I see you made it to pinballmap.com, and for the area, you are the CLEAR destination for pinball! FYI, you can also upload pictures for your location to pinballmap.com, and that will help your listing.
Yelp next. Firefly is the only pinball location that comes up for Charlottesville right now.
Quoted from Jenk540i:Since you mentioned our pinball museum in Asheville I have a few points. It started small, a few years ago expanded into a much larger space, and this year opened a second smaller location. Last time I was there on a Tuesday afternoon it was filled to capacity and had a waiting line within 2 hours after opening. I advise folks to never go on a weekend, there is always a wait and patrons don't get in at a times. I'm guessing TC (the owner) has close to 100 or more customers go through on a weekend day.
We are a tourist town. Absolutely booming especially with all of the breweries that have opened in the last 5 years. Over the past 2 years all of the high end hotel chains (Mariott, Hilton, etc) have opened new hotels down town, there are at least 4 more now under construction. Multiple B&Bs that are sold out all the time. TC does not have to advertise, he has no gimmicks. If you have not visited his business I highly suggest you make a road trip to see how amazing it is.
No one has ever seen a McDonalds franchise fail. Because they don't build them without understanding and researching the local demographics, and markets.
I hate to say it, but if you are getting 5 - 10 customers at a time no amount of gimmicks or advertising will increase your volume that much. I suspect you are just in an area without enough foot traffic.
But I wish you the best if you decide to pursue it further.
Thanks a lot for this. I am strongly guessing that that Asheville is mostly tourists in there. If it was just year roound residents it would seem unlikely to stay packed all the time. I believe we should be able to do the same for Charlotttesville. Some aspects of the same setup. But yes ZERO foot traffic, and no buzz to go with it either. Asheville Museum is very well known. That’s what makes part of me want to take the dive and go directly on the downtown mall. But it’s gotten ridiculously expensive at $20-$24 sq ft/year. Without having built a strong base will I just bleed money ? And will just having maybe the 1000 sq ft I can muster on the mall be enough of a real footprint. I will give TC a call as others tell me he is quite approachable. I’d love to hear more of the nuts and bolts of how it got to where it is today.
Quoted from PinMonk:I see you made it to pinballmap.com, and for the area, you are the CLEAR destination for pinball! FYI, you can also upload pictures for your location to pinballmap.com, and that will help your listing.
Yelp next. Firefly is the only pinball location that comes up for Charlottesville right now.
Hey we respond to advice. One down, one Yelp to go. And heck maybe even an Instagram account at some point. Thanks again
Quoted from nwpinball:Sure, it all depends on local laws and the climate. The Seattle Pinball Museum seems to work it quite well, it's all ages, it doesn't have a bar vibe at all, but you can buy bottles and cans of beer and wine at the front desk. Dads can have a beer or two while playing games for a few hours with their kids and groups of people in their 20s, 30s and 40s can come and have some beers and play pinball. They do it without much investment in the bar side. But yeah, all depends on where you live, the laws, the market. We have 10 barcades to compete with that are packed nightly, along with dozens more bars with 6 or more pins, so having drinks helps them compete.
No true barcades here yet, though perhaps I could branch out if successful. Have enough machines to fill several thousand square feet. Do have two places with 6 pins.
Yeah I get that it alcohol doesn’t have to equate to family unfriendly. There are more subtle ways of incorporating. I’m not adamant about it either. I guess I just want lower key, well lit, kids in there. My family goes to lots of restaurants where we have alcohol and it’s still family friendly. It can be done. But locale has to be right. I just think barcade and think dimly lit bar with drunk college kids. Definitely don’t want to be that. But it’s clear we don’t have to go there and can still have alcohol served.
Quoted from PinMonk:Iheartradio didn't go bankrupt over 20 Billion (with a B) in debt because radio is healthy.
That was poor business management and debt management from buying out other companies, rather than radio being unhealthy.
