Zellar Consulting, LLC

  Family Entertainment Center Design, Development, & Risk Management Services

By Paul L. Zellar

Here are a few words of advice for individuals and corporations wishing to get started in development of new Family Entertainment Center facilities. The following are ways to get the most for your money during the development process to produce a quality facility at a reasonable price so that it can sustain itself and be profitable.

Prototypes Increase Risk

There is nothing wrong with trying to make a new type of attraction for a new facility. The free enterprise system relies on innovations for entrepreneurs to be successful. The reality is that there is an inherent risk in introducing a new track, vehicle, or system to the public at your new facility. There may be expensive operational or maintenance problems to solve that may not show themselves until the facility opens for business. The cost of this product development may be enormous in comparison to using a proven commodity as a component of your FEC. My advice is to keep prototypes to a manageable level during development of your facility. A less risky option would be to plan to phase in additional prototypes after the park opens, and work the bugs out of them in a manageable timeframe.

Set a Realistic Budget and Schedule

The budget and schedule for any project are dependent on each other. If you set an opening date that requires lots of overtime from everyone involved in the development process, expect your costs to increase considerably. Don’t get into the position where everything you pay for is an outrageous price because it is a rush order. Find professionals you trust who have experience in the FEC development business and listen to their advice. Let them help you set your budget and project a realistic opening date. If you want to change the plans for your facility, find out first how it will affect your budget and schedule.

Organize a Development Team

The worst-case scenario is to have a multi-million dollar project delayed while waiting for a stressed out owner/developer to make decisions on every detail. The most intelligent action is to delegate responsibility to a team of people he trusts, whether it be employees of his company or qualified consultants. An efficient team can accomplish much more work in a short period of time than an individual. The team reports to the owner/developer and requests his input on major decisions, but he allows them to keep the process moving and simply monitors its progress with most decisions made by the team.

Avoid the "Emotional Feasibility Study"

The Family Entertainment Center business is not like most other businesses in that what we sell is a fun experience. That is our product. Do not get caught up in the emotion of all the fun experiences and let it affect your decision making process. Get an experienced firm with good references to perform a Feasibility Study on your market to get an estimate of how much money people will spend at an FEC based on demographics, traffic count, competition, etc. The Feasibility Study will tell you how much money should be reasonably spent to develop your facility. Too many expensive facilities have been built in locations that do not have an adequate market to support them because the owner/developer was so excited about it that he just knows it will be successful.

Another emotional trap owner/developers need to avoid is falling in love with the way something looks, whether it be a certain go-kart, thrill ride, or other attraction, without doing their homework and checking out how profitable it is. It may be the most beautiful piece of equipment on the market, but so expensive to operate with frequent repairs and excessive minimum staffing requirements that it is not practical. Your facility may not be able to support the combination of the purchase price and the high operational costs, even though it looks great.

Prioritize Costs of Theming With Operations

It is very tempting to go overboard with landscaping and theming to make your facility of the highest quality. This can also be very expensive to build. What most people don’t realize is that this may burden the maintenance staff with excessive costs to keep these features presentable to guests, when their labor hours may be better spent on keeping the revenue producing attractions operating. The landscaping and theming may also interfere with the efficient operation of the park. The highest priorities for the owner/developer must always be to make the guests’ experience at their facility a fun experience. If everything looks elaborate and beautiful but the go-karts are broken down, or the track is not fun to drive, or the lines are too long because of poor operations, guests may not return and the park will not be profitable.

This is advice based on years of experience and observation on how to spend money wisely when developing a new Family Entertainment Center. The More Money Than Sense Syndrome can be avoided by doing your homework on the FEC business, hiring the right professionals, and being prepared for running the development gauntlet.

