in our friends from CinemaCon into this kind of argument, and uh use utilization of IP in theme parks from the movie industry. Um, you know, we've just I I got the chance to finally see the new Superman film, uh, and a lot of the elements from that film have now been incorporated into uh the Superman experience at uh the Warner Brothers uh studios in Burbank. This again is uh you know how this whole transmedia machine works. You have uh the big budget spent on the film and the secondary entertainment social media push, but you also have the big budget being spent on the attraction, the physical bricks and mortar approach, and they all feed into each other and they all help grow the brand.

SPEAKER_01 48:07

Yeah, but uh I mean great idea. You already have your studio tours available and you know having people coming in and doing those tours, so why not uh add a you know an experience into that that will help promote obviously the new direction that DC is going.

VR ROI Models And What Comes Next

SPEAKER_03 48:23

Yes, the uh there will be the push for the Supergirl film in here as well as uh for crypto. So this is this is all feeding off of if you're going to pivot your brands, then it always helps to have a bricks and mortar facility to define that. We touched upon this very briefly in Open and Sharks, uh, and I wanted to go into a little bit more detail. Typhon is renowned for uh developing their own free roaming VR experience. They were one of the first of the companies that had the back PC backpack uh uh head-mounted display kind of experience. But rather than going for blasting zombies, they went for a very much coupled mystery, romantic kind of approach to their interactive entertainment that they created through their facilities. Uh, at their height, they had about three facilities open. Now they're down to about two, I think, if I'm correct. But they have also been uh perfecting their technology and they've partnered with uh XR uh center game space towards uh the development of this technology, and they have created a sit-down, so a motion seat, tethered PC uh experience that again follows their uh their much more uh cinematic kind of approach to their uh to their type of experiences. This is using older technology but applying it to the lessons that they've learned from what their audience. They're literally listening to what their audience wants, and they haven't gone for the latest uh free roaming arena, high intensity, they've created a a much more uh relaxing and immersive uh transportation for two individuals to experience. And they they know their business very well. And that said, our friends at XR centers have also decided to roll this into their budding business. Their budding business is growing. Uh they have been developing their own VR arena systems using all of the uh special effects, they've gone for a much more cost-effective uh rather than arenas, they're going for a VR cave uh kind of approach. And they have rolled out uh, I think this is their third facility that they're uh rolling out using this technology. And someone pointed something out to me that I had to go away and do quite a lot of research into to find out, which is oh, this is interesting. This is very similar to those early photographs I had from Sandbox VR when they first opened up their first facilities in Hong Kong. And the light bulb moment, there isn't a sandbox VR facility in Japan. And there isn't. So you could say that our friends at XR Center could be about to try and establish their type of approach to VR entertainment centers uh as as their uh as the alternative to uh a sandbox franchise, why there isn't uh sandbox in Japan. I'm gonna hopefully have the chance soon to uh ask the guys at sandbox VR that when we bump into them. But it is interesting that of all the territories the sandbox VR is in, Japan.

SPEAKER_01 51:51

Yeah, it is strange given Japan's love for VR. Um makes you wonder what it is about the sandbox VR experience that is um, you know, that isn't maybe isn't the right fit for the Japanese market.

