In this issue >
- Editor's corner
- The changing nature of leisure time
- Who has time to wait?
- Online karting arrives
- Foundations Entertainment University registration is open
- Road kill stew
- Review of IAAPA show in Orlando, Florida
- Grandparent spending
- Free white papers for e-mail marketing
- Death to the black box, hello daylight
- Hurray for pizza
- The relationship of education to income
- Get real, this is a place for children?
- Update on uWink
[ Index of Previous eNewsletters ]
Editor's corner
 October took me back to Eastern Europe and Russia, to the cities of Kiev and Kharkiv in Ukraine and Moscow in Russia. I thought I'd give a little coverage to the last two cities in this eNewsletter.
Most people in the West have probably never heard of Kharkiv (also spelled Kharkov in English and basically pronounced with more emphasis on the 'h' rather than the 'k' at the beginning of the name). It's the second largest city in the Ukraine after Kiev, with a population of about 1.6 million. Located in northeast Ukraine, it is just 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Ukraine-Russian border.
Kharkiv is one of the main industrial, cultural and educational centers of Ukraine. Its industry and research specialize on arms production and machinery. There are hundreds of industrial companies in the city including world famous giants like the Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau and the Malyshev Factory, leaders in tank production since the 1930s; Hartron (aerospace and nuclear electronics); and the Turboatom turbines producer, part of the Ukraine's nuclear power industry.
 I found Kharkiv had many similarities to Odessa, which I covered in the last eNewsletter issue. There were lots of trees and parks. One person I met referred to the parks as the city's lungs. The independent Ukraine is only 16 years old and went through serious economic times after the split from the Soviet Union, but Kharkiv is finally starting to grow. In fact, Kharkiv may currently be the only Ukrainian city with a higher birth rate than death rate. Buildings are being renovated and there are villas (homes) under construction in what Kharkivians refer to as the "sleeping regions, which would be called the suburbs in the West.
Language can reveal a lot about a place and culture. The term sleeping regions fits the city better than suburbs, as Kharkiv has a very strong central city where most businesses and the serious shopping are located. The outlying areas are truly mostly for sleeping, not work.
The city has a 22-mile underground metro system with 28 stations that was very clean and efficient. It costs only 15¢ to ride and is widely used. Like much of the former Soviet Union, much of the housing and flats are located in high-rise buildings. This tends to make cities more compact, compared to some of the sprawling cities in America.
 
The following is a slide show of some of the buildings found in the central city area:
Ukraine is an interesting country from the standpoint of being so young. It is still forming its national identity. The eastern part of the country still feels strong ties to mother Russia, where Russian is predominately spoken. People in the western part of the country predominately speak Ukrainian and are pushing to be allied with the West and eventually become a member of the European Union. In fact, in a sense, Ukraine is a country in its teenage years, trying to find its individual identity. There is some longing for the security of past conditions, which were not good, but constant and predictable, during the Soviet Union days. Everyone at least knew they had a job.
Residents of Krasylivka who survived the devastating 1932-33 Holodomor famine, pose for a group photo made in 1934 in the village of Krasylivka, Ukraine. In Krasylivka as many as 1,017 people, roughly the village's present day population, died during the famine |
But Ukrainians are also coming to terms with the horrors of Soviet rule, especially the Holodomor (death by hunger), a Soviet engineered famine in 1932-33 that saw Ukraine's agricultural wealth requisitioned at gunpoint as part of Stalin's plan to force peasants onto collective farms. Millions died of starvation as a result. For decades, Soviet authorities downplayed the tragedy, claiming it was a natural disaster. This past Saturday, November 24th, Ukraine officially celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor. The Ukrainian government has already declared the famine genocide. So have the United States and some other countries. But Russia, the legal successor to the Soviet state, refuses to concede to that label.
And mother Russia seems to be having difficulties with teenage Ukraine, much as a mother finds it hard when her children go off on their own. Last year, Russia got upset with Ukraine's movement to ally itself with the West and away from Russia's political influence. Russia's state-owned gas supplierGazprom cut off natural gas supplies for four days until a compromise was worked out. Gazprom once again threatened to cut off natural gas supplies on October 2, 2007; observers conn ected this threat to the results of parliamentary elections in Ukraine. To bolster regional energy security and reduce the region's dependence on Russia for its energy supplies, Ukraine, in cooperation with Azerbaijan, Georgia, Poland and Lithuania, have joined together to build an oil pipeline linking the Baltic and Black seas.
