We look forward to seeing you at the 2013 Bowl Expo! Join us to hear solutions about how Party Center Software can boost your revenue with Online Booking and Event Management. We’re also excited to share news about exciting new features coming soon to Party Center Software! To learn more, stop by booth #366 at the show. See ya there!
What is the best day for party bookings online?…. According to our Google Analytics that day is usually Monday!
How many people use tablets (iPads) to book events online?… We are seeing about 11-15% of the site visitors coming in on tablet devices of which Apple’s iPad is the dominant player. We have seen this stat increase rapidly over the last 6-9 months.
The value of your website and online booking site is dependent upon how people engage with your content on the site and each page specifically. By using Google Analytics, you’ll be able to better evaluate which pages on your site are the most important, and then where to place your focus.
Party Center Software customers are realizing the benefits of online booking each day – specifically, in the mobile device world! We live in a culture that needs information quickly – and in the palm of your hand instantly. How people are booking parties and events for their children, for their organizations is no different! Understanding your customer’s bounce rates (their average time on the site, and individual pages), and the time of day they’re booking parties will increase your awareness of exactly how each customer is engaging with your online booking site.
Google’s own Avinash Kaushik, one of their top analytics experts, has blogged about measuring the effectiveness of your web pages and writes: “My own personal observation is that it is really hard to get a bounce rate under 20%, anything over 35% is cause for concern, 50% (above) is worrying. I stress that this is my personal analysis based on my experience, but hopefully it gives you a feel for what you are shooting for.”
The indoor and outdoor recreation facility opened on Friday, including a snack bar, lazer tag, an arcade, mini golf and more.
Merrimack Valley Pavilion officially opened on Friday, located at 2087 Main St., Tewksbury. It features a snack bar, Lazer Tag, an arcade, birthday party rooms and a mini-golf course.
MVP is owned by Gary Brown, Bill D’Orlando and Steve Russo. Loretta Ryan has been hired as general manager to lead a staff of 35 full and part-time employees.
“This is a business that will give our kids, and Wilmington’s too, and families in town a fun, safe place to be and something that will draw others from surrounding towns,” said Ryan.
Tewksbury Patch Local Editor Bill Gilman was on hand Tuesday for the “soft opening” and captured the images above.
PartyCenterSoftware.com is sponsoring (and attending) the LaserTag 360 event happening right now, August 7th and 8th in Indianapolis. Another a
mazing event put on by Creative Works (The Wow Effect) to help new and existing lasertag operators. Right now Jeff Schilling is walking through over 40 people on how to analyze a lasertag or family entertainment facility and its feasibility.
If you ever wanted to know all the details about operations and development of a lasertag anchored or attraction based facility this is the event you need to attend.
For a list of the upcoming LaserTag 360 event click go to their website at www.LaserTag360.com.
Thanks Jeff and CW gang for putting on another ROCKIN event!
Are you going to the 2012 International Bowl Expo? This year’s expo is sure to educate and entertain you! Special Keynote speaker is Nasa Shuttle Commander Mark Kelly. We’ll be cozying up in Booth #944 – we’d love to see you, so drop by and see us!
Have your kids out done all the inflatable and indoor playplaces around town?
Well, guess what? There’s a new indoor playground that your kids will love, and I have a feeling you will, too: Jump & Jack’s in West Chester/Liberty Township.
Here’s the scoop:
For parents of babies and toddlers, head straight to theToddler Room, a special enclosed area specifically designed for crawlers up to 3 years old. The play area features a soft carpeting over safety padding to help cushion falls as toddlers climb, play, and build.
In each area of Jump & Jack’s, there’s plenty of comfortable seating for parents to see the kids, hang out, or watch one of the big-screen TVs. You can also order food from J&J’s Cafe, including homemade pizzas, lots of kid-friendly food, smoothies, and coffee drinks.
Open play pricing goes like this:
Besides offering open play every day, Jump & Jack’s also has private party rooms available, ranging from $99 to $259. Learn more about their party and group packages.
