Sound Off #124 - Karting Goes Phygital, Park Avenue Open Day, & more! Artwork

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Sound Off #124 - Karting Goes Phygital, Park Avenue Open Day, & more!

June 09, 2026 • Brandon Willey • Season 4 • Episode 124

0:00 | 1:23:09

Welcome And What’s Trending

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Are you on the edge of your city? Covering today's latest friends in location based community. Brought to you by the LDX Collective. Your community collected. All right, everyone. Let's buckle up.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

All right. Well, welcome everybody to Sound Off with Kevin Williams. This is episode number 124 for June 9th, 2026. Kevin, my friend, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 0:34

I'm doing okay. Thank you for asking. And how are you doing, more importantly?

SPEAKER_01 0:38

I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I know you are feeling a little under the weather. And uh yeah, so uh, but I am looking forward to spending some time with you in Long Beach in just a week. So it should be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_03 0:50

Yeah, I'll need that sunshine. Uh get some vitamin D in and uh uh maybe some gin and tonics at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Oh I'm sure that I'm sure the GTs will help. But uh in the meantime, how are you going to change my mind this week?

Why Fidgetal E-Karting Disrupts

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Well, coming back from the uh the China show, and it was very clear that there was one trend that was ubiquitous across the floor, and I touched upon that in our coverage in Sound Off, but it also opens the argument regarding where does uh the XR carting scene, e-carting scene, fit into the future mix. I'm I'm uh I'm calling it a disruptive technology uh that could blow the uh the walls off the same way that um boutique bowling has blown the walls off uh the bowling, sports bowling industry. Now, there are three key elements of what what we'll call fittetal karting, just for uh we'll wait for someone to come up with a better name, um, unless the LBX juices are flowing, Brandon. But for the fidgetal uh e-carting scene, there are three beneficiaries. Number one, that it's indoors uh and that it's not going to the same speed uh or using the same noxious fueled uh and such like as uh traditional karting. Number two, because of the speeds, you don't need to wear most of these systems uh a crash helmet. And number three, the big one for me, is gamification. So if you don't like driving around a recreation of Mario, then you can play snakes. If you don't like snakes, then you can play one of the other games created for this environment. One of the things that we are going to be seeing next is not that they take up the same space as a normal uh carting, indoor carting facility with the multi-layers and all of that, but we'll be able to see them shrink down and we'll see the bumper car physical experiences. And I saw a number of those while I was uh out in China. And if I'm seeing them in China, then that means I'm gonna be seeing them on the show floor in IAPA Europe and uh IALPA Orlando, and then we're going to be up to our ears in them for 2027.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

I think the key word here is disruptive. Will it be disruptive to traditional carding? Um, I think what we will see is that new chains, new builds that are coming will lean in heavy to the fidgetal e-carting. Um and I would even argue that there's there's probably two breeds right now that we're seeing. You know, one is the big open box that has no barriers, you're in a lower speed cart and uh you aren't wearing a helmet and you're going around and like as you said, you're playing either Mario Kart, you're racing on a Mario Kart type uh track, uh again with no barriers, or you're playing some other game. And you can play other games because there's, you know, it's a big open space. Um and lower speed carts, typically smaller carts as well. But then you're also seeing uh layers added to your high-speed carting. So you're still wearing a helmet, you're still in high performance um electric carts, but you're running over projected mapped, uh projection mapped uh things. You have activations on your handle and a screen where you and with triggers and buttons that you can still shoot out things. And so I think you're still going to see the high-speed carting, but with a gamification layer added on top of it. Um, but I th but I really believe that uh you will see more and more new facilities shifting to the type of carting that is just the big open box. It requires much, much less insurance. It requires much, much less build-out uh than you would have for a traditional high-speed carting experience. Um, it will be interesting to see how groups like Andretti lean into this or don't. You know, maybe they stick with their differential, what will be differentiated by you know for their standpoint. Um, but I think you're going to see uh you know your K1 speeds of the world really beginning to question what they're doing in their existing facilities as how they as well as how they continue to roll out uh new locations.

SPEAKER_03 5:11

Most of the professional carting environment indoor cart environments have to have a two-tier track. They uh not just two levels, but they have to have the high-speed track for the people that want a karting experience and then have to have the children's experience. If I can take up the same space as a bowling 24 bowling lane, or the same space as a laser tag uh venue with uh projection map uh bumper car karting that appeals to uh both male and female, younger and mid-range group, then you'd be mad not to consider that. That's one option. I have problems with the high-speed carting systems that in gamification. To date, I have tried most of the systems that have been developed uh from amusement projects, from uh RPM, from other companies. And your driving position is difficult to spot the target coming up in your activity type. It's also hard to uh to read uh sometimes the stream that is attached to the cart or to the steering column. These are issues that some companies have found workarounds and they claim that they've seen incredibly good digital revenue generated on, you know, as an add-on to an existing carting system. But I can also point to at least two companies that have given up on their gamified high-speed cart systems and reverted back to uh looking at this. This is a battle in the West between uh battle cart and our friends at uh Little Lions with their chaos cart and with the unknown, which is the Triotech system. But in the wings, I have nearly 20 Chinese systems, uh as well as two or three systems from uh small startup European companies that uh we're gonna have to work out. We're gonna see a baptism of fire in the sector. Uh and there's that, you know, the 20 or 80 pound gorilla in the background, which is putting up 40 to 80 projectors in your ceiling of your empty space, hoping that it doesn't have any columns, comes with its own limitations. The next generation, or 2.1 as I like to call it, of the systems are using LED floors because they're cost effective enough, much cheaper than having 80 projectors, high high grade projectors in your ceiling, much easier to maintain because you're not traveling at high speed, and offer a much brighter environment. But again, I don't want to get in front of us, uh too far in front of us until we have a physical product solution in that sphere.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Yeah, absolutely. And before we take our quick break, this is the first location in the United States that has actually deployed a uh, you know, the type of karting system we're talking about. The open, relatively open. I mean, obviously have a couple of columns that they have to deal with, but um, but they don't have the the barriers or borders. And they are calling this uh this is shenanigans out of Rockwall, Texas. So of course it's in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Um and uh shenanigans is a long time, uh long time FEC. They continually experiment. The two brothers that run uh the shenanigans brand are very well connected to the industry, and uh it is interesting to see them uh you know being the first ones to really bring this uh this type of experience into the U.S. This is just the beginning, and uh so we should expect to see much, much more of this very soon.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

That was a battle cart system they installed the shenanigans, correct?

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yep, yeah, yep, exactly. They're calling it now. What's interesting is battle carts has historically been a franchise and they've been really uh restrictive around calling it battlekarts. Um so they clearly had an opportunity to call this quantum carts, so maybe they are, you know, they worked out a deal with battle carts to rebrand it, but this is the battle carts system currently.

SPEAKER_03 9:04

Yeah, battle carts was actually exhibiting at the uh MA show, and it was interesting to see that there have been certain changes to their franchise agreement, though again I couldn't get into the depths, and I'm gonna thumb screw them at uh IALPA London when we get the chance. Perfect.