And speaking of Russia, you can never really appreciate Moscow without seeing and experiencing it in person. The stories about the terrible traffic are absolutely true. Someday in the near future, it is highly possible that gridlock will bring all vehicles to a stop. The problem is being fueled by a booming economy and rapidly expanding middle and upper classes, which all buy and drive cars.
The famous Moscow Metro is a whole different story. Fast and efficient, it spans almost the entire Russian capital, and is one of the world's most heavily used metro systems. It is well known for the ornate design of many of its stations, which contain beautiful examples of Socialist realist architecture, perhaps the most grandiose architectural phenomenon of the Stalinist era.
The first Metro line opened in 1935. Today, the Moscow Metro has 12 lines, 173 stations and is 175 miles (282 kilometers) in total length. On a normal weekday it carries over 7 million passengers.
Arbatskaya station |
Komsomolskaya-Koltsevaya station |
Mayakovskaya station |
Kievkaya station |
Novoslobodskaya station |
Avtozavodskaya station |
What you can only truly comprehend in person is the grandeur of many of the buildings in central Moscow. This is especially true along Tverskaya Street, the main street that stretches north from Red Square. The buildings are truly an architectural example of power and pride. You can feel the grandeur of the former Soviet Union just looking at them.
And a site on Tverskaya Street not to be missed is the Eliseevkii Food Shop, also know as Eliseev's Gastronome. Named after its former owner, millionaire Gregory Eliseev, the store is renowned not only for its assortment of gourmet foods and wines, but also for it luxurious Neo-Baroque interior with huge crystal chandeliers hanging from 65-foot ceilings.
Eliseevkii Food Shop on Tverskaya Street in Moscow
There's only so much space in our eNewsletter to share my travels with you. The balance of this issue is devoted to industry-specific topics — ones you won't find in any other industry publication. We leave it up to the trade publications to tell you about the latest ride, the newest games, which parks just opened, the nuts and bolts of location-based leisure. What you will find in our Leisure eNewsletter are much meatier stories, such as underlying societal trends that are affecting the industry, new concepts you won't read about elsewhere, and continued coverage of food and beverage and eatertainment, which is the future of the community-based entertainment industry.
Nowhere else will you find continual coverage of the changing nature of leisure time, or children's dining and taste preferences, or even the recycling of the entrepreneurial recipe for road kill stew. That's because our company believes that without this type of research, we can't assure our clients a successful future. And we are willing to share some of this information and insight with you, our readers. We accept no advertising, so we have the freedom to tell it the way we see it, and as our regular readers know, that is exactly what we do. That's not a freedom all those trade magazines have, as they can't say anything that might jeopardize their advertising revenue.
Because we do so much research, much of it outside the industry, we spot emerging and nascent trends before the location-based entertainment industry even knows they are happening. For years, we have been discussing the importance of what we call quality-of-place, also known as interior design or atmospherics or the "comfort factor. Finally, in October, Vending Times magazine ran a story on its importance. That same story also gave us credit for identifying and naming the 'tainment' trend, all those other types of venues now incorporating entertainment into their offerings and creating serious competition to predominately entertainment-only venues.
And we not only give coverage to emerging trends and new concepts, but we are working on the design and production of facilities that are responding to them, as well as the many emerging 'tainment' venues, including eatertainment, cinema-dining-bowling-entertainment venues, play cafés and experiential retail.
Although we are publishing only about every other month, we somehow manage to really pack in the stories. This issue breaks the record, at least in word count. It's amazing what you can accomplish on a round-trip flight with 28 hours of flying time. Print out a copy of the eNewsletter and digest it over time. But don't overlook the many URL links we add, so you can dig a little deeper or learn a little more about something we mention. All our eNewsletters are archived on our website back to 2001, so you can always go online to use the URL links or read previous issues.
Randy White
Editor
The changing nature of leisure time
It wasn't all that many years ago that we analyzed consumer spending on retail purchases and at entertainment destinations based upon demographics and disposable income. The basic underlying theory was that a person's demographics, combined with their disposable income, could be used to understand and predict their spending. In fact, a lot of consumer analysis is still performed on this basis.