I appreciated how the facilities were so clean and in such great (new!) condition. Owner and father of four kids (including TRIPLETS) Tony Smith confessed that he is a “clean freak,” which is a plus when it comes to places like this! Also, the staff were all extremely nice and helpful, bringing food orders to our table, helping my 2-year-old get down from the tall slide when he got scared, and monitoring the bigger kids getting a little boisterous in the bounce house.
We like Jump & Jack’s so much, we decided to host Cassie’s 6-year-old birthday party there next month. We’ve also been back several times for the Friday Fun Nights. What a great way to wrap up the work week and enjoy a family meal in a place where kids can have active fun! I guarantee your kids will sleep well after a few hours at Jump & Jacks.
Located at 7102 Office Park Drive, West Chester, Ohio, 45069
For information, call 513-779-JUMP (5867) or email Info@jumpandjacks.com
Hours: Mon-Thur 9:30-8pm; Fri-Sat 9:30-9pm; Sun 12-8pm
Note: Socks are required to play at Jump & Jack’s.
If you want to get exclusive discounts and updates from Jump & Jack’s, be sure to like their Facebook page.
When not blogging for Family Friendly Cincinnati, you can find Susan writing at her personal blog,Working Moms Against Guilt.
A $5 million indoor entertainment center under construction north of Dayton and expected to open this spring is being described as the largest in the nation.
Scene75 Entertainment Center, one exit south of the Interstate 70/75 interchange, will feature 124,000 square feet of indoor attractions, coupled with seasonal outdoor offerings.
The attractions include a full service-restaurant; two indoor bars with 70-inch HD TVs and live sports tickers; an outdoor patio with food and beverage service; an indoor electric go-kart track; a multi-level laser tag arena; an indoor bouncing inflatable arena; a redemption and video arcade; an interactive gaming theater with giant screens; two 4D theaters; four mini-bowling lanes; a 10-car bumper car system; three outdoor sand volleyball courts (with plans to expand to nine courts); two outdoor bocce courts; live fantasy sports leagues; a concession stand; eight private party rooms; and a banquet hall.
Jim “Radar” Martin, who has been the general manager at Tank’s Bar & Grill in Dayton for 25 years, will serve as the venue’s food and beverage manager and will operate the restaurant, Radar’s Bar & Grill. It will serve pretzels, nachos, burgers, pizzas and other American grill fare.
Set to open in late spring, possibly mid- to late April, Scene75 will be at 6196 Poe Ave., in a former furniture warehouse across the highway from the restaurants and motels on Miller Lane, according to Jonah Sandler. The Cincinnati native and Sycamore High School graduate, now a Dayton resident, co-owns the venue with a group of investors.
“We felt that there is a significant void in the market for something of this nature,” he said. “We felt that this was a very good opportunity with significant potential that hasn’t been accomplished within this area or even in the industry.”
Sandler, who opened Putters Par-adise at Englewood Fun Center, a miniature golf course that he designed, and the Chaos Room in Centerville, an interactive gaming theater that will have its second outpost at Scene75, said he traveled the country touring existing entertainment facilities and believes Scene75 will be the largest in the country. Industry data seem to support that claim. David Mandt, spokesperson for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA), an international trade association for permanently situated amusement facilities, said Scene75 would quality as what the industry calls a “family entertainment center” (FEC), which refers to any center with a variety or collection of attractions. Mandt said there are approximately 1,500 FECs in the U.S.; based on the IAAPA’s State of the Industry Survey for Family Entertainment Centers, facility sizes range from 5,000 square feet to 20 acres (factoring in both indoor and outdoor facilities), but the average size for an indoor FEC is 23,911 square feet, Mandt said.
“This is certainly a very, very large center by industry standards,” he said of Scene75’s proposed 124,000 square feet of indoor attractions.
Ben Jones, IAAPA’s FEC specialist, agreed, noting that many centers are larger than 124,000 square feet when both indoor and outdoor attractions are included; however, he said he doesn’t know of any centers with indoor offerings in that size range. By comparison, Dave & Buster’s centers tend to be in the 50,000-60,000-square-foot range, he said.