Quick Sponsor Break

SPEAKER_01 9:24

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SPEAKER_03 10:02

Thank

Las Vegas Revenue Versus Tourism

SPEAKER_03 10:03

you for that. So let's jump into at least one of the economy trendings, and that is Las Vegas. An interesting reveal from the Nevada Gaming Commission. They uh uh occasionally supply the data uh for their operation, and during April they saw a rise in uh the increase on their uh gaming or the gross gaming revenue. Now, understand that a number of the casinos out there have casinos, resort casinos, but they're also running their um online app-based casino gaming component from the Nevada site. So we have seen a massive increase in that side of the business, but also they had to admit, if you worked your way down the columns, uh to the fact that they are taking a pounding in the uh tourism sector, what they use the phrase depressed, uh, and that air travel and hotel bookings, just tourism in general, has has been depressed, and they expect that the next numbers uh will reflect that. Uh and there's uh something happening in the Las Vegas market that is even underlining that. And if we jump out of the trends, we suddenly see the casinos and the resort businesses being snapped up by savvy uh operations. And so we wake up a couple of days ago to the news that uh uh Frenti Frentita Frentita I'm trying to remember the name. I I actually had to spell it alphonetically, um, has reached a deal uh with Caesars Entertainment to acquire the Caesars Entertainment Resort operation, not just Caesars Palace, but also the some of the other venues that are under that uh uh Caesars Entertainment brand for 17 billion. Vast amount of money. Um the shareholders loved it because of uh it was being paid in cash and it was being assumed that a lot of the uh Caesars Entertainment debt was going to be written off within this financial deal. And then you hold your breath and the next bus comes along, and uh People Inc., uh part of a large conglomerate, uh, have submitted a proposal to buy the MGM resort. Uh, this one's a little bit interesting because it is a share and cash deal, as far as we can understand. This is obviously not as far advanced as the Caesar Entertainment deal, which is near enough done and dusted except for um you know the uh over oversight from legislation. But they are pricing the MGM resort at 18 billion, seeing a pattern. And then I expect that the next sound off we'll be talking about uh some other of the uh major chains that are going to look at the situation in the industry at the moment, how long it's going to take, if at all in this uh particular year, to see things bounce back. Uh, is it easier to treat 2026 as a wash, take the money and run at your current valuation, or hold your nose and hope for better times in a couple of months uh when the uh piece of dividend shows and tourism starts to flood back?

SPEAKER_01 13:36

So a couple of things to point out here about just the the vegas uh shifts in general. So, you know, when we talk about the increase in year-over-year gaming revenue, uh, one of the key things has been that a lot of the Vegas casinos have been making a shift in focus to high net worth individuals versus, you know, because they've seen this decline in traditional middle class tourism. So, yes, while they have the online gaming, they're also focused on driving the gaming revenue from a fewer number of individuals who are higher net worth. Uh, there's uh some data that came out recently, about 75% of recent visitors to Vegas uh are making over $100,000 annually in their household. And nearly half of the tourists are actually earning upwards of $140,000 or more. So they're clearly targeting the higher, uh, you know, the higher income, and maybe not net worth, but at least higher income uh visitors, uh, so fewer visitors, so obviously decline in tourism and air travel, but higher gaming revenue because people are spending more when they're there. Um, to note about the an interesting thing to note about the acquisition of MGM is actually that uh, first of all, you think of $18 billion uh, you know, as far as the deal, uh valuing them at $18 billion, um, which uh you know includes some of the MGM debt, which also was the same with the uh Caesars. So Caesars has an enormous amount of debt on the balance sheet, an $18 million acquisition roughly, but like $12 billion of that was uh was an assumption of that debt, which was uh pretty crazy. You have the similar thing with MGM, but at the same time, people Inc. is only acquiring 50.1% of the MGM Resorts International and at the same time taking them private. So it would be interesting to see what they do as a result of bringing them private and what they do with that marginal controlling interest and still having the debt on the balance sheet. It's just that they're assuming that debt as part of the acquisition.

SPEAKER_03 15:36

From the research I've done, I call this a friendly board where they may not be taking a majority uh holding in the operation. The others that have uh uh equal voting power are friends of the firm, as it were. And also building upon your point about the whales or the high net worth people that are turfing up uh at uh the Vegas, not all of those high net worth individuals are gambling. A lot of them are using the VIP high-level nightclub uh environment. If it's good enough for the FBI director, then it's good enough for uh for them to uh attend some of the high-level nightclubs where uh a bottle of champagne is worth nearly the price of a house. But anyway.

Leadership Changes Across The Industry

SPEAKER_03 16:21

Moving on, and we told you so at the beginning of the year. I, you know, the crystal ball came out, and we said that you know the C-suites of many companies would be going through change. And it seems that most of the resumes were handed out during AEI uh and other shows, and suddenly we're getting the fallout. I'm being flippin', but uh friend friend of the firm Nick uh has announced that he's leaving after two years pinnacle, and he was very kind of him to you know reveal, give us a kind of a mini exclusive to say that he will be jumping into our friends at uh Family Entertainment FEG, uh taking on really what I would call the same position, which is senior vice president games ops and strategy.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yeah, um, you know, very excited for Nick and his new move. Um, you know, he obviously had a great run at Pinnacle and you know, Pinnacle, uh they're they're just great people as well, Howard and George. Um so I know that they will have uh you know continue to have a lot of success in what they're doing for their customers and um you know look forward to seeing what uh what what Nick is able to do over at FEG.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

Interesting that Nick is uh an ex uh Dave and Busters guy, uh, and we've seen a number of ex-Dave and Busters guys uh materialize in FEG recently. So uh I wonder if there's something in the water there. Next, uh, and we have the announcement that uh Kevin, another Kevin in the industry, uh but new to the industry as it were, has uh joined as chief technology and digital officer of Dave and Buster. So again, the continuation of that C-suite changes that we alluded to previously. The interesting thing for me is that Kevin is new to the uh entertainment industry. So he comes from a restaurant uh and food uh background. He's worked for Bite, he's worked for Wingstops restaurants, and he's even worked for Pizza Hut. Uh and uh it's telling um very much on where Dave and Buster's uh current C-suite sees the the most bang for buck from a business model.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

This one was it was a little bit confusing to me, and it's always weird when you see these entertainment uh chains or eatertainment in the case of Dave and Buster's uh chains going for people outside the entertainment industry to go and bring leadership in. And uh, you know, it's one thing if he was just their chief technology officer, okay? So you know, the CTO, you're gonna you're focused on infrastructure, point-of-sale systems, that kind of thing. Exactly. But when you add the end digital officer to it, that's where it becomes much more encompassing into your entire offering. And if you don't have a strong grasp of uh the entertainment, the the entertainment side of the business, I really wonder like what type of uh you know what type of uh expertise he's going to be able to bring in to the digital offerings of DNB.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