Welcome to a whole new world. Money is no longer the sole currency by which consumers make their spending decisions. Time is the new currency. And for upper-middle and higher- income consumers (whom we will call upscale consumers), disposable time is often the more important deciding factor than money, especially when it comes to away-from-home leisure.
Upscale consumers and families, especially, are time pressed today. They have more things they want to do than they have the time for and suffer from what has been dubbed "time poverty. Often the difference in cost of a few dollars is not important to them, and they are even willing to pay a premium to save time. What is important to them is to use their valuable time well and to save time whenever they can. You might call this the new multitasking paradigm: do as much as you can in the least amount of time.
This multitasking trend is evidenced in recent research by the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) that shows that consumers are becoming more efficient in their shopping, spending more money per visit, but making fewer trips to the mall. In 1996, the average shopper visited a mall 3.2 times per month and spent $66.70 per trip. In 2006, the number of visits dropped by about 10% to 2.9, while spending per trip increased to $99.90. Adjusted for inflation, $66.70 in 1996 would equal $85.70 in 2006, so spending per trip has increased faster than inflation.
The other thing that has changed about time, or more specifically, about leisure time, is that it comes in new size increments. We no longer take those two week, or even one week vacations, or at least, not as often. We take our extended leisure time in smaller increments, but more frequently. It's now a long weekend here or a few days somewhere.
According to the Travel Industry Association, the average length of a vacation has dropped from about five days in the 1980s to 3.5 days today. Suzanne Cook, the Travel Industry Association's research director, said, "It's hard to even imagine how vacations can get much shorter than they are now and still resemble vacations.
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in aggregate, the number of full-time employees who took less than an entire week off has more than doubled since 1990. The percentage of all workers who took a full week off on any given week has declined by about a third since 1990.
According to labor economists, the trend toward shorter and more frequent vacations is more commonly found at white-collar jobs where workers have specific knowledge that cannot be easily duplicated by co-workers filling in. A Family and Work Institute 2004 survey of workers found that 43% of workers felt "overwhelmed by everything they have to do when they return home (PDF of survey). John A. Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement consultant, sees it this way, "If you go away for a week or two weeks, that might leave a hole and you might be blamed for something that goes wrong.
In fact, the consecutiveness that the Internet has brought to doing business is also destroying the sanctity of weekends, as you can stay connected 24/7. The division between work, leisure and home life has blurred.
The concept of time poverty, limited disposable free time for leisure, and shorter vacations is reinventing how we use our leisure time and is driving two trends we have identified in the location-based leisure (LBL) industry:
Multitasking leisure venues
We are seeing the growth of eatertainment and other venues that combine dining with entertainment. Consumers are looking for one-stop leisure, a single place they can go for a meal and entertainment, versus going to one location for a meal, then taking time to drive to another for entertainment. And if you are talking about loading up the kids in the car to go from one location to another, you are not only talking about more time, but a lot of effort.
In our last eNewsletter issue, we discussed some of these combination venues that are popping up in increasing numbers throughout America. These include family-buffet-entertainment centers, bowling lounges, pizza and game concepts, uWink and "dinner and a movie and even single venue combinations of cinema, restaurant, bar, games and bowling. These are all fulfilling consumers' needs for efficient use of their leisure time, which explains their growing popularity.
Speed vacation venues
The proliferation of discount airlines is making it a lot easier for people to get away for a few days of vacation on short notice for a speed vacation. But that can still be a lot of expense and effort for families with younger children. So what about just throwing everyone and a few clothes in the car and driving an hour or two (sometimes even less) to a great two- or three-day escape? Enter the indoor waterpark resort (also known as aqua park resorts in much of the world), the ultimate answer to the multitasking family speed vacation where the entire family can participate together as group. By the end of this year there will be 184 indoor waterpark resorts in the U.S., with 49 scheduled to open in 2008 and 166 more in the development pipeline. That's a big jump from the 18 that existed in 2000. Indoor water park resorts are even starting to appear in other parts of the world. We recently found one in the Ukraine city of Kharkiv.
