It's been a busy summer, both in traditional FEC's and Bowling Center FEC's and Hybrids. We continue to be the beneficiaries of the "staycation" trend as families stay closer to home while pursuing their entertainment choices. With several years of success for the still relatively new marriage of bowling and FEC's, traditional centers are converting their game rooms to redemption. Video games have lost huge market share in the last ten years while redemption game share has tripled.
We have helped two traditional centers with successful conversions open in the last thirty days. The first, Broken Arrow Lanes in Broken Arrow (Tulsa) OK, is part of the Bartholomy Bowling chain of Midwest bowling centers, owned by Andy Bartholomy. Last year, we assisted in the major conversion of the former River Lanes in Tulsa to Andy B's, a state of the art Bowling-FEC Hybrid. Andy B's features 40 traditional lanes, 16 Boutique lanes, Indoor Go Karts, and a terrific 3,000 square foot, 50 piece state of the art redemption game room. This year later Andy decided to convert the game room at the smaller, traditonal Broken Arrow Lanes to redemption.
Broken Arrow has 1,110 square feet for the game room. Prior to conversion it was dominated by video games, with a few redemption games, and accessed from the concourse by a standard three foot door. There was a small, unattractive redemption center out on the concourse. The conversion plan included opening up the doorway, adding a new, well designed redemption center visible from both the concourse and the games, and new paint and carpet. We also created a state of the art redemption game mix, 22 games in all, with the latest high earners and a selection to appeal to all age groups. Andy and manager Michelle Engelby are big believers in the power of debit card systems, and took the opportunity to add an Embed system, not only in the game room, but as a "whole house passport". Cards are sold at the bowling desk and in the game room, and can be used for bowling, games, and food and beverage. The new game room looks great, has been well received by the customers and is tracking at projections!
The second traditional center is Mike Aulby's Arrowhead Bowl in Lafayette, LA. which just opened the converted game room on August 1. More on Arrowhead in the next post.