SPEAKER_03 52:10

I bet it's something to do with the franchise. I bet it's uh we have to remember the Sandbox VR is funded by a very large uh amount of investors, but the predominant investors at the beginning were companies like Alibaba. So uh again, this is a question that we need to pose. Uh funny how it's always us that are asking all of the interesting questions. Moving on, and that virtual arena kind of experience, that seated VR experience, and then we have the uh what I call the virtual uh adventure or the VR Adventure kind of system, is really gaining ground as a space utilizer, both for museums and for uh high foot uh traffic uh entertainment destinations. Xcurio, our friends there, who have their uh chain of uh or their franchisable platform, have now launched the LBXR Pulse, which is a turnkey uh version of their system that can be dropped into any venues, able to handle up to 130 users uh within that. And they actually uh gave us a little bit of transparency to uh how successful their virtual adventure historical experience, uh Horizons of Khufu, uh the Egyptian pyramid uh and tomb experience, very popular, and they're saying over its life it's had two million tickets, uh, which is an interesting number for them to uh select upon. We know now that venues that have been running this are now looking at running other of uh the Excurio kinds of experiences uh through their sites, and this new Pulse platform actually allows you to have multiple groups uh experiencing different. So you don't just have to have KUFU uh being run through the arena or the uh the uh adventure space. You can have one group uh watching KUFU and another group uh wandering through uh the uh um the uh the painters or impressionist painters of France. Uh I know it's one of their other experiences. This is nice that you can have multiple experiences so you can maximize the utilization of your facility and you're not tied to one kind of offering, and so broadening the picture. These are the kinds of applications we're going to see in virtual adventure technology uh to try and uh you know improve the ROI of this kind of application and utilization of your stuff. You don't just have staff fixated on one particular experience. But I wanted to kind of illustrate the point that I wanted to make, especially in CinemaCon Week, uh, which is how the technology of virtual reality has now broken itself into three dedicated ROI models very quickly. Funny enough, our friends at Typhon uh have uh pivoted back to what I would have called phase one technology with the motion seat uh and uh the wand kind of approach, the VR cinema, as they like to call it. We have already talked about the zero latency, the sandboxes, and our friends are Hero Zone with the VR Arena approach. And now we have the next phase with uh what I call virtual adventures, but the VR Adventures. Uh and we can see that there are now companies that are in these spaces that are very uh that are seeing strong revenue and are very focused on driving the next generation of application. And it's what happens next for a phase four for me that uh is keeping me very interested. Will phase four have a box on your head, or will phase four be maybe the utilization of these new digital screens that we've been seeing.

SPEAKER_01 56:07

Yeah, yeah. Uh or some you know, some combination thereof, right? Yeah, or something entirely different. Although I think at this point we would have seen something, at least some examples of the the next iteration of this coming down the line.

Licensing Risks And Ticketing AI

SPEAKER_03 56:22

Does feel that way. Uh one interesting thing for me regarding the more traditional amusement approach was I stumbled across uh our friends at Home Leisure Direct, a company that manufactures customizable arcade cabinets for home use as well as for corporate uh uh and marketing promotion. And suddenly they were promoting that they have now developed a range of uh arcade cabinets for our friends at Boom Battle Bar. Interesting on three levels. Number one, Boom Battle Bar couldn't find an arcade uh manufacturer to to make them a suitable cabinet. Interesting. Option uh point two, these are multi-game main, so they're these machines populated with about a hundred classic arcade machines. But are these licensed games that they're going to be putting in? Because uh home Leisure Directs uh mainly sells their systems not for commercial use. That's why there isn't a coin box on their machines. These are built for uh consumer application, and we can see from the Boom Battle Bar machines that there is a card reader there. I think we're about to see some boxes taken out of a Boom Battle Bar facility very quickly, unless someone watches this uh sound off and then suddenly moves the right uh makes the right phone calls to ensure that they're not going to get a nasty uh a nasty letter from solicitors representing any of those 100 classic amusement titles that are going to be played on those machines.

SPEAKER_01 58:10

Yeah, I mean this is this is you know pushing pushing the edge, we'll say, uh, you know, especially if there's a card reader uh component to this and it's a pay-for-play on uh you know what are effectively meant to be home machines um and uh you know used at home. If this is maybe free play and this is just part of the experiences sitting in there, it's still questionable. I would argue it's as questionable as running an NFL football game on a TV at a sports bar and you haven't paid licensing to NFL, um, you can get your hands slapped pretty significantly for that. Um I wouldn't see that I I can't see how this would be any different.