Sun Light Hotel waterpark hotel in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
In fact, it's getting to the point where a hotel that doesn't have an indoor waterpark of some sort is losing out on all that weekend business. Even Marriott hotels is joining in the trend with a joint venture with Nickelodean to develop family-oriented Nickelodeon Resorts by Marriott. The first planned property is a 650-room resort in San Diego, California, that will have a 100,000-square-foot water park. That waterpark is planned to be outdoors, due to the favorable climate in San Diego. But future resorts will have indoor water parks if the weather dictates the need.
The changing perspective in the value we place on our time is having, and will continue to have, a far more profound impact on leisure venues than disposable income. Those businesses that understand how time poverty and the changing nature of leisure time are shaping consumers' leisure choices will be the ones to win success in the future.
We have been writing about the influence of time poverty and the changing nature of how time is experienced for years. You might want to revisit several of our past stories:
Who has time to wait?
With time being the new currency (see above article), how long consumers have to wait to be waited on has a direct impact on customer satisfaction. Earlier this year, the Mystery Shopping Providers Association (MSPA) completed a study based on more than 10,000 responses from mystery shoppers in 25 cities over a three-month period. The study measured the average amount of time people spent waiting in line among 25 cities and 10 industries in the United States. In addition to wait times, the study also measured Return Ratios, or the likelihood respondents would return to the location based only on wait time. "The difference in wait-time rank and return ratio reveals the correlation between shopper expectations versus actual experience, says MSPA Executive Director John Swinburn. A high return ratio represents that consumers are satisfied with the wait time or expected longer waits. A low return ratio represents consumers expected a shorter wait time. In other words, the study looked at the relationship between wait times and customer satisfaction.
Here are some findings from the survey:
- The average wait time nationwide is 4 minutes, 20 seconds (4:20)
- St. Louis is the fastest city in America with an average wait time of 2:09
- Missouri is the fastest state in the U.S. with an average wait time of 2:52
- Quick service restaurants offered the fastest wait times of the 10 industries, with an average wait time of 3:01 and return ratio of 83.3%
- Quiznos leads the quick service restaurant industry with an average wait time of 1 minute, 15 seconds and a 100% return ratio
- Starbucks placed second in the quick service restaurant category with a wait time of 2 minutes, 8 seconds and a return ratio of 91.5%
The average wait time and return ratios for all 10 industries studied were:
Interestingly, the slowest state was South Carolina, with an average wait time of 4 minutes and 12 seconds, 47% longer than the wait time in the fastest state, Missouri. The second slowest state was Mississippi, only one second faster than South Carolina. Yet the return rations for the three states were practically identical, suggesting that people living in the South are willing to wait longer. This is probably attributable to differences in cultural tempo of life or pace of time between the Midwest and the South, as the South traditionally has a slower pace of life. So the Southerners experience the longer wait times as if they were the same as the faster wait times in Missouri.
In our work throughout the world, we see these cultural time differences, which need to be understood to design successful projects. A number of years ago we did work in Badajoz, a town of several hundred thousand in Spain near the border with Portugal. The town was untouched by tourism. McDonald's opened a restaurant there and couldn't understand why, despite their careful calculations, they didn't have enough seats. The answer was simple. Life in Spain, especially that part of Spain, is much slower paced. There is no such thing as a fast meal. People take hours to socialize while they eat. So the residents were coming to McDonald's and staying for an hour or longer. Thus, no 10-minute table turnovers like in the U.S., so there wasn't enough seating. McDonald's finally figured it out and quadrupled the seating.
Online karting arrives
Away-from-home entertainment venues are in constant competition with in-home entertainment. It takes far less effort to sit in the lounge chair and watch a high-definition DVD on a big HDTV, or to grab the game controller and go at it, or cruise the Internet than to take extra time to go out to some entertainment venue.
We are constantly monitoring what is happening with in-home entertainment. If location-based leisure (LBL) venues don't know what the competition is up to, they cannot evolve to stay competitive. The Internet is having a dramatic impact on in-home entertainment, now that high-speed cable and DSL service are available in more and more homes. It has opened up the availability of multi-player games, many that could even classify as social games.
These games are both MPOG (multi-player online games) and MMORPGs (massively multi-player online role-playing games) where hundreds of thousands of players create their own characters and partake in adventure, historical fantasy or other type games. Research firm DFC Intelligence expects the global online gaming market to grow to $13 billion in 2011 from $3.4 billion in 2005. North America, Europe, and Japan, where most gamers grew up playing on consoles, are expected to offer a significant growth and to account for $9 billion in online game revenue in 2011.
