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Author Archives: Randy White

About Randy White

Randy White is CEO and co-founder of the White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group. The 31-year-old company, with offices in Kansas City, Missouri, has worked for over 600 clients in 37 countries throughout the world. Projects the company has designed and produced have won seventeen 1st place awards. Randy is considered to be one of the world's foremost authorities on feasibility, brand development, design and production of leisure experience destinations including entertainment, eatertainment, edutainment, agritainment/agritourism, play and leisure facilities.

Randy was featured on the Food Network's Unwrapped television show as an eatertainment expert, quoted as an entertainment/edutainment center expert in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times and Time magazine and received recognition for family-friendly designs by Pizza Today magazine. One of the company's projects was featured as an example of an edutainment project in the book The Experience Economy. Numerous national newspapers have interviewed him as an expert on shopping center and mall entertainment and retail-tainment.

Randy is a graduate of New York University. Prior to repositioning the company in 1989 to work exclusively in the leisure and learning industry, White Hutchinson was active in the retail/commercial real estate industry as a real estate consultancy specializing in workouts/turnarounds of commercial projects. In the late 1960s to early 1980s, Randy managed a diversified real estate development company that developed, owned and managed over 2.0 million square feet of shopping centers and mixed-use projects and 2,000 acres of residential subdivisions. Randy has held the designations of CSM (Certified Shopping Center Manager) and Certified Retail Property Executive (CRX) from the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).

He has authored over 150 articles that have been published in over 40 leading entertainment/leisure and early childhood education industry magazines and journals and has been a featured speaker and keynoter at over 40 different conventions and trade groups.

Randy is the editor of his company's Leisure eNewsletter, has a blog and posts on Twitter and Linkedin.

The truth about restaurant failure rates

The truth about restaurant failure rates Continue reading

NASCAR sports on the decline; what’s the cause?

NASCAR sports on the decline; what’s the cause? Continue reading

Per capita movie attendance and DVD shipments on the decline

Per capita movie attendance and DVD shipments on the decline Continue reading

It’s time to kill the family entertainment center industry

Now don’t panic. I’m not suggesting we close the centers. What I am suggesting is that it’s time to do away with the inappropriate industry term for the type of venues that the FEC industry claims to represent. Using family … Continue reading

Chasing What’s New and Hot

When it comes to many family entertainment center (FEC) type venues, all they do is chase the latest fad in attractions rather than develop a sustainable model. I can’t tell you how many times after attending the annual IAAPA show … Continue reading

Know the market you are targeting, but don’t forget the adults

Know the market you are targeting, but don’t forget the adults Continue reading

Chuck E. Cheese’s joins the Multiverse

Several of my recent articles have discussed that to prosper in the future, community-based entertainment, including family entertainment centers, will need to use digital technology to fuse the real and virtual worlds by embracing the Multiverse and its eight-realm matrix … Continue reading

Don’t count on cabin fever to drive attendance

Relying on people having cabin fever to drive attendance at a family entertainment center type facility is wishful thinking. The world of out-of-home entertainment has changed dramatically in the last decade or so. Several decades ago, short of playing Monopoly … Continue reading

Why so many FECs have marginal success or fail

Over our company’s 22-years working in the location-based entertainment (LBE) and family entertainment center (FEC) industries, which include bowling and other community-based out-of-home entertainment venues, we have been retained by many clients to analyze their poorly performing centers and develop … Continue reading

Thoughts on the Future of LBEs & Digital Out-of-Home Entertainment

Recently Kevin Williams, publisher of The Stinger Report, an ezine that covers the digital out-of-home interactive entertainment industry, contacted me and several other industry leaders and asked about our take on the future of location-based entertainment and digital out-of-home entertainment. … Continue reading

The importance of both value and values

The Great Recession has definitely made the consumer far more value conscious in their purchasing decisions. Today value means far more than the price, it means what you get for the price you pay. Often the less expensive items don’t … Continue reading

When suppliers become FEC consultants and designers, beware!

I’ve noticed an alarming trend that the Great Recession seems to have accelerated – many equipment suppliers are marketing themselves as also consultants and designers of potential buyers’ family entertainment centers (FECs). Two recent prospects we have had discussions with … Continue reading

The economic recovery is coming. Also believe in the Tooth Fairy?

The press and media are rampant with articles that, in one form or another, talk about or refer to a recovery from the Great Recession. There will not be a recovery. I’ll say it again. There will not be a … Continue reading

Is your out-of-home entertainment experience better than nothing?

Location-based entertainment facilities (LBEs) often compare themselves to the competition down the road and worry, “Is my facility better than theirs? Is my entertainment better? Am I competitively priced?” etc. Well, those other bricks-and-mortar LBEs are not the only competition. … Continue reading

Meet us in Orlando at IAAPA

The annual IAAPA Attractions Expo will be held November 15-19 in Orlando, Florida at the modern Orange County Convention Center. More than 25,000 participants from 100 countries are expected to take part in the more than 90 education sessions, daily networking … Continue reading