By Paul L. Zellar

Many people developing Family Entertainment Centers have the idea that building the biggest and most elaborate facility in their city is a formula for success. If they are building in a residential market that relies on guests returning many times per year, this is probably a big mistake. The objective of design should not be based on the appearance of the park as much as how much fun the attractions are for guests. What you do not want to build is a monument to yourself that has expensive features and theming that do not matter to guests. The following are some observations on design for attractions at FEC’s:

Go-Kart Track

Most facilities operate a maximum of 20 go-karts at a time on the track. Nearly all of the major go-kart manufacturers specify a track length of 40 linear feet per go-kart, making the normal length 800 feet. There are many facilities running 20 go-karts with 1200, 1400, or more linear feet of track, but the result is that the go-karts are so spread out that guests get bored with the experience. The fun of driving a go-kart track is being in a group of go-karts and interacting with other guests. Many guests will stop or slow down if they get ahead of their friends and let them catch up and race. This means that the extra expense for the extra 400 or 600 feet of concrete and steel and real estate is spent on a product that is less fun for guests to drive. Longer is not better with go-kart tracks above 800 feet in length.

The go-karts themselves must be fun to operate as well. Many facilities select go-karts on how they look, such as whether they resemble a popular sports car or racing car. If these pretty go-karts require a lot of upper body strength to make them turn, are uncomfortable to sit in, or are always broken down, your guests may not want to drive them very often.

Miniature Golf Course

There are many facilities that spared no expense on the landscaping, themed props, water features, or specialty lighting on their miniature golf courses, but their golf holes are not fun to play. Miniature golf must be designed for the entire family to play, which means for all skill levels within the different age groups. There must be a balance between difficulty such as banking or obstacles to putt through, and entertainment such as watching the ball disappear in a hole and reappear near the cup. Guests are not having fun when they are faced with such a difficult hole that it requires many strokes to get the ball in the cup and backs up guests behind them waiting their turn to play. Guests are also not having fun when every hole looks the same and is simple to play. It is a good idea to play these holes during construction, before they are carpeted, to evaluate the fun factor in each. It may be necessary to add an obstacle to a hole to make it more difficult or a backstop behind the cup to make it easier to play.

Bumper Boat Lagoon

Bumper Boat Lagoons are similar to go-karts in that the fun of the guest experience is in interacting with other guests. A lagoon that is too big will take away from the experience in that the boats tend to get lost by themselves, and are so underpowered that guests get bored or frustrated trying to catch their friends. A large bumper boat lagoon is a waste of money and real estate. Design your lagoon so that if a guest wants to get somewhere he must bump through other boats to do so. Even though guests wear their street clothes in these boats, they have fun trying to get each other wet. Always add a water feature in the form of sprinklers, fountains, or waterfalls so one guest can bump his friend into it and get him wet. Bumper boat manufacturers are now adding water guns so that guests can spray each other from the boat itself.

Batting Cages

The biggest mistake that is made with batting cages is not making adequate space for benches and spectators at the cage backstops. This area should also be easily accessible to the common area of the park so that it is not isolated. Many batters are coached from outside the cages by friends or family members while waiting their turn to bat. There must also be adequate lighting in the infield so that batters can see the balls as they are being pitched from the machines. If there is not an adequate mix of hardball and softball, a line could develop at a few of the cages if a group of guests comes in to bat. Some facilities solve this by building dual cage systems where the guest can select hardball or softball from the cage.

Gamerooms

In order to be fun a gameroom must create the right atmosphere for game play. If it is too brightly lighted there will be distracting reflections on the glass screens of the games. All games are designed for dimly lit gamerooms, and have their own colored lights designed to make them more attractive. Bright overhead lights or daylight from windows will wash these displays out and make the games feel out of place. If it is too warm guests will not stay and play, keep the gameroom as cool as a meat locker. Make sure that the latest games with large screens are clearly visible, as gamerooms must now compete with elaborate home video games.

These suggestions are to help make sure guests have fun at your facility and make them want to tell their friends what a good time they had and how they want to return. Let’s not forget that the family entertainment business means the fun business.

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