 Watch out go-kart facilities, KartRider MMORPG is coming to your customers' home computer screens not only to grab a slice of their leisure time, but also to take some of their disposable entertainment dollars. This popular South Korean online, multiplayer racing game is an overseas phenomenon with 160 million fans. Now KartRider is planning to launch in the U.S.
KartRider is free to play, but derives revenue from microtransactions. If players want to give their character a haircut or customize their cutesy little kart with a new color paint, it costs from 25¢ to $10 per digital download. There are more than 300 virtual items for sale. You will even be able to purchase prepaid KartRider gift cards at Target and other major retailers.
The ability to customize something you own, whether it is real or virtual, is a powerful motivator. It is one of the reasons Starbucks is as popular as it is - 10,000 ways to customize your coffee just the way you like it.
 Microtransactions are new to the U.S. To date, the phenomenon has been driven predominately by Xbox Live Marketplace. Xbox players have downloaded more than 290 million pieces of gaming and entertainment content. Another online game, MapleStory, already has four million registered users in the U.S. who have spent $1.6 million on 600,000 microtransactions in one month alone.
As this online phenomenon grows in popularity, we may reach the point where the younger generation, especially Generation Y (children born between 1981 - 1995), doesn't see any difference between the virtual entertainment world and bricks and mortar entertainment venues. It is fast coming down to the battle of leisure time and dollars in the real world versus leisure time and dollars being spent in the virtual world. And with the ego gratification from customization offered through microtransactions and the social networking MMORPGs provide, the virtual world could easily end up being the preferred entertainment experience for the younger generation.
Foundations Entertainment University registration is open
Registration is now available for the February 26-28, 2008, Foundations Entertainment University to be held at the Hilton Arlington Hotel in the greater Dallas, Texas, area. The registration form and hotel information are on the website, www.foundationsuniversity.com. Registration is limited to 50 participants, so don't miss out. Early registration discounts are available now.
Road kill stew
We have great respect for our location-based leisure industry colleague Frank Price, best known as the birthday party guru of Birthday University. No one in the world knows as much about commercial birthday parties and how to run them successfully as Frank. We recommend all our clients attend Birthday University.
Frank also publishes a BU enewsletter that is very informative. In the last issue he ran a story he called ONE LAST TIME... "COPY-CAT concepts don't work. In the story he speaks of the previous prediction of one highly noted consultant in the industry of major "Road kill. That consultant was our CEO, Randy White, who predicted the demise of the children's soft-modular-play pay-for-play centers back in the 1990s. Frank, in his story, talks about what he sees as a 2007 Road Kill Stew. We thought the story was so good, we obtained Frank's permission to reprint it here. Of course, we have retitled his story Road kill stew.
Road kill stew, by Frank Price
"Another FunExpo passes by and I feel compelled to remind you again. If your plan is to copy another concept, especially one in your market that you think is successful based on observation, you're destined for Doomsville.
Do you think your version of the new family entertainment center or party center is going to succeed because it's bigger or better run than the one you're copying? Do you think you're going to pull off what even "hall of fame operators have not been able to accomplish as of yet? Will your new facility work just because there's nothing else for kids in your town? For those of us who have been in this industry for many years... it's doubtful. Most have failed, and if you do not learn from those past failures, you will too.
Research the defunct Discovery Zone concept of the 1990s. They had over 300 locations, the backing of a huge financial conglomerate and the first major presence of the out of the home birthday party. Many saw them and their business concept as the stepping-stone to early retirement. They built similar businesses all over the United States, hoping to be first in their markets. Most copied the DZ concept, added a name, a slightly different look and their secret formula to make this version better. Some just filmed a DZ and duplicated it in their town, because there wasn't anything else for kids to do. It was common to find 8 to 12 of the same general concept businesses competing in the same market. At the height of the shakeout, DZ closed all but a very few of their locations, as well as the countless hope-to-be-retired-early entrepreneurs and Mom and Pop investors. (If you would like more on my version of why this happened, email me at fprice@birthdayuniversity.com.)