As a chief technologist, uh you're meant to have a rounded uh vocabulary of uh the technologies. Uh as a person that's held uh chief technology position in my past, uh, you know, I it wasn't just about the video games, it was also understanding the tournament system, it was also understanding the point of sale system, it was also understanding the online uh uh uh booking system. Uh there'll have to be a learning curve here. Um and I would argue that uh Chuck E. Cheese is a lot different, sorry, Dave and Buster's is a lot different to Chuck E. Cheese or to Winstop's or to Pizza Hut or to any of the other restaurant heavy chains that uh are out there. Again, I don't want to write too much of this. We'll wait for the individual to get his feet under the table, as it were. Uh he's got two major digital technology situations that he has to deal with, their brand new tournament system, uh as well as their AI platform that they've just been uh applicated, uh applying to their uh behind the behind the scenes systems. And you know, I wouldn't wish that on anybody jumping into that mess uh so late on in this acquisition. Moving on, and Betson, uh H. Betty, who owned Betson uh uh enterprises, made the announcement that they have appointed Michael uh as their senior director of marketing. We've got a number of new marketing positions that have just been announced in the last couple of weeks, which I find interesting that certain corporations are picking now to drop a person into their marketing position, maybe hoping that there's enough time before Ialpa so the person can get their uh legs under the table. But I would argue that Betson has a very big part to play with Gala. And so that is much closer that will need uh handling. But anyway, uh what we know of Michael, he comes from a background straight from Fuji Film Holdings, uh, and he's also been working with uh Kyra. Uh Kaira Akiosera. Akira. I've never heard of it. Please fill me in.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Uh they oh man, they come back, they come from a like copier, an old copier and printer. Oh, um, and you know, can be like at the enterprise level. So uh tend to be an enterprise level. Kies, you know, this is basically yeah, they make a bunch of uh like office type um equipment.

SPEAKER_03 21:55

3M kind of operation?

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Uh less less like 3M more. More like uh Hewlett-Packard, but specifically for uh you know, more more you know, printers, fax like old fax machines back in the day and you know, copiers, big multi-unit things.

SPEAKER_03 22:09

The good old days. Well, um, as you can tell by my lack of knowledge of uh those operations, I usually look at the entertainment experience of uh individual rather than what they've done in the film, paper, and printing business. But I am sure there is method to the madness, and uh we look forward to seeing how the marketing will change going forward for Betson. Because to be blunt, Betson has been keeping its successes under a bushel because of their 80-pound gorilla positioning. And now that there is a move afoot to move away from distribution and going towards direct sale, it will be very important for this individual to uh uh put a put a pin in that problem. Moving on, and uh Coastal Amusement, our friends out there announced that Ray has been uh promoted to uh the position of vice president of sales. Um he's replacing Mike, who has moved on. I'm not sure where Mike uh is going. I'm sure we'll have that information on the next sound off, but again, it is that churn that we're seeing amongst distributors and manufacturers in the amusement scene. Carrying on carrying on the marketing side uh and Slick Cities. We were only talking about Slick Cities uh a couple of sound-offs ago, as well as in an open and shut. Uh they have been rolling very hard, they've been restructuring, repositioning, and they feel that it's perfect to drop uh Josh in, who uh will now be the new chief marketing officer. He comes from Sandbox, VR. He spent a year there uh with uh them as president of marketing. He also has been with some other companies, as well as a long tenure over 13 years uh with Universal Studios Hollywood. So it'll be interesting how much of that uh he will be bringing to the uh indoor theme park approach that I think our friends Slick City are aiming for.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Yeah, I mean, so I think this is this is uh at least a better fit than anything we've seen so far as far as uh the moves. Um talked about. I mean what I mean is uh from and at least it comes from the entertainment background. Um so and and and specifically even a entertainment franchise background. Um, so you know, he comes from Sandbox VR. I think what's interesting is that he is moving from one single attraction franchise to another single attraction franchise. And so uh you know, it'd be interesting to see uh what type of uh differentiation he's able to uh he's able to apply at Slick City.

SPEAKER_03 24:49

I hope he learns the F and B lesson. The the one thing for me about this, there are 40 facilities now. Um, you know, as we said, Slick City is repositioning itself, tidying up its brand uh and moving forward. I I need to you know draw a line in the sand. I don't care where you come from, which industry you've worked in, as long as you understand what you need to bring to uh to the uh corporation you're joining and how easy it is to fit in. If one person is speaking one language and you're used to speaking another language, there can be problems with the workforce understanding a senior executive's motivations and positionings. That said, uh over the course of my career when hiring people, you know, I am one of those stupid individuals that likes reading resumes and having very intensive uh uh introductory meetings to get uh to get the individual to get in the right mindset. And they can come from the uh the uh printing industry, they can come from a competitive single site, they can come from a major theme part, but if they can't get their mindset right to joining the company, then you can't waste the time in this current market to teach them. Moving on, and we have a new uh marketing lead, um, UK company Immersive Game Box, and they we define uh the positioning different uh different. This isn't a senior marketing position, this is more uh of an assistant marketing position as lead. Um, though I think Alexander is going to be doing a lot more now that, as we've been covering previous sound-offs, uh immersive game box has pivoted towards standalone uh parachutable uh attractions for existing entertainment. Uh again, not a lot of information on who he was replacing. Uh and uh the individual comes from uh Pop Tech. He's worked for Vodafone as well as Jumpstart, uh, which is another of those trampoline chains. So it'll be interesting uh what he'll be bringing to the marketing and the promotion of the immersive Game Box Code for it. Enough of uh employment data or else it's gonna turn. We'll have to have uh an open and shut and a new hiring assumption rather than rope it into poor old sound off.

Cities Turning Vacant Space Into Play

SPEAKER_03 27:19

Uh developments uh are pretty fast going in the UK, where councils or local uh regional operations are now getting directly involved in large uh retail spaces or large entertainment spaces. So uh in you know, in the glories of Liverpool, there is an empty uh plot of land. The gut uh the local council, city council has got involved in rolling out a concept to turn this into a experiential competitive socializing venue. Someone's been reading this, setting a report at the city council or has got their local uh AI search to go for all of that. They're claiming that they're going to be dropping in a competitive socializing element into this, and some media in the local media are calling this a uh new Olympics approach where there'll be lots of acted entertainment and competition and F and B. We wish them luck in this. It's a very early stage, but it kinds of shows the thinking when the council is looking to turn uh vacant property into an entertainment space.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Yeah, I mean, this is uh this is this is probably the right idea for this type of location. I struggle whenever a municipality tries to get into the entertainment business because they tend to struggle uh when uh both in the development of it, because they don't understand the space, as well as the operations of it. And so as long as they're they are maybe putting an RFP out for a potential operating partner or developer, uh, other than trying to develop it themselves, then I think it has a potential to be successful. But it's definitely the right thing to be thinking about. And we see this with a lot of other uh municipalities as well as sports venues looking to add in uh additional layers of uh you could put it socializing, experiential, um, and and then retailtainment.

SPEAKER_03 29:17

I've been sucked into two projects in the UK over my time that have been uh ignited by a regional council, uh, and then they've sort of come to us to say who are the type of companies in the sector that would be able to populate this kind of space and what would they bring, and what is the kind of revenue. Sadly, both of those projects founded because of the uh the difficult of language, what a uh a franchise or would want from uh the owner, the final tenant owner of that uh facility, compared to what they would want uh sometimes or across purposes. And so one of the first things I have to do is kind of lower the excitement and get to the reality of you know, they're not just going to throw money at you, you're going to have to throw something at them. But we wish them a lot of luck.