SPEAKER_03 58:49

Uh as one funny, I was having a conversation with Bandai Namco amusement at uh uh AEI, where they were actively ensuring that all of the machines that were representing classic uh content were being policed properly and had the correct T's and C's. I think our friends at Boom Battle Bar and Home Leisure Direct are going to find out that these corporations are still very litigious, even 50 years on from the release of these games. AI, AI, AI, and Assyrio um has acquired Detrix. Uh the issue I have here is that it's an acquisition rather than a partnership. So they are really doubling down on uh the control of this technology for their ticketing uh and uh uh uh and uh data collection model. They also made it clear that uh serioint uh intelligence is going to uh be pushing very heavily the use of AI in the tracking, uh the uh analyzing of data uh and also being used in the ticketing and attraction component uh of their business model. This is a big move. It will be invisible to most of us. Uh we will just see that their analytics tools get much more creative and they they offer much wider platforms for discounting and for seasonality, but a lot of that will be uh powered by a machine learning engine uh at the core. Very similar to a couple of sound offs I was talking about, uh our friends at uh Gender and how they were pushing their DX initiative. This is just an example of that from the theme part ticketing side of the business.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:43

Indeed.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:46

Uh talking about Sony and understanding where their bottom line is, so we're not particularly surprised when uh Sony announces that they're moving into the AI side of the business uh by you know a special relationship with uh this, you know, Cinemersive Labs is is known for its work on what I would call AI and computer vision related technology. They they've also been working on away from just their uh AI stuff and them uh their uh computer vision stuff, they've also been working on the avatar kind of getting the person closer into the game experience using uh the latest machine learning capabilities and stuff like this. It's a no-brainer for Sony. Uh this is going to be needed for their next generation consoles, but also their next generation gaming business uh activities, and having this operation as part of uh part of their moves forward kind of points towards what maybe the next generation of console will look like and how much the game will be developed by AI or uh developed by human beings.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:05

Yeah, really exciting stuff here. And uh, you know, you know, looking forward to seeing how this evolves and you know what the next console might be, especially given uh you know the fact that they're as announced recently that they um their their gaming division has now the top revenue driver for uh for everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:26

And that console war may not be about boxes. Uh there's a strong possibility that you know the future for the console and video games industry is not hardware, but uh actually the experiences and uh the content IP. And uh Ali Barber Group had a board uh and development meeting uh which was streamed, and suddenly up on screen, a dem a live demonstration was given. Well, a demonstration was given of uh the one-tan fight, uh one-two fight or one-tan fight concept. This is using AI uh and prompting to create the levels and the opponent uh purely by AI, not by programming. So the basic information is given to the uh the engine. Uh, you know, these are the characters we want to use, this is the environment, these are the uh the controls that the player will use to move his character up, down, left, right, kick, punch, duck. And then the AI, through those prompts, was able to then create a video game, uh, uh was able to have you compete with that character to certain levels to generate scores, to do uh special moves. This is you know fundamentally AI getting to the stage of uh the 1980s and 90s, uh, with uh its quality of game recreation through prompting. Scary stuff, but something that we will have fundamentally have to understand that the future of game creation, both in our sector as well as in the consumer game sector, a lot of the background work will be created by prompting and AI. You write the foreword and the AI writes the book.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:23

Yeah.

Disney Cuts And The AI Question

SPEAKER_03 1:04:26

Uh uh automation on autonomous operation uh is big. We've talked about uh Ven Hub before, but they've just aim to deal with Caesar resorts and casinos, uh, and that they will be removing their traditional human-powered kiosks uh uh and uh zerping them with uh robotically controlled systems. The key fundamentals here is no member of staff, that these uh systems also work on adjusting time, so they communicate with the warehouse regarding when they need to be stocked, uh, and they also employ uh AI in their learning and their handling of the experiences to the customer. The robots are covered. Cinema Khan, we have uh the situation where just before Disney got up on stage to tell us the films that they will be pushing to the audience, they then, a couple of days beforehand, sacked over a thousand individuals. And of those thousand individuals sacked, most of them came from the Marvel Studio Division. I would hazard a guess that the phrase from the new CEO streamlining the operation is the clearest indication we've had that we can expect major changes in the roster and quality of films going forward from Disney after previous management.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

Yeah, this is uh I mean look, some we know that this these types of riffs happen from time to time, especially when you have uh executive leadership transitions. Um, but at the same time, uh you also wonder how much of this is driven by improvements in uh AI and uh, you know, changing technologies. You know, when you see streamline operations, at least in other tech companies, when it comes to software engineers and developers, streamlining operations is we're using Claude a lot more frequently and we need less developers in-house.