I remind you of this because it's a sure fire recipe for what I remember one highly noted consultant in the industry predicted, and titled "Road kill. Beware the monoculture play facility that looks and acts like all the others like it. Beware the temptation to copy the fast-growing concepts based on observation. You are only observing the exterior. They may not even know why they do what they do. This is especially true in the inflatable party facilities. You look, sound and feel just like a 2007 version of Road kill Stew.
Thanks, Frank, for your take on the copycats. One of the concepts Frank was referring to in the story is the inflatable birthday party centers cropping up everywhere and the many inflatable birthday party center franchisors who claim the centers are the next big thing - a story we were hearing in the days of Discovery Zone.
You can learn about Frank Price's consulting services, Birthday University, and sign up for his enewsletter at www.birthdayuniversity.com. Frank also runs a Remarkable guest experiences . . . everyday" workshop that is worth checking out.
Review of IAAPA show in Orlando, Florida
The annual November pilgrimage to the IAAPA Attractions Expo (convention and trade show) is now over. This year, 27,000 attendees descended on Orlando, Florida, to attend educational seminars and walk the 1-million-square-foot (93,000 square meter) trade show, the biggest ever.
The redemption prize vendors with plush (stuffed animals and characters) seemed to have even more dramatic displays than in past years. The inflatable suppliers took up, according to our estimate, about one-sixth of the trade floor with each trying to outdo each other with theatrical units.
 
Operators come to the annual show looking for the next big thing. It wasn't there, unless you consider it to be inflatables - and we don't.
 Every year some company comes up with something outrageous that gets a lot of press. This year it was Dinner in the Sky, which that allows up to 22 people to dine suspended 164 feet (50 meters) in the air by a crane (just hope a large wind doesn't develop). Forbes magazine has selected Dinner in the Sky as one of the 10 most unusual restaurants in the world.
A few new products caught our attention. One was a Sky Trail adventure ropes course by Ropes Courses Incorporated that takes up little space, as most of it is elevated, leaving the floor space below open for other things. It should have appeal to grade schoolers and tweens. The one issue is that it has limited throughput (capacity per hour)
 
 Xtraice introduced a new non-ice skating surface for ice rinks that can be used 365 days a year. For venues going green, EATware showed its 100% biodegradable disposable tableware.
The two most creative new products we found:
- A coconut tree you climbed by Spectrum Sports
- The Carmi Flavors One Shot ice cream machine that allows you to dispense a flavor choice of ice cream into a cone or cup using a single-serving container of ice cream kept in a freezer. The One Shot is a great solution for small operations that don't have the volume needed for a soft serve machine.
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| Coconut tree climb |
Carmi Flavors One Shot ice cream machine |
And, although PrimePlay's Ballocity is not a new product, the company deserves special recognition for displaying what we consider to be the first properly themed Ballocity or soft-modular-play type unit we have seen at any show. The theming was suggestive, but not overpowering, and they maintained visibility into the unit rather than obstructing it with the theming elements.
Grandparent spending
When we think about the family market, we often forget what can be a significant part of it — the grandparent market. No, we aren't talking about grandparents climbing rock walls or riding bumper cars. We're talking about grandparents taking their grandchildren out for a meal and/or entertainment.
Grandparents are big spenders on their grandchildren, especially when the grandparents live close to their grandchild. On average, grandparents spend $1,027 total per year on their grandchildren. Grandparents who see their grandchildren three or more times a month spend 54% more than those who see them two or fewer times a month ($1,224 versus $794).
U.S. grandparents in the West spend the most ($1,300) annually, and those in the Eastern U.S. spend the least ($821). Grandparents in Southern states spend more on entertainment than do grandparents in any other region.
Total spending increases with the number of grandchildren in the family ($739 for one grandchild, $1,087 for two or more).
The age of the grandchild also influences spending. Grandparents with grandchildren 3 years or older spend 87% more than those with grandchildren 2 years or younger ($1,054 versus $567).
Grandfathers spend 14% more than grandmothers.
Nearly four in 10 grandparents (37%) say it's their responsibility to spoil their grandparent.