Active Entertainment Packs In More

SPEAKER_03 30:09

Uh we touched upon this on Open and Sharp, but not everybody has uh will be familiar with X Venture. Xventure is an active entertainment, what I would call sporttainment, as well as a gamification, exagaming environment. It is the next generation of active entertainment. They have opened three facilities. This is their first Chinese facility, as far as I understand. And the important point about me raising this is this is a breakaway from kidzania. So this is an example of a pivot away from their uh kids' um theatrical uh educational environment. I'm going now more for an active entertainment experience, as we've seen with our friends at Joyopolis Sports and uh Bandai Namco Naeum and uh uh round one with their um uh sports uh uh active entertainment spaces.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Yeah, so I've talked a little bit about this on open and shut, but uh this is absolutely this adventure, uh, as well as the, you know, I talked about visiting Big X in um in Shanghai. These are the future of active play where you have you know, especially vibrant colors, lots of overlapping activities, you know, really leveraging and utilizing every ounce of square footage, um, but more importantly, um littering across the facility digital active play. Um and you know, so you know, whether you want to call it digital or digital active play, but you know, it's it's a it's a mixture of those types of activities. But again, really compressing and filling in the space so it feels, you know, many of the adventure parks we have in the US are very open, tons of empty space and um and and underutilized opportunities to uh add additional experiences, but also create additional revenue.

SPEAKER_03 32:02

Yeah, I can I understand that certain trampoline operators, when we have conversations with them, have cardiacs when we talk about ripping out their trampoline and putting in active play slides, uh active inflatables, uh, as well as the digital entertainment component, because you are filling every square foot of space with uh entertainment and offering a mixed-use leisure entertainment experience. And once you've just been paying for maintenance on your trampolines, a couple of vending machines, and maybe a couple of pool tables, to suddenly know that you're going to have 120 different pieces of entertainment kitting your facility can cause ruptures. But you're in the kitchen now and it's very hot. If you can't take it, there are a lot of companies such as this who will be offering an entertainment level that is perfect for your generation alpha audience. Moving on, and final confirmation.

Little Lions Expands In London

SPEAKER_03 33:01

I've been scratching my head trying to work out where our friends at Little Lions was going to be sticking their uh new London venue. You know, I thought it was going to be up at Canary Wharf or it was going to be down at Woolwich or somewhere like this, but they've you know found a very serviceable building in Lambeth, not a million miles away from the House of Parliament, not a million miles away from the uh the Millennium, uh the Millennium Wheel and Madam uh the London Dungeons and stuff like that. So they're relatively in walkable catchment for leading entertainment, they're walkable catchments to the Tube Network and their venue. Uh we don't have the final numbers on how many floors of this venue they're using, but I think they're gonna take it all over. Anyway, we won't have to wait too long because in September they'll be having a party, which I think they're gonna try and link in with what will be happening in London during September with Ayalpa uh Europe. They will have in their uncomfortably named arcade arena venue uh Chaos Carts, what we've been talking about, which will be one of the first times that London, sorry, the second time that London gets uh a projection mapped carting experience. Funny enough, uh our friends at Little Lion actually opened a test facility uh in Camden that uh ran. It was a uh a temporary structure that they built, and they were running uh a version of their chaos carts to put it through its paces. And so I had a chance to speak to the team that had developed the content and what so get an idea of the difficulties of understanding how it worked, and that has colored my view about digital e-carting quite industriously. They will also have their Pac-Man live experience, so finally we'll get a chance to do that. I've been talking about it a long time, but I haven't actually done it. Uh, and we will see their new attraction, which is shooting gallery, uh, alien experience, alien invasion. God, they kept the marketing team up all night on that name. Uh, but this is going to be a very interesting, more adult kind of alien shooter, uh, a little bit of immersive horror that I've seen from the video of the test reel. Unless they change it drastically and uh scale it back, it looks like it will be the strong drink to the cocktails of the other products.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Yeah. Uh I this if this gets open um in advance of the IAPA uh Europe London, uh then I will definitely do what I can to make my way out there um and uh obviously get to IAPA Europe, but then also to uh to experience this. I'm really um interested in experiencing Alien Invasion. Obviously, Pac-Man Live looks fun. I've ex I've done chaos carts, uh so you know I'm very familiar with that and absolutely love it. But Alien Invasion is basically the new version of Laser Tag, uh, you know, what I consider to be the more the updated modernized version of the Yes, exactly, with automated drones and everything else. We've talked about that before. So looking forward to actually experiencing it.

SPEAKER_03 36:18

Uh I know our friends at Little Lions occasionally watch uh this and also read their Stinger report from the number of members that have subscriptions. Please make sure we're on the press list. Thanks, moving on, and the uh Taurus of Pain. You'll notice that cluster in the middle, including uh CSER and MGM. This version of the Taurus of Pain does not include gaming. If you know anything about my uh usual Venn diagrams when I try and describe the markets to the industries, uh, I always pull out retail and gaming because they do have impact into the location-based entertainment industry, but they are vast operations in their own right. I also pull out consumer entertainment. But as we have seen, retail now, retail attainment is definitely uh having an impact on us, and I am uh assuming that uh under new tutelage that more casinos will be looking at Area 15 and be including more location-based entertainment. So that lovely bottom empty void will soon be filled up with uh the Taurus 2.0 uh with uh casino or gaming. I think I'll just go with gaming, but let's get there first. Moving on.

VR Leaves FECs For Pop-Ups

SPEAKER_03 37:41

And tech trends. Uh we touched upon this in Open and Shots, the migration for the virtual adventure boys away from entertainment facilities and now looking at exhibition and what we call flexible space. Uh, these are the spaces that are in museums and art galleries, science centers that can be turned into short stay exhibitions. Uh, we touched upon in open and shut how uh the traveling experience of uh the Minecraft experience has been traveling Chicago and Toronto and all of the world for short stay pop-ups, and now we're seeing that being emulated by the virtual arena, free roam, large audience. One of the things I've been lucky to get my hands on, and thank you to the source, um, a rough idea of the general operation. So we're talking about these experiences able to uh uh to simultaneously operate 132 uh warm bodies, which translates for the full operation in an hour for the facility of nearly 200 uh individuals across a uh which I would call a 7,000 square facility, is an interesting space. And that 7,000 or 760 uh square meter space is a perfect size available to these flexible space areas, which are being used for art art installations, or in some cases uh projection mat gallery experiences, or being used for marketing promotions. Some of these spaces are actually used by corporations launching brands for a very short period. So our friends at uh Bamj, they have developed uh along with uh Universe the Black Mirror Experience, they're charging 34 uh US dollars. I think it's 32 Canadian dollars uh for the uh experience. Drop it into this facility, started in the end of May, closing in September, and just for your mental delectation, that's 38,000 a day. Not bad money until you remove the Black Mirror license, until you remove the staff. And of course, until you remove the rental of the venue.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Yeah, yeah. I think it depends if this is something that the shed itself brought in and they are the operator as well as the uh you know, as well as the landlord, that helps at least on uh, you know, from from a like in Montreal. From an OPEC standpoint, yes, exactly. Right? From an OPEX standpoint, you don't have the you don't have the the lease there as a as a drag on your facility because otherwise a lease payment for a venue like the shed would consume a significant amount of that uh that that revenue.