Pool House London And Unit Economics

SPEAKER_03 1:06:33

I wouldn't be surprised that a number of those individuals on the executive side may have been victims of the failure of uh their AI uh partnership that fell through so spectacularly uh last sound off. But again, it's difficult to speculate this high altitude with the Disney company. It is clear that the new CEO is laying down his rules. Talking point. Uh I had the pleasure of uh visiting uh our friends in London of Pool House. For all of you that aren't familiar with Pool House, we've talked about it in open chart, we've even talked about it in Sound Off in the past, but the founders behind the Top Golf and Put Shack concept, uh the infusing of technology into traditional sports and entertainment, uh, managed to secure a couple of years ago, well no, not that many years ago, uh over$34 million uh towards launching a concept that they felt was going to revolutionize the competitive socializing. Third times a charm. And so we had the doors opened of Pool House in central London, next door to a major train station, one of the largest in uh in London, uh right in the centre of what I call the competitive socializing gulch uh valley. Let's be kind. Let's call it the London Competitive Socialising Valley. Pool House, interesting name, uh, especially as Pool House is a popular name for pool halls, uh uh uh especially in the UK. Uh, but they feel that Pool House uh is a strong enough brand for them uh to do that. This is um, you know, gathering together major investment houses uh to bank down on that these uh founders are going to strike lightning again. So this was a very telling uh event. And really, I can only nail this down to the simple descriptive of its projection mapping onto a pool table. This is the core essence of this. There is nothing else here other than a very nice bar, an incredible decor, and very nice staff. But to the basics, the facility is over two floors, uh 21,000 square, 21,000 square.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:10

It's amazing, that's insane.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:12

20 pool tables of that style, so that large projection infrastructure and full-size tables. You can have a maximum of 14 people around them, and each table comes with its own member of staff. So when you book this, a member of staff as your gatekeeper will be there to help you through the experience. Okay, all right, all right, all right. I'll let I'll finish your date. And to the list. Yeah, uh, top floor layout. Slight problem that they have to draw the curtains by uh for the tables near the windows. Uh, who would have thought that that would be an issue? Uh they also have a VIP area as most of these competitive socializing venues do, uh, named after a famous female uh pool player. Uh this area is much more snug. Uh this is for uh corporate parties and that has its own mini bar, uh, and again the happy member of staff watching other people play the game. Okay, Brandon. I've had my points back to the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:33

Off you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:36

All right. Well, let's just start with the economics. Uh, you have a$15 or 15 pounds uh per player for a one-hour game, assuming you max out at 14 players uh at the each table, that's only a total of$210 per hour. And if you have a dedicated member of staff plus the square footage plus the cost of the equipment, etc., you know, we're not even talking about CapEx pay down over, you know, alongside the crazy high OpEx uh to operate this uh venue. Um, this is a the this I don't know how this economically survives. If you have a dedicated member of staff and you have five people there, you're now your your initial margin, just if you just take out your uh your staff, your margin is already reduced down to 60%. Um, if you have four people, if you have two people playing and you have a dedicated member of staff, now you're almost in the hole. Um you're you're in reverse, uh assuming that they're you know, depending on the F and V purchases and everything else.