Capturing the grandparent market is not a no-brainer. Older grandparents may have special needs. Their eyesight may be deteriorated, so they need higher contrasts to read signs. They may need benches to sit on while their grandchildren play. Outdoors, they need shade. They may have special dietary needs, including no sugar and low- or no-fat. Grandfathers, the bigger spenders, may have a hearing loss. This means they might avoid facilities that are loud and reverberant, as they want to be able to hear and understand what their grandchildren are saying.
With appropriately designed facilities and marketing, the grandparent-grandchild market can add significant dollars to the bottom line.
Free white papers for e-mail marketing
 SubscriberMail offers a number of free white papers on different aspects of e-mail marketing, including enewsletters. Two of the white papers will be especially useful if you use e-mail marketing to interact with your members or guests:
- The Seven Dirty Words you can't say in subject lines; plus 100 others you shouldn't use, either
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You can obtain these and other white papers at www.subscribermail.com/white_papers.
Death to the black box, hello daylight
The location-based entertainment (LBE) industry is truly amazing in many respects. We continue to be fascinated with how it continues to perpetuate myths about how to design facilities. One of those myths that hinders the performance of many facilities is the black box, the concept that the entertainment experience needs to be presented in a windowless black box, and a dark one, at that.
 This myth or design paradigm probably dates to LBE predecessors, including theaters, cinemas and many indoor experiences at theme parks, such as the current Men in Black Alien Attack at Universal Studios Florida, where there has to be total control of the environment without any intrusions from the outside. Well, the black box is still very appropriate for those venues, and probably a few others. But when it comes to LBEs, and especially ones that cater to the family market, the black box design is about as wrong as you can get.
How would you like to live in a home or apartment without windows? I don't know anyone who would (there are always exceptions, but definitely in the minority). How would children like to go to school in a classroom without windows? They wouldn't. How about a Starbucks without windows? Not very appealing. And if you think about the majority of restaurants, whether it be a McDonalds, a Panera's, an Applebee's or an Olive Garden, they all have massive windows. Given a choice between a window table or an interior table, the vast majority of people choose the window table.
There's a good reason for this. Humans like natural light and views. We evolved outdoors in nature with natural light. We are designed to function best in natural light. There is a preponderance of scientific research that demonstrates humans are happiest and function their best in natural light. Children learn faster, employees are more productive and have fewer absences from work, and customers even spend more money when shopping in natural light.
Yes, you read that correctly. When stores have natural light, customers spend up to 40% more. There are already some smart retailers out there that understand this. On bright days, Costco stores are 100% lit with skylights. Wal-Mart has developed a "green store lit with natural light. The affect on the feel of the shopping environment is amazing.
The concept of using natural light to illuminate an indoor environment is called daylight harvesting. Isn't it cool how designers come up with these terms? Just think about it. All that daylight is sitting outside, so let's harvest it for the indoors.
Daylight harvesting has a second benefit that is becoming increasingly important: reducing energy consumption. Turn on the daylight, and turn off the electric lights. Wow, people are happier and feel better, function better, learn better and even fill up cash registers faster. Plus, we reduce the building's carbon footprint and maybe send a few less of our dollars to those oil-rich countries. That's what we call a real win-win.
There's a few LBE operators that get it, at least part way. Chuck E. Cheese's originally didn't have any windows. Then about 10 or so years ago, the company started retrofitting windows in the storefronts. Now the new prototype stores have almost floor-to-ceiling glass on three sides.
Well, we're proud to say our company has understood this important concept, this anti-myth, for years, and has been bringing the benefits of natural light and daylight harvesting to the design of our clients' projects.
Back in 1989, we incorporated windows and skylights into the design of Olathe Lanes East. A large bowling supplier providing the equipment heard about it and sent the company's top salesperson to meet with our client to advise him it would ruin his business. Randy White, our CEO, was at the meeting and asked the salesperson why bowlers would dislike the windows. After a long hesitation, the salesperson responded, "Because the headlights from the automobiles would shine on the lanes and distract the bowlers. There were no roads near the windows. The owner supported our decision and when the center opened, the bowlers loved the daylight, especially the women. The bowling center was able to charge 35% more than any other bowling center in town.
 A good example of daylight harvesting is the Three Rivers Park Children's Play & Discovery Center our company designed and is producing. It is currently under construction at the Three Rivers Park in Gary/Lake Station, Indiana. This 22,300-square-foot facility employs daylight harvesting to light the vast majority of the public spaces with natural light, even on an overcast day.