SPEAKER_03 40:54

And just think how many many members of staff you need to handle 200 guests every 60 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:03

Yeah, it's you know it may look good on a spreadsheet, but there's a lot of caveats that need to be taken into consideration, and we will have to wait and see how populous uh the Black Mirror experience has been. Though I can attest that our friends at Felix and Paul saw some really nice revenue when they were running their um VR uh uh experience, though you know they've now changed their model uh with what they have done in their partnership with uh Area 15. Moving on, and uh another example of have empty space, have government supports because you're a Taiwanese company. So our friends at HTC Vive got their Vive Land division that handles working with Asian-based uh V virtual uh adventure and educational packages. They've created an experience called Big Blue Expedition Taiwan, which is you know aimed at their locality and builds on the big uh the blue VR experience that was created uh by all of the parties involved. For me, this feels like uh that caveat is not that the venue has paid for this, but the uh Ministry of Taiwan has paid for that through the contacts that HTC can engender.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Yeah, and this feels also very much like an edutainment type um type thing. And so, you know, they're they're really trying to promote, uh, first of all, it's it's a relatively beautiful looking experience that you get to walk through, but um, they really are focused on the fact that there is, as it says here, less than 50 of these left on the entire planet, these big blue whales. Um really talking about uh you know the conservation of these spaces. So it makes sense that these uh you know that the Taiwan uh Ministry of Culture would commission something like this, but um, you know, but it is interesting to see this three-way partnership, as I mentioned in open and shut, uh, you know, a couple of days ago.

SPEAKER_03 43:12

I wouldn't be surprised that this has been made to order for the Taiwanese uh ministry because they're one of those biomes. But also there are three other biomes, uh Greenland, for example, or in Scandinavia, and we'll be talking about in six or nine months the uh Scandinavian version of Big Blue opening up. Again, this is the flexibility of the digital experience. Uh again, also, this is a mixture of uh virtual adventure as well as seated narrative. So, as you say, edutainment. Interesting one. We try and collect the

The Meta Quest Support Warning

SPEAKER_03 43:54

best. So I woke up to a whole load of very angry VR opera. Shaking their fist at me. I thought, what have I done this time? What have I written wrong in the Stinger report? No, they were angry at what they'd been reading in a Discord. There had been a statement made by an individual that was working with uh Hero Zone that they were discontinuing their support of MetaQuest hardware on the HeroZone system. I did my due diligence, picked up the phone, spoke to the team at uh HeroZone and calmed down the situation. You're welcome. Uh the situation is not that. What they were trying to impart was that due to the current situation at Meta Reality Labs, it is difficult to keep up with uh the haphazard firmware updates, which seem to be sporadically popping up on the hardware now that virtual reality is in the focus. The big lumbering team that used to maintain the updates on the MetaQuest platforms have been decimated by the layouts, and now some poor, uh, lowly paid employee uh at the back of the building is having to do these updates and he's breaking all kinds of shit, as it were. And so our friends at Hirozo were making it clear to their operators that they're still supporting it, but you know, they have to be mindful of how much they can keep up or ahead of the ball uh when some uh individual hits the send button on the latest update. I'm wearing my I Told You So t-shirt under this t-shirt because I warned you and I can keep on warning you about the dangers of using a consumer-based VR headset that wasn't guaranteeing commercial support. And uh speaking to the HeroZone team, they made it very clear that the headset that they recommend, they won't, you know, you know, they're agnostic, but the one that they would recommend when the gun is put to their foreheads by an operator once it's break into this market is the Pico system because of the support and uh because it is an enterprise level system. And no matter what those fan bases of Meta keep on saying, I wouldn't be surprised if this is not the only company that will be making this statement regarding their support of Meta hardware.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

Absolutely. And look, they're saying that they'll support it for now, um, that they will continue to work, but there's going to be a point where even Meta's own support of their uh of their headsets will be cut off. And then HeroZone and all other creators who have used this platform will have to make a change. And so if you are an operator and you have a VR experience that currently has a meta quest, uh uh, you know, a quest headset, um, just know that the time is limited and begin allocating capital to replace either the entire experience if you if you feel like you need to, or at a minimum, the headsets that uh you're using for that experience. It is going to be a cost you're going to have to incur, and it's it will come a point where Hero Zone and all of their uh peers in the space will make a permanent shift away from support of this headset.

SPEAKER_03 47:08

I picked that Hero Zone picture purposely. There are them promoting the usage of the quest two back in the day as their headset. And then one day uh Meta decided that they weren't going to be supporting the Meta Quest 2 anymore, promised lots of things of support, and then just killed the machine overnight and bricked it. How long before you're going to be looking at a quest three with the same goggles? I told you so. No one likes a smart ass.

Projection Floors Meet Big IP

SPEAKER_03 47:39

Anyway, moving away from the headsets to uh the uh mixed reality and projection mapped, uh our friends at Chuck E. Cheese who've been installing in their new venues the projection floor or active floor systems, projection map system. They've been running a number of games of their own creation on that, and now that they've done what they call a first of its kind partnership to use a toy IP Bobble and the card game uh attached to Bobble uh Spot It game, uh, and they've turned that into an experience that you can play on this floor system at their venues. I don't know how many of the 500 plus Chuck E. Cheese venues has that system in place. Uh I should think, you know, over 400 at least have been updated uh to the what I call the 2.0 uh version of Chuck E. Cheese and using a popular IP is part of the course in aspect at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 48:42

Yeah, and I would actually argue that it's uh it's lucrative for both parties. Um, you know, Chuck E. Cheese bringing in a popular IP of Spot It, but then at the same time, if you're a kid or a family who's never played Spot It, which by the way is a fantastic and fun game, uh, especially with young kids, um, it burns a lot of time at restaurants, etc., um, have having had young kids at a time. Um, and the uh but it's great for Asmodee as as well, with uh for their Spot It to bring and raise awareness for their game, their actual physical card game, uh, in addition to having a digital version of it across all of these Chuck E. Cheese locations.

SPEAKER_03 49:16

I'm sure the uh experienced guy at Uno is kicking himself for missing out on this video. Maybe they can jump in next.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:26

Uh Moment Factory, we've talked about them a lot. They uh their active floor projection map as well as their LED veering system of what they call their augmented game uh platform. They've just signed a uh deal with a venue in Australia that has a show ground where they can drop in about eight of their uh multiplayer active entertainment arenas. Uh and uh as with the deal that they did with the casino sector, uh it'll be interesting to see what the audience feels about their game system. I feel that they are going to be going up against uh in the amusement sector, the illuminated floor sector scene, so it's easy to go for a higher quality approach in uh uh some of the show ground and uh uh large venue entertainment sites.

SPEAKER_01 50:22

Big fan of their experience and uh especially the LED version of it, the LED floor version of it. Uh it's just much more uh visually stunning. Um, but uh the gameplay is great and uh yeah, great to see them continue to uh be deployed.

SPEAKER_03 50:37

For the sake of transparency, we did some consultancy with them at the beginning when they wanted to work out how to break into the LBE market, and we kind of did say diversify outside of the traditional. And I think this is an example of that. Um the licensing, the fallout from the licensing expo continues. IMG licensing has now confirmed that they will be representing all of the Studio Canal properties into the location-based entertainment and experience market. So we've already had Terminator turn up now three times as a VR uh entertainment experience. So be prepared to see it turn up a few more times. We have a new Highlander film that is highly anticipated. Be prepared to see that turfing up Evil Dead, so zombie blasting in VR is passe, but what's the point? And hey, uh a bit of Rambo or a bit of snake pliskin from Escape from New York, not LA, um, would be you know, would be something that if you feel strongly about having IP added to your LBE experience to keep up with the Joneses, as well as our friends at Netflix House, whatever Sony's up to, then you know, going to IMG is a safe pair of hands to give you property that you can work with.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

Yeah, indeed.

