Bright Ideas and Secret Missions Inside Lumos and Spy Ninjas by Barry Zelickson One of the best parts of traveling the country for Fun Across America is discovering operators who aren’t interested in copying what everyone else is doing. This month, we visited two very different attractions that share something in common – they’ve each created experiences guests simply can’t find anywhere else. Our latest stops took us to Lumos in New Caney, Texas, just outside Houston, and Spy Ninjas HQ in Las Vegas. One is a brand-new family entertainment center built around thoughtful design and elevated hospitality. The…
Author: RePlay Editor
The Cheapest Margin in Your Building Costs Are Up, Sales Are Flat, But the Tool That Fixes It Is Already Installed By Howard McAuliffe, Partner, Pinnacle Entertainment Group Food services and drinking places rang up $102.5 billion in June, up 3.8% from a year ago. That’s the Census Bureau’s advance retail report, released July 16, and on its face, it looks like growth. Now subtract the 3.4% that menu prices rose over the same 12 months, per the June CPI. What’s left is about four tenths of a percent of real growth. That’s the out-of-home entertainment dollar right now: it…
You’re Only as Young as You Feel? by Jack Guarnieri, Jersey Jack Pinball & PinballSales.com New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen sings in the 1975 song Thunder Road, “So you’re scared, and you’re thinking that maybe we ain’t that young anymore…” You hear that and you may think about the things you wanted to do, or the things you promised yourself and others you will do. But, it’s really okay to grow older and have no regrets. A few lines later in Thunder Road, Bruce sings, “You ain’t a beauty but hey you’re all right; Oh and that’s all right with…
When I came into the coin machine business as a cub reporter for Cash Box magazine in 1964, there was a sort of symbiotic relationship between the recording industry and the jukebox business. For example, the New York operator association back then (Music Operators of New York) used to have an annual weekend “convention” every summer up at some Catskill Mountains resort, during which some representatives of the record labels would join us. The idea was for them to mingle with the Tartaglias and the Miniacis and try to sell some records. Record companies back then used to send free…
“Always Connected, Always Building” Private Equity Partner Pushes Amusement Connect into the Future Not every tech company starts in a garage. Amusement Connect started at a dartboard. A few times a week in Kansas City, neighbors and longtime friends Frank Licausi and John Tarpley met over a round of soft-tip darts, and the games always turned into shop talk. Licausi was a second-generation route operator whose family’s Lee Vending ran a full line of vending and amusements. Tarpley was an automotive executive and a self-described child of the ’80s who never got the arcade out of his system. The trash…
Silver Strike Returns to Big Stage On June 13, Incredible Technologies held a Silver Strike National Championship for the first time since 2008. They ran it alongside their Golden Tee World Championship at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, where that event has been for the past couple of years. The last Silver Strike event back in ’08 also happened to be held there, a serendipitous coincidence, said Kevin Lindsay, IT’s director of amusement marketing. “The operators and player reception has been positive,” he said of the event, which worked in a handful of the new Silver Strike: League…
Work Ethic, Opportunity & Destiny? by Jack Guarnieri, Jersey Jack Pinball & PinballSales.com Happy August, the month when Europe is “closed” because everyone is on holiday. August is also the beginning of the end of the Dog Days of Summer. Back when I operated amusement centers, the slowest “month” of the year was the last two weeks of August and the first two weeks of September. Between older kids going off to college and the younger ones getting ready for school to start, parents are spending money on clothes, school supplies, books, dorm rooms, tuition and much more. It’s a…
Here’s a great question for the Family Feud TV show: “Which object, not a musical instrument, would you associate with the history of rock ’n roll music?” There’s an excellent chance the most common answer would be the jukebox. I would vote for that, anyway. Well, on a recent “bucket list” cruise on the Great Lakes, we stopped in Cleveland on Lake Erie and visited the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Guess what? There’s not a jukebox (nor a photo of one on its busy walls) in that entire museum. I asked one of the guides about this and…
Connection, Socialization and Community Today? YES! By Beth Standlee, CEO, TrainerTainment More than ever, we need to come together. On the heels of Bowl Expo, I’m more committed to purposely communicating with friends, family and industry peers. And why not? Together, we are all better. Nashville was quite the treat. After three years of softer attendance at Bowl Expo, it was a joy to see both the enthusiasm and the number of people who showed up. The energy was unmistakable. While some locations are still experiencing softer sales and foot traffic, many operators reported being flat or even slightly up…
Feel the Speeeeed! Jersey Jack’s Sonic the Hedgehog “Built for Flow” by Steve Ritchie & Team By Matt Harding It’s been more than 35 years since Sega brought Sonic the Hedgehog to life – first briefly in their arcade game Rad Mobile and then with his star turn in the Sega Genesis game named after him, Sonic the Hedgehog. This year, Sega wasn’t the only company celebrating Sonic’s 35th birthday on June 23. So too was the team at Jersey Jack Pinball, which formally announced their highly anticipated Sonic the Hedgehog on that day. It’s been a long time coming.…