Sandler said Scene75 will cater to all ages, but it was designed with adults in mind. Patrons won’t pay an admission fee but instead will load a card with currency, which will be deducted as they use the attractions.
“We have tried to appeal to the adult audience with the belief that if we can get the adults, the kids will come,” he said. “With the amount of attractions we’re offering, we’ll be able to appeal to all audiences … whether someone is looking for a date night idea, a birthday party for kids or a corporate event.”
“We anticipate being able to attract people from 75 miles away,” he added. “With 11 or so motels across the street and 30 or so restaurants, there’s a lot of traffic in the area.”
For updates, visit the venue’s Facebook page atwww.facebook.com/Scene75.
Article Courtesy of IAPPA.org Both Matt Stearn and Rod Towery acknowledge they don’t have decades of go-kart experience. “We’re businessmen. We come from corporate America,” says Towery, chief operating officer of Driven Raceway LLC. “We want to have the capability to measure every single part of our business.” For that reason, the thought of anonymous guests pushing in tokens makes them wince, he says. A card reader system plays a crucial role at their two California locations, where video games and mini-bowling serve as an important secondary revenue stream while guests wait to race. “The calculations for our ROI are much more detailed and reliable,” adds Stearn, Driven’s chief executive officer. “We can tell which games are performing and which ones aren’t.” Stearn and Towery represent a growing group of family entertainment center (FEC) owners embracing technology to further their businesses, explains Merrik Keller, Embed USA LLC’s sales manager for North America, manufacturer of debit card and point of sale systems. “Rewind five-plus years ago, it was only for the big-box operators,” he notes. “Over the past two years, we’ve started to see the shift toward smaller facilities.” He suggests looking at your game room revenue as a good indicator but also be logical about the decision. “Does it make sense for someone with two or three games?” Keller says. “No.” Flexibility, Marketing Capabilities They also can change prices on the fly to stimulate business. For example, they could offer a special of 10-cent video games from3 to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays, or do unlimited play on certain game types for an hour. “People aren’t tied into a coin,” says Keller, adding guests often disassociate spending with the swipe of a card. On the other hand, they may struggle to throw in 12 tokens to ride a simulator.
“I don’t think we would be doing nearly as well as we are if we hadn’t been able to use those cards as aggressively as we had,” he says. Birthday Boom This sort of patient customer service took up a tremendous number staff hours. So to alleviate this employee drain, Weaver recommended to his partners the companies switch to online birthday party booking. Three years ago, both locations moved to the software, which accounts for more than 40 percent of bookings at peak time. Along the way, Weaver discovered another big perk with software: Guests will upsell themselves when planning a party. Without any sales pressure, they will routinely add on goodie bags and extra food through the booking system. “Most of our clients see a drastic increase in revenue because of the software,” says Scott Drummond, president of Party Center Software in Cameron Park, California. As a former small-FEC owner, Drummond created the software with a cost-conscious mom-and-pop facility in mind. A monthly subscription to his technology runs about half the cost of a typical party package. (Roughly 80 percent to 90 percent of clients are between 5,000 and 25,000 square feet.) Some additional software features include the tracking of marketing efforts, the ability to assign employees to a party based on their availability, and e-mail invoices. Thanks to that last option, Weaver, who uses Drummond’s software, eliminated the need to send paper party confirmations. He estimates he saves close to $50 a month in postage and three hours of labor. While e-booking offers huge advantages, management experienced some initial trepidation that the human element would be removed from the birthday process. They counteracted that worry by having staff following up after a guest books a party, a step Drummond wholeheartedly supports. “People worry they’re going to lose that personal touch. Absolutely not.” Drummond says. “We encourage people to call back. It’s a secondary option to sell them more product, and it actually improves your customer service. You tell them you got their order, you can’t wait to see them, and ask if they have any questions.”
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On the marketing side, Roger Camp, owner of Z-Bowl Family Entertainment Center in Mebane, North Carolina, found the cards to be a huge plus when the facility opened in May. Camp went out to area college campuses armed with $5 pre-charged cards, which could be used for bowling, pool, food, or the arcade.