Universal Refreshes Horror Unleashed

SPEAKER_03 52:02

Moving on, and IP that you can work with, our friends at Universal surprised me. I did stick my head in at their Universal Horror Unleashed. I didn't have a dog with me, uh, to have a look at Area 15. And I I was pleasantly surprised on the level of live actor engagement with the audience. The themality was nice, but I didn't see the technology. Look at the size, don't feel the quality. And compared to what they uh Universal has achieved at their theme parks with their Halloween uh live experiences, it's a high uh high uh barrier to try and reach. And now uh our friends uh at Universal Experiences have turned around and said, We're we're going to go back to uh unleashed in Area 15 and we're going to add some things. They they wrote it very well as if it was an update, but you know, this thing has just opened in 2025 to be going back and adding uh new attractions, new technology, uh uh, and a new dining component kind of tells you that it's still a work in progress. A work in progress that we'll be seeing a second facility opening up in Chicago in 2027. So, as with our friends at Netflix House, the lessons you learn of the first facility you're going to try and apply to the second.

SPEAKER_01 53:30

Yeah, except for the fact that Universal just waited a longer period of time than Netflix House. I think they opened their two locations too close together, uh, Netflix House, that is. Um, however, uh, I am encouraged by this, that they have uh when I saw the announcement as well that they were adding a new attraction, I was like, okay, good. They understand the need to cycle attractions like this. Uh, you know, they have four, and if they're continually adding a new one, you know, let's call it once a year, then you know, you're visiting every, you know, even if it's once a year, once every four years, you're getting a full cycle of new attractions. And obviously, if they're opening new locations, this isn't to say that they can't take one of the things that they took out of one and into another and you know rotate them back and forth, so to speak. So uh I was encouraged by the fact that they are continuing to innovate and not just sitting back and saying, hey, these four that we currently have are what we're gonna have for several years.

SPEAKER_03 54:24

There are two approaches to experiential entertainment facilities based on an IP. We saw the situation that happened with Sony and Wonderverse, where they thought that they would install it and they'd be able to sit on those experiences for two, three years. Here is very encouraging to see. Experiential entertainment is a constant, and that digital element adds to that. And so seeing them dropping in more digital components, more fidgetal components across both the existing facility and the next facility is very heartening. And I hope it's a lesson learned from our friends at Netflix. As you say, it was a concern that they built their first two facilities back to back with no lessons learned, as far as we understand. But yeah, we will wait and see how the Las Vegas facility uh will be competing directly with this. And just a quick aside these kinds of Area 15 locations may be a hub to tourists, but they're also a very big hub for local uh residents, and those repeat visitations have to come from uh that local audience.

Mona AI Tries Running A Cafe

SPEAKER_03 55:30

Uh moving on to the AI trends, and I woke up to the news that uh AI ain't good at running facilities. Shock horror. Andon, if you're not familiar with Andon Labs, have been pushing their uh AI um prompt and search engine powered off of Google Gemini. Mona, what a name. Mona AI tool itself has been used in vending machines, uh, loyalty vending machines for a period of months, and they decided that they thought that this tool was the bees-nees and it could run a physical bricks and mortar uh coffee store. They created a brand new coffee store in Sweden, uh, inhabited it with lots of touch screens and gave Mona the key. Mona even hired staff, worked out their uh their wages, worked out their scheduling, uh, ordered the supplies, um uh worked out the menu and the pricing and crate of the business. They were given a slush fund of a certain amount of money, and now they're in a negative. And that's only after a couple of months, two or three months of operation. I think it's actually only two months of operation. Obviously, Red Face is all round, and it's forced us to do some research on how well and on labs did with their vending uh systems, which also caused a whole load of problems. Uh, some of the hilarious uh problems that we've had at the Swedish venue is bulk ordering of items that aren't even on the bloody menu, constantly contacting the staff uh when they're not at work or even on weekends and holidays, trying to get them to come in late at night. A spat where they priced certain uh snacks and drinks incredibly cheaply to the point that certain members of the operation had to step in and change, ain't been a pleasurable one. And I know that a lot of people who've invested in the AI bubble would like to push this one under the AR carpet.

SPEAKER_01 57:45

So I think I might have a different opinion here after uh even after doing a little bit of uh research into Andon Labs. Um, you know, they so they had a uh they've they've been running inside the anthropic offices, like you mentioned, the the vending machines. Uh they they're called Loyalty vending.

SPEAKER_03 58:02

Loyalty vendors.

SPEAKER_01 58:02

Yeah, loyalty vending, yes. Uh but uh you know, vending, they did open a market called Andon Market in um in San Francisco, and they opened that location with uh uh with a you know goal, what they said is a goal of um you know generating profitability. They signed a three-year lease and then they gave it over to the AI to decide what to do. And the AI made all the buying decisions, um, the merchandising decisions and everything else. Um and then they went and decided to start a cafe. And every every time that they're doing this, it's so at first I thought this was just um uh that this was some just they're trying to like they they they um what's the word I'm thinking, I'm trying to think of an interruptive process to find the best usage of the technology. Yeah, maybe. And so so this is where you know at first I thought it was just um pure bluster. And but it actually turns out so they you know, it they have a great blog that covers the the the time of of this. And you know, at the end of their blog, um I will just say that says we are not doing this. I'll I'll say in quotes, we are not doing this because we want AI to replace every cafe owner in Stockholm. They have a similar closing thought uh to their uh location in San Francisco. Rather, we are doing this because we want to publicly show the current capabilities of AI. We see that frontier models are intelligent enough to manage humans. Um, but if the trend of capability continues, it's not impossible that AI hiring humans be common in the future. Um, but we want to shift the discussion of how we want this future to look earlier in time so we can better prepare. It was a controlled experiment with humans standing by to intervene, and everyone working here is formally employed by Andon Labs. So the ones uh who, you know, so even though it was Mona making the hiring, they were actually employees of Andon Labs uh working in the facility. And uh and so they said no one's livelihood depends on the judgment of an AI alone. And so, you know, they'll be keep updating as Mona learns and fails more. So I think they're uh comfortable with the failures. In fact, they actually created a uh shelf of uh uh they call it like a wall or shelf of uh shame or a hall of shame where you can actually they they promoted to all of their customers all the things that the AI was doing wrong, like you said, buying 6,000 napkins, 3,000 gloves, uh 120 eggs, even though the cafe didn't have a stove, etc. Right. So um I think it's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:20

But this yeah, but but I have to interject, and you know, it's negative Nancy Kevin here. They st they didn't start off that wall of shame until the media started covering it uh pretty heavily from social media with people laughing into their gloves over what these mistakes were happening and the free-for-all over the pricing. That they had to step in, and this was now going from a total open experience to a controlled opening, tells us that the training wheels don't need to come off uh Andron Labs uh Mona yet, though I will use the caveat, these are early days.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

Yeah, exactly. And I think the key is labs in their name, and this is uh was a relatively controlled experiment and uh and and does have a level of hilarity to see what the current version of AI uh is doing. At the same time, I will say, uh, having worked very closely with Claude and Cloud Code and AI over the last several months, um, this is the worst it's ever going to be. And it's only going to continue to get better. And if we are not thinking about how to leverage AI in our industry, then we are going to be very sorely behind.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:33

It's not going to take over, but it's going to be a partner. And if you're not prepared to have a partnership with this technology and understand its limitations and its opportunities, then you will be left in the dust. We're at the Will Smith eating spaghetti version one moment. And if you've seen the latest videos that they can create, though I will say um you treat labs as a definition in their name of openness the same way that I treat open AI as an open company. Okay. So, Rolla, uh pointing to the need to embrace and to incorporate AI into this, they've uh released their uh AI-powered uh guest experience agent, which is an agent that will work with the initial processes of booking the tickets and working out the packages, as well as helping the operator uh understand uh the utilization of their space. I'm looking forward at some point in the near future of being given a chance to play around with uh these tools in a digital twin environment. We've got a lot of companies now. We were talking uh about a number of companies that are now adding AI-powered agents to uh their uh platforms, and it's about time that we had a playoff. I wonder if our friends are Ialpa are going to have an AI assistance award uh uh sometime down the road.