London Events And Wrap-Up

SPEAKER_03 1:11:41

So that's it. I cannot tell you how expensive the gin and tonic was. I didn't, I wasn't able, and for the sake of transparency, I was there during the soft opening. The official press opening I was not invited to, but I've been told that I am invited to a one-on-one experience at my calling. So when I come back from uh my next trips, I will be actually spending an hour in there, and we will be able to tell you A how popular it is, B, how much their gin and tonics are, and C how their food sales are doing, because if you also look around there, there's not a lot of places to purchase your snack food if they are doing a high-level snack food basis. But you've hit all of the nails on the head, and there's one additional point that I need to bring to the table here. I am not here to shoot down new ideas. The first time I saw a projected pool table system is now nearly 15 years ago. And the quality of the projection systems from 10 years ago for those table system uh pool table systems was comparable to what I was seeing being used here. Colours may have been a little bit more brighter, and the game is a little bit more simplistic. The phrase that the uh person that showed me around the uh venue used made me have to swallow my laughter and run outside and go for. Oh, and for those people that want to turn off the projection system yeah, yeah, anyway. So I'll break it down simply. You've touched upon just the simple mathematics. These are AI-powered game experiences, which do for the first time something that I've been very interested to see actually work. When we talk about gamifications at flight clubs and other venues like this, we know that the games have been tuned to ensure that the worst player isn't left out. Well, now, you know, borrowing from the fantastic AI-powered terminology we use, um uh Pool House will be one of the first facilities that has AI physically or subtly, well, let's let's call it what it is, adjusting the difficulty settings for all of the players. I need to see that in action. I really do need to see that in action, that it isn't visible and doesn't impede upon everybody's experience by someone who suddenly does a fantastic shot, suddenly gets nerfed because uh someone in their group of 14 isn't playing up to their standard, always just knocking the ball around because they're drunk. Those are the questions we need to have answered, and I'm sure by the time it has taken these guys to get this product to market that they've been working very hard on the play, playability and the play metrics. But what I really want to end on is you have dropped this kind of facility into one of the most crowded and contested areas, as I call it Silicon, uh Silicon Valley for competitive socializing. There's a map of two square miles. Yeah, you near enough have every one of the leading or established competitive socializing venues, and just for our audience's uh free consultancy, I've put the prices of a one-player, roughly 40 to 60 minute game uh from each one of those venues nearby. And you can see that Sandbox will always win the bloody hell that's expensive award. But uh, you know, you can also see that F1 Arcade's not too cheap. You can also see that uh that our founders behind Pool House have made a point of being in the same price bracket as their competitive concepts of previously, you know, this is exactly the same price of playing uh Put Shack uh just down the road from them. Interesting though, I think the play experience from Put Shack and the play experience from Pool House will be considerably different uh different. And there's a couple of venues there that have gone the way of all fish. I have mounted up their sixes, and I have uh on that list where the other world VR facility was. And you can see how expensive the other world was, that it they were literally on another world when they they thought that that was a viable concept. But this is a very difficult uh valley to compete in. You're going to be working very hard, and the audience, who are mainly city of London uh employees and tourists, such like, it's a very hyper cap audience, they have a lot of choices to make. I would say uh overabundant of choices there to be blunt. It's a very difficult market to turn up. So your experience better be what was the phrase that the founders of the operation called it? A new social entertainment. I'll be able to tell you hopefully in a couple of weeks if I experienced a new level of social entertainment. Anyway, uh by the time you see this, I will be getting ready to jump up on stage. Or oh, the day after, I think, I will be jumping up on stage uh to present at uh the London Experience Week event. I've been asked to hold a round table, or to host a round table, uh, to discuss competitive socializing. And one of those slides you've just seen will be used very heavily during that discussion. I would recommend if you're in the London area uh to come to the competitive socializing session, obviously, but I would also say that you will find value out of the WXO organised London Experience Week events. It covers a number of areas uh in uh immersive entertainment and location-based entertainment, as well as the future of this sector. Uh, and uh I'm very grateful for the guys who have given me a chance again to present. One aspect I didn't include on that list of London venues was all of the escape rooms that are also littered uh within that catchment. And one of the things that we'll be touched upon is the uh the uh the evolution of the escape room business as it pertains to the experience economy. Uh obviously in June we have AWE and the LB, sorry, the LBEXR zone. And uh we have some big announcements. Uh our friends from Qualcomm and Snap have now snapped up their opportunity to uh to be part of this event, uh, underlining how important uh AR is uh is seen uh as being a component not just of the commercial and enterprise side but also location base, as many of our listeners and watchers will know Snap has a very close uh relationship with versus who have their uh augmented reality entertainment experience. Anyway, that's way more than enough from me. Uh hit me up on LinkedIn. We have uh new Stinger reports coming out. Uh we also have a new social arena where I will go into a little bit more detail about the uh the problems in London uh regarding uh maybe overflowing of competitive social arts and venues. And my email is there if you have any questions or suggestions.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:31

Excellent. All right, Kevin. Well, that was an excellent, excellent sound off. And already looking forward to next one. So stay tuned for the next sound off number one hundred and nineteen coming just one week from now. Have a good one.