(Editor's note: This is part one in a two-part series.)
2022 was a hardly a stellar year for the location-based entertainment industry. While people were starting to return to entertainment centers following the COVID-19 shutdowns, full recovery was a long way off.
But
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"Coming out of the COVID shutdowns, we saw a tremendous uptick in business as people wanted to get out of the house and get back to normal," Golebiowski told Vending Times in a recent phone interview. "Zero Gravity was a turn-key business, so it made sense to me."
Golebiowski, with his pulse on emerging arcade games, saw potential in the 25,000-square-foot trampoline park in nearby
Fortunate timing
His timing could not have been better. That same month,
He wasted no time expanding Zero Gravity's arcade games to include laser tag, renaming the business
The Sponge Bob Dynamic Duo virtual reality game purchased from |
From
"I wanted to add a lot of unique features to the place," said. "It's been a great earner for us."
He also added colored LED lighting throughout the park and updated party rooms with fog machines to add excitement.
Transition to cashless
The biggest improvement may have been switching from coins, tokens and tickets to the
The
"
Players can exchange their game cards and redeem prizes at the redemption kiosk. Photo: |
"The systems talk to each other perfectly and one thing I didn't want to do is spend hours every week looking through catalogs on what to order for the prize counter," he said. "It works seamlessly in the sense that when the kids come up to the counter they scan it with
Card payments have pushed revenue well beyond what the coin, ticket and token games delivered. His 2023 revenue was
The card-to-cash ratio in the arcade games is as much as 95% cards to 5% cash.
The company's 15- to 20-person staff — depending on the season, with winter being the busiest — includes one maintenance person who services all the equipment.
School fundraisers prove popular
The fastest growing part of the business to date is school, group and corporate parties. The growth is largely on account of a fundraising program Golebiowski created that has proven popular with schools.
He charges people
"For an additional
About 65% to 75% of the people who buy the fundraising tickets select the upgrades. They have to buy them online for the school to get the rebate. To date, about 35 schools who have signed up for the program.
"It forces parents to buy them online, and then I can track how many sales are done, so that way I can reasonably budget for labor to know how many employees I'm going to have to keep my costs as tight as they can be," he said.
Part two in this two-part series will explore
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