AI Agents Plus Smart Signage

SPEAKER_03 1:03:06

Moving on, and an example of a positive deployment of AI, in which the Chinese audience in the cinema sector, you know, just thinks the Chinese cinema industry represents 90,000 screens. And they're now looking at a uh 60% across the board um uh cutting our front of house stuff. So as we're seeing in many uh cinemas here in the UK, as we see in America, you buy online, you go up to a kiosk, you swap the uh QR code, and then you get your tickets. And you know, the only time you meet a member of staff is when you're buying overpriced popcorn. Even then, uh I'm sure that there will be a uh a robot involved in that process in the Chinese version of this going down the road. But what we're seeing here is this is an example of where the AI uh and seamless machine learning capabilities can interject into the cinema. And I wouldn't be surprised if more cinema chains in the West start following this kind of approach than try and hold on with their fingernails to the more traditional approach.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:23

Yeah, I think this is, like you said, a you know, ideal use of uh AI, similar to I think what Roller is trying to do, but more from a kiosk standpoint, uh, where you know you have this agent who's able to help guide you through your ticket purchases. And um, but I'm really interested in the programmatic signage. I think that's definitely a future that uh is yet untapped.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:44

Uh I've been following the DOOE, the digital out-of-home experience and entertainment market for a long time. Signage, digital signage is big. And now, if we can link digital signage up to frictionless change. So if I walk up and it knows from my history that I like action films and uh the screens around me uh while I'm picking up my tickets and doing that, is telling me the latest action film that's coming along that I may be interested in, that's a service, and that will be very interesting. And smart signage is something that we will be using in the location-based entertainment industry very quickly. I would even argue that if you look at our open and shop talking about the latest Gender facility opening in Shanghai, they're already employing smart front signage, digital signage to their facilities. Interesting, illuminated future, digital future. AI again being applied to competitive socializing. We know that a number of companies with uh standalone facilities have used AI machine learning in the ordering side as well as in the game scoring side. Uh, you'll remember that when I was at uh Pool House in London, they had stated that the game experiences uh were supported by AI to ensure that everybody uh enjoyed themselves. Well, as there were only two of us playing on the table rather than the hoped-for 14, we couldn't really see how that was working. There was no you know, real clear ability to separate. But you know, our friends at Social Game Group have now launched their latest smart dart social bart system, which has a very strong AI scoring and control capability.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:37

This is uh yeah, okay. It's this is not quite the level of uh you know social gaming that uh you know anyway. I just I feel like it's missed the mark a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:47

They're applying AI to the scoring. I think they need to make more time to their immersive entertainment offering. Uh screen the size of one that uh the bartender is using uh to order your drinks may not be the best way to uh offer a gamification. But hey, we will wait and see. This may be a transition machine for stay-in-the-wool operators to actually start to look at this kind of system rather than maybe uh the 501 alternative. Yeah. Now, uh quick talking point.

