Winners of IAAPA’s coveted Brass Ring Awards were announced at the end of the day yesterday (Wed. Nov. 15) at the Orlando expo and some familiar names and faces were duly recognized. Coastal Amusements won an award for best new product for its Ice Man game, The game challenges players to a watery shoot off against hordes of zombies, and includes realistic grass, fog effects, water guns and more. Sega Amusements’ Daytona Championship USA was given the second place prize. Zero Latency won first and second place in the midway games and equipment category for two of its games: Engineerium and Singularity. The free-roaming, VR specialists also unveiled…
Author: Casey Minter
A new VR headset developed by VR Coaster and Sensics vies to increase attraction throughput, simplify ride operations and deliver a premium guest experience for theme parks utilizing the new technology. RideVR, the product of the collaboration, is meant to be an all-in-one VR headset that builds on years of tech and theme park experience. These coasters combine VR with tangible forces, real drops and real airtime. The result, they say, is an exciting yet cost-effective way to upgrade existing rides. RideVR explains that they incorporate lessons learned from millions of guest experiences, and address a myriad of common concerns…
Intercard is touting a new party and reservation system with a fitting name: Shindigger! The system is meant to be an affordable solution for party booking and reservations, which they say can be used 24/7 and has an intuitive user interface. The firm also highlights Shindigger’s mobile-friendly appeal. “Today, more than half of web browsing is done via mobile devices and that number will continue to grow,” says Scott Sherrod, CEO of Intercard. “FECs must leverage this trend by enabling customers who access their site with mobile devices to easily buy online as well.” The system is standalone, meaning operators don’t need the…
The minds behind the Drop Target pinball magazine have recently announced a new endeavor: the Drop Target Omnibus. Jon Chad and Alec Longstreth are two pinball enthusiasts and cartoonists who decided they could combine their hobby with their profession. The result was seven issues of Drop Target, a comic-laden, history-riddled look into the history, culture and creativity of the pinball world. The duo’s new Kickstarter project offers all seven of the issues (plus more) condensed into a 538-page book. Early bird Kickstarter supporters can get the book (which is expected to ship out by the end of the year) for…
LAI Games proudly says it has an industry first on this week at IAAPA. The company’s Virtual Rabbids: The Big Ride is what they boast to be the first attendant-free VR attraction that “operates and is serviced like any other coin-op amusement game, making high-quality VR accessible to venues of all sizes.” Created in partnership with video game developer Ubisoft, The Big Ride features the Rabbids brand in three experiences suitable for all ages. (The crowd pictured above is at the IAAPA booth in a photo from LAI’s Facebook page.) Virtual Rabbids: The Big Ride provides a VR experience that has been designed to…
The Timezone Group has partnered with Quadrant Private Equity to create “The Entertainment and Education Group” (TEEG). Timezone was founded by Malcolm Steinberg in 1978 in Perth, Australia and has today grown into a world leading Family Entertainment and Education business with approximately 200 Timezone and Timezone Play & Learn stores across six countries, primarily in South East Asia. TEEG will be led by Timezone’s current team of Managing Director Scott Blume and Timezone Group CEO Sonaal Chopra. Both Malcolm and Adam Steinberg will remain with TEEG as part of the board overseeing the business together with Chris Hadley and…
On Nov. 1, the whopper national route operation NEN/Sugarloaf celebrated its 30th birthday. Founded in 1987 as American Coin Merchandising, the Sugarloaf brand has grown and evolved into a coast-to-coast entertainment game operator in the U.S. with over 15,000 locations in operation today across many leading retail, restaurant and supermarket chains. Of the industry’s evolution over three decades, the company writes that 30 years ago, when operators were primarily small, independent, family-owned businesses, Sugarloaf began as a franchise organization.Founded as Colorado Coin and rebranded as American Coin Merchandising, the company focused primarily on cranes and bulk rack stands. It wasn’t…
On the IAAPA show floor right now is CJ 4DPLEX’s new 4DX VR Disk platform (its first public viewing), along with a collection of adventure VR content from the South Korean company — its 4DX VR Ride, 4DX VR Sway and Twist, and an upgraded version of its 4DX VR Racing unit. The company says the 4DX VR Diskallows people to explore 360 degrees of virtual reality without having to place their feet on the floor. (The Disk rotates horizontally and gives the feeling of actually being in a particular environment and able to move around freely.) The 4DX VR Disk also “gives users the feeling of acceleration and deceleration…
Miss America 2018, Cara Mund, delighted some 200+ guests today by making a surprise appearance at the 5th annual IAAPA breakfast meeting held by Apple Industries. Ms. Mund proved to be the unexpected highlight as Apple CEO Allen Weisberg delivered his 9 a.m. keynote address to an audience of U.S. and international distributors, park and FEC owners, and street operators. When Weisberg told the audience he would demonstrate Apple’s new photo booth feature, called “Share in Times Square,” a giant screen showed what the CEO said was a live remote broadcast from Apple R&D Director Mike Bloomfield. While the Apple…
— As expected, the IAAPA Attractions Expo 2017 came out of the gate with a whopping 10% bump in its attendance compared to the previous year’s numbers. Well over 34,000 folks from the entertainment world made the trip down to Florida’s Orange County Convention Center to buy products they hope their customers back home will pay money to play, view or even bounce on. That attendance number was registered the morning of opening day of the conference, Monday, May 13. With the show running until Friday, a record might be in the offing. Of the enormous crowd, the IAAPA head-counters…