Bars and venue operators built around the darts, bowling and escape games will make “competitive social” venues hard to oversupply to encourage repeated visits in the UK market. I’m warning.
However, despite the rapid growth of several years, the series has room to grow by diverging overseas, changing the activities offered regularly or targeting saturated UK locations. He claimed that it was.
The number of venues for competitive socializing, from digital clay dove shooting to virtual reality games, has risen to 600, up 40% since 2018, according to real estate consultant Savills. The group hopes to grow further to over 800 sites by 2029.
But Tim Wilks, founder of Bowling Alley Chain Lane7, was one of the executives who warned that there was a risk of growing faster than the appetite of its customers.
“The market is rapidly evolving (to the point) of oversupply in certain markets,” Wilkes said.
Lane7, whose sole shareholder is Wilkes and his wife, started in Newcastle in 2013 and has since grown to 17 sites.
The company was sought new activities it would offer at the venue during its continued expansion, Wilkes said.
“We’re trying to figure out what’s trending and what’s longevity,” Wilkes said.
“Is that what people need to do 10 times?” Wilkes asked. “Perhaps not.”
It was also important to select the location carefully, Wilkes added.
Pointing to cities in hotspots such as Liverpool, he said: “There is saturation in certain areas.”
Industry leaders and experts said sector growth was partially slowing as the concepts involved were no longer novel.
Paul Davies, category director of Mintel’s Consumer Leisure Habits Research, said his research showed that 15% of UK adults and 23% between 16 and 24 years old participated in Crazy Golf last year.
The bar, which offered multiple activities, maintained growth momentum, but crazy golf and some other activities peaked, Davis said.
“In these specific markets, the range of growth is very limited,” he said.
Steve Moore, CEO of Red Engine, which operates the Flight Club Darts Bars and Electric Shuffle Shuffleboard brand, said the marketing needed to attract new customers has become “increasingly expensive” due to the saturated market. I’ve said that.
The company had set up an internal market intelligence team to select the right site for new developments, he added.
The owner of Flight Club Darts Bars said the marketing needed to attract new customers has grown to “more expensive” © Michal Zdrojewski via Flight Club
Red Engine plans to open eight new venues this year to bring the property to 39 outlets spanning the UK, US, Australia and Ireland. The company aims to grow to more than 80 venues by 2030 and expand to countries such as Sweden, France, and Portugal.
However, Moore argued that his site was not purely based on activity. Many guests enjoyed drinks with friends at the Red Engine outlet, he said, without playing the game. He said that contrasting with other operators often made him feel that customers don’t have to come back after playing once.
“We’re not social entertainment (but it’s a place to come and hang out,” Moore said.
Meanwhile, Little Lion Entertainment, which runs live crystal maze experiences in London and Manchester, bets that regular activity changes will keep you interested in the store.
Little Lion plans to launch a Pac-Man-themed immersive site next month in Manchester, aiming to reach a total of 25 sites, primarily in the UK, within the next five years .
Chief Executive Tom Lionetti-Maguire said that regular changes to activity mean that the site will function like a gaming console.
“You can have endless content and have endless reproducibility in a variety of games (yes) we can target different audiences,” he said.
Lionetti-Maguire admitted there was a “gold rush mentality” about competitive socializing.
However, he added: “There are so many companies that have fallen into control, so market normalization is already happening.”
Supported by Private Equity Firm Edition Capital, Lionetti-Maguire predicts private equity and entertainment companies such as Netflix will soon buy other operators.
XP Factory CEO Richard Harpham runs 26 Escape Hunt Games Room sites and 31 Boom Battle Bar entertainment venues in the UK, with many small operators facing “continuous cash challenges” I admitted that I was doing it.
These will likely get worse after employer national insurance contributions and an increase in national minimum wage from April were planned, he said.
However, he said his company discovered that the venues were closer to each other than they had previously expected. The XP Factory, listed in London’s Alternative Purpose Market, plans to add between 8-10 new escape hunting venues each year. In December, he said he wanted to have a total of 100 sites in the end, rather than the 50 ones previously expected.
“We need a much smaller catchment than we thought,” Hafam said.