We designed the game and entertainment area of the first StoneFire Pizza Co. to harvest daylight from transoms, windows and special types of skylights that brought natural light down from the roof to below the ceilings. This is not your typical LBE or FEC gameroom-entertainment area that is dark, with some so dark you have to worry about losing sight of your child. The area is bright and cheerful, and families love it. In fact, it has been so successful that we are expanding the daylight harvesting on StoneFire Pizza Co. #2 throughout the lobby and buffet serving areas. And unlike many pizza buffet-entertainment centers with black box dining rooms, all the dining rooms have lots of windows. They aren't totally lit with daylight, but they have lots of natural light that dramatically impacts the atmosphere and appeal of the rooms. Even the Cartoon Dining Room has windows and daylight. Yes, you can design daylight into a room that shows movies and cartoons and still have a very visible screen.
Designing daylight harvesting is not simple. You need to make sure you get even lighting levels, and ones that are not too bright. The color temperature of electric lights needs to be carefully selected. If you want to save on energy, you need automatic controls installed to control the amount of electric lighting used (or turn it off completely) when daylight is being harvested.
Daylight harvesting and bright interiors are still not the conventional wisdom for LBE design, as myths die hard. But it can sure have a positive impact on revenues and profits.
Hurray for pizza
Impulse Research recently conducted a national survey of more than 1,000 men and women, ages 18-65, to examine America's dining habits as they relate to food preferences.
Among the survey's key findings:
- On average, Americans eat pizza at least once a week, every week of the year
- 67% of Americans feel that pizza is the most important "comfort food
- When asked which food one would NEVER give up, nearly 50% of all Americans surveyed (aged 25-34) said they could not live without pizza (pasta, hamburgers and Chinese food were more easily dispensable)
- 94% of the U.S. population eats pizza
The relationship of education to income
We're sure you've heard that the higher someone's education level, the higher their income. Here's the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that demonstrates it.
Get real, this is a place for children?
Our company was recently doing some research on the inflatable birthday party center industry and discovered something that shocked us about the 160 Pump It Up franchises located throughout the U.S. These are the 10,000- to 12,000-square-foot facilities that specialize in children's birthday parties and use inflatables as the main attraction.
If you want your child to use the center, you have to sign a liability waiver. Here's an extract from one, which you can find online. Just pick any location and click on "print ready waiver at the bottom of the page):
I am aware that there are inherent risks associated with participation in Pump It Up programs, parties, and/or use of the play area and inflatable equipment and I, on behalf of myself and the participant(s) named below, knowingly and freely assume all such risk, both known and unknown, including those that may arise out of the negligence of other participants; and,
I, for myself and the participant(s) named below, and our respective heirs, assigns, administrators, personal representatives, and next of kin, hereby release and hold harmless, XXX Inflatable, DBA Pump It Up of XXXX, and PIU Management, LLC, their affiliates, officers, members, agents, employees, other participants, and sponsoring agencies from and against any and all claims, injuries, liabilities or damages arising out of or related to our participation in any and all Pump It Up programs, activities, parties, the use of the play area and/or inflatable equipment.
Imagine what the reaction would be if at the admissions gate for Walt Disney World or a Six Flags theme park parents were required to sign a waiver for their children. Or if your local parks department or school required parents to sign waivers before their children could play on playgrounds. If Pump It Up is more dangerous for children than going to a theme park or playground - enough that a waiver is required -- should children even be allowed to use the facilities? If it is that dangerous for children, we don't think Pump It Up is a place that any parent should allow their children to attend.
Update on uWink
We have been giving uWink, the new social gaming eatertainment facility, continual coverage, as it could well prove to be the new model for a successful chain of social-gaming eatertainment venues.
In November, uWink raised $10.4 million of equity financing to fund new restaurant development and general capital needs. Investors purchased 5.2 million units at $2 per unit. Each unit consisted of one share of common stock and a warrant to purchase one additional share of common stock for $2.40.
In addition to the three new locations identified in last issue's story on uWInk, the companyhas announced that it will be opening a 7,000-square-foot location in Mountain View, California, in early 2008.
For more about uWink, see our story, What's happening with uWink? in our last issue.
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White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group
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