Park Avenue Open Day Takeaways

SPEAKER_03 1:07:22

Uh this week, as of time of recording, uh I attended um a very important event in the London area. The Park Avenue Open Day, we've talked about in previous sound-offs, is a gathering for all of the UK, mainly London uh uh and Southeast uh amusement distributors, operators, and agents to get together, uh, enjoy a very nice uh Greek barbecue and some free hospitality and see the latest machines before the holiday period. This is a very important buying period, and this event is a distributor meet. So in America we have similar type of things, but they are disparate, they are individual operations holding a uh a distributor open day. This open day used to be when I first did this, and I was feeling very old at this event. I've been going to this event on and off for nearly the last last 35 years. Uh and um I used to work for transparency for ElectroCoin. ElectroCon was one of the first amusement companies I ever worked for. ElectroCon is a major distributor, a veteran distributor. But where we are based in Hangar Lane or Park Avenue near Hangar Lane in London, uh just on the outskirts, but close enough to the city, um, there used to be a cluster. Uh so when I first started going to this back in the 90s, uh there were Brent distribution that used to run Namco, Sega had a building there, um, Electrocoin had property there, ElectroCon also represented Universe and then Capcom and Taito. Uh and so this was really ground central for the uh the European amusement industry. We had uh occasions where the Japanese would bring products over to the Open Day to test them and to see what the uh market audience reaction was before they launched them later in the year. You know, I was talking about a Sonic the Hedgehog uh freshener that I first saw. It was at an open day uh at the Sager offices, which are still there but now owned by another company. Um Rad Mobile was sitting there and the whole Japanese team was sweating bricks over what the reaction would be to that. Sadly, things have changed, markets move on, and so uh I what I used to get out of open day, I now get out of flying all the way to Gang in China. So uh but you can't take the uh the Park Avenue Open Day out of uh out of the boy, and so starting with Electrocoin, they had their warehouses open, they were pushing very heavily their brand new prize machines and their redemption systems. They're also a representative of the Stern pinball range, uh, and they have a very close relationship with a company called uh Retro Arcade that sells uh pinballs and retro arcade machines into both the consumer sector for the man caves as well as into the competitive socializing and the amusement sector. So that was great, and even better, we had a chance to raise a glass with Gary Stern, who made the trip over as he usually did, uh, to the open day, um, celebrating the 40th anniversary of Stern Pinball. I know there's going to be a lot of celebrations for that, getting closer to Gala, but uh it was nice to see Gary in good spirits and have a chance to have a go on the new uh Transformers table that was brought out exclusively for that, as well as the Pokemon. Moving on, and Electrocoin had uh the new redemption and the new price machines, but they also uh showed the development in the market of the music games, and they're one of the few companies that has a relationship with Konami to bring the Dance Dance Revolution uh machine, the latest version universe, over, and you know, they are one of the few companies that does that. The aspirations of seeing this in America are still on hold, though I'm led to believe that we will have a better idea of Konami's plans for the Western market distribution of their amusement uh during uh Al Borland. Next door, the only other surviving amusement uh distributor uh and tenant, veteran tenant, is UDC. They rolled out the pink carpet, their brand colours, and invited us into their warehouse for the hospitality, legendary hospitality, and to see what's new. I was of an advantage because many of the uh C-suite of uh UDC had actually flown out also to the Garjon AAA show. And so they were looking at what they're going to be bringing over next year or at the end of this year, and really what they were showing on their show floor now is machines that they have taken on board from the previous event. So it was interesting. We were having the conversation about what we saw at Garcho that we liked compared to what they had seen at Garcho that they liked. They had music machines front and center as well. Um, our friends with uh uh Stepmania uh and uh dance show uh uh 1020 HZ Hertz, sorry. This is the touch screen system. Uh our friends uh Sega uh also have a touch screen uh system. So these these three, four music machines are really driving the charge as operators find out that there's still money to be made in this sector. A lot of what UDCD was showing in the video amusement side were ace amusement products, and I'll be fascinated to see how many of the ace amusement products we saw at AAA this year will be sitting in those spaces if I'm in town for the next uh Park Avenue event. And as I said, they they're pushing very heavily their uh prize machines uh and their claw and crane machines uh and their capsule machines, they have their own bespoke uh capsule range because a lot of the products for the for distribution into the UK market is going into the holiday resort and seaside business, which is a very unique component of our amusement model in the UK. And a lot of the operators that were wandering around uh the open day are operators of seaside venues that are looking to populate their next generation machines before the holidays start in June, July, and August. I finally got a chance to put um the ELOT e-claw 2.0 through its paces. I was also informed that the Butlins uh holiday resort has now loaded at least one of their facilities with a whole line of uh the e-claw system. Funny enough, operated by our friends at uh Gender, the Gender UK operation, part of Plain Nation, uh, were on call at this event, as they they should be, uh, you know, now that they are a major player in the distribution and operation market in the UK. And you know, I I want to be honest. I always try and be honest. Uh, you know, I try not to be a curmudgeon, but I want to be honest and give positive feedback. Why the hell did they paint e-claw black? Um, especially with a digital screen, and they made some serious schoolboy errors in its layout and operation. It's gonna get beaten to death. Uh, so as an attempt to keep up with the Asian new generation new wave claw machines, I give it three out of ten. And I'm sorry, Eloch, you know, bucking against the new wave Asian crane machines for so long, and then saying, okay, you know, because they kept on saying, oh no, you don't need to buy the Asian uh new wave crane machines, we've got crane machines at home. And they were the old generation, and now they suddenly work out, well, we can't we can't kinknut it anymore, we're gonna have to build our own. Why the hell didn't they go to some people that understood something about what these new wave crane machines are like? I appreciate its online capability, I appreciate its ease of operation from the operator's point of view, but its operation from its players' point of view sucks. Sorry, personal opinion. I will eat a uh very flavoursome cake made in the shape of a hat, if uh I can uh be proven at IALPA this year that it has gone gunbusters beyond our friends at Genda, dropping it in in quantity on uh a client like Butler. Finally, uh, you know, this is the real reason why the open day exists: its physicality. It is getting in front of operators, manufacturers, uh and distributors and talking, sharing uh information, advice, looking at the latest machines, understanding the trends and moving forward. And not just amusement was at the show, but there's also some uh level one gaming, skilled gaming machines there. So it was a big turnout. Sega was there showing off their products that uh in the redemption market that they're going to be pushing for the World Cup. Uh again, showing machines that operators can go, oh, I've got a space that I can drop that in just before the World Cup starts. Perfect timing. And of course, the legendary uh Greek barbecue that is the signature hospitality of ElectroCoin. Uh I had to run away from, so I only got tantalizing photographs of the meal and can just have to harken back to my memories. But again, I would like to thank UDC and ElectroCoin for their hospitality. Anyway, any comments based on that? I zip through that pretty quickly, Brandon.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:40

No, and you know, this is uh this is an event I've never had a the opportunity to visit. And so I'm glad you were able to obviously get down there and cover it. Um, you know, and so uh I definitely what I like about it is the camaraderie. It seems to be just a very tight-knit, um, you know, very um uh long-running uh you know type of event. And so uh that that's one aspect I really appreciate about our industry, and uh I'm glad that this continues to exist.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:07

The whole part about the traditional amusement trade is it's a very social, very personal business. Handshakes still, pro forma agreements, checks, those type of things. But we have a two-tier system now. We have the modern amusement systems, the ones that I keep on talking about that are opening every 10 seconds in open and sharp, and we have the traditional. And there's a danger that we are, no matter how traditionalist this part of the market is, a large number of new operators are not using distributors, they're buying directly. And, you know, are we looking at the Park Avenue venue on uh or borrowed time? Well, they said that 20 years ago. I remember when Sega moved out of the area and uh uh Brent got taken over. I feel as long as the humanity stays in the amusement trade, then events like this, as well as the distributor open days, will continue. The less uh operators understand about the gamification and the trends, the more that they will be at loss.

AWE Preview And Sign-Off

SPEAKER_03 1:19:12

Anyway, to final, finally use this uh group of slides. I won't be doing this anymore. Um we're only a matter of days away of time of recording, uh a week and a bit, but uh of uh distribution a couple of days from Augmented World Expo. And the calendar has been allocated. I am speaking two occasions, hoping on the second occasion that I'll be saved by an individual that will join me on the stage. Uh but we're, you know, we're lucky that uh we've seen a nice uptick in competitive socializing and location-based entertainment interest in the event this year. It's part of the reason why I was retained to try and bring this in. We have Dave and Busters now confirmed as giving a uh uh discussion uh NDRIMS, who developed a number of the zero latency game experiences as well as an extensive uh consumer VR company will be giving presentations. We have a number of high-level uh arena systems that will be in operation uh on the Pico booth as well as on other booths. Virtual Adventure will be writ large at our event. Uh, I was honored to uh get back in the saddle of judging, and we've just finished the judging of the six finalists uh to be awarded an Aggie. Uh, and I'm not going to tell you how I voted. You'll have to come to the Aggie Awards Gala event to see who the winner is. Uh, I'd like to see in the comments some people betting which one of those that I would have been interested in, because it wasn't just me making the uh vote. I was the the token LBE XR guy, uh giving my 10 pennies worth or 20 cents. We're lucky that Synthesis VR will also be on the Pico booth for a period of time, showing off their latest uh content as well as their new virtual uh uh adventure platform. This is going to be a very important event to really get our hands dirty regarding where XR, both VR, augmented, and mixed reality fit into the future. Understanding that AWE is dedicated to more of the enterprise and consumer applications, and that's one of the reasons why they've added uh this location-based XR components to their show. Pico exhibiting, VR Cave exhibiting, Qualcomm, the driving force in many headsets, and Snap with their spectacles, which are now being deployed in location-based entertainment. Anyway, that's enough from me. It'd be nice to remove that part of the uh presentation. Uh I'll have to update some other things because we've got some other conference presentations coming up later in the year. Hit me up on LinkedIn. Thank you to everybody that has been uh feeding me information. Really appreciate the updates on the job changes at the C-suite from those that uh filled us in. Uh, you know, it's nice to be able to give authority to the information than just reading from a stale LinkedIn post or a uh a very stale press release. Uh we have some stinger reports coming out once I pull my finger out. And uh please you've got my email if you have any questions. Was that enough, Brandon?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:35

I think it was a well-packed sound off and looking forward to seeing you again in just a week at uh AWE and uh walking around the floor and seeing everything that's uh you know out there in the augmented world. So uh until the next sound off, Kevin. Keep kicking in. Have a good one.

Brandon Willey

Host