Quoted from ForceFlow:That was poor business management and debt management from buying out other companies, rather than radio being unhealthy.
» YouTube video
Just to be clear I don’t want to bash on radio here. I don’t know enough to have an informed opinion. They made us a nice commercial, they broadcast it to the demographic we were after and only when we were open. It cost us $180 per week, we needed to bring in at least 18 extra people to break even. We didn’t. I had to stop spending on it. Wish them no ill will.
In contrast we put up a Facebook page and from that alone people initially found us, including local paper and news station. We did not however update our Facebook page often. In talking privately to a couple others in my situation they confirm recommendations that social media updated frequently matters for their business.
If I were to state our base problem, I believe we shall survive eventually by tourists finding us. They can’t find us and wouldn’t stumble upon us without effort. But that’s a slow process to become a destination. We need to give enough to our local residents to come every so often to see what we have. I think we can do it but it will involve some struggle.
Quoted from ForceFlow:That was poor business management and debt management from buying out other companies, rather than radio being unhealthy.
The debt was taken on with the intent that the market would keep generating tons of cash, which, obviously, it did not.
Also, bad management doesn't explain why CBS Radio essentially gave their business away to someone else to die with. If radio were viable, CBS would not have let it out of their claws...
Quoted from PinMonk:The debt was taken on with the intent that the market would keep generating tons of cash, which, obviously, it did not.
Also, bad management doesn't explain why CBS Radio essentially gave their business away to someone else to die with. If radio were viable, CBS would not have let it out of their claws...
Pretty much every large business that has filed for bankruptcy recently was largely caused by taking on a huge amount of debt to buy out other companies.
While what you say does have some validity, it's a situation that's happened across other industries beyond radio.
Quoted from pookycade:Just to be clear I don’t want to bash on radio here. I don’t know enough to have an informed opinion. They made us a nice commercial, they broadcast it to the demographic we were after and only when we were open. It cost us $180 per week, we needed to bring in at least 18 extra people to break even. We didn’t. I had to stop spending on it. Wish them no ill will.
In contrast we put up a Facebook page and from that alone people initially found us, including local paper and news station. We did not however update our Facebook page often. In talking privately to a couple others in my situation they confirm recommendations that social media updated frequently matters for their business.
If I were to state our base problem, I believe we shall survive eventually by tourists finding us. They can’t find us and wouldn’t stumble upon us without effort. But that’s a slow process to become a destination. We need to give enough to our local residents to come every so often to see what we have. I think we can do it but it will involve some struggle.
With a low ticket venue you have to look at the value of a customer over time. McDonald's doesn't expect to cover the cost of their ads with one meal (btw they're a huge radio user because it allows them to reach people closest to their point of purchase) they take a long term view i.e. If I get a new customer who spends $10 per week and comes back every week, the value of that new customer over the course of a year is $520. Same concept would apply to your business. Even if you only got one new customer a week, the math is staggering when annualized, but that of course assumes regular repeat business. If that can't be counted on, then that theory falls apart fast for a niche business like yours, and as a result, the investment required may never be worth the return. That's why I would look for trade opportunities wherever possible.
Quoted from vid1900:I click on Mem4 and it's somebody talking about farting on their girlfriend.
I have Howard100 as one of my presets too.
Quoted from nwpinball:"Radio is the third most powerful medium in the United States, reaching 54 percent of the country’s population daily. In comparison, over 75 percent are reached by television, while social media accounts for 45.7 percent. Online radio is playing an increasing role in the radio market, with an estimated 61 percent of the U.S. population listening to online radio in 2017." -statista.com
http://variety.com/2017/music/news/traditional-radio-faces-a-grim-future-new-study-says-1202542681/
http://www.businessinsider.com/radio-vs-tv-smartphones-reach-in-us-chart-2017-7
Roughly 228 million adults in the US listened to some form of radio at least once a week in the fourth quarter of 2016, the report said. That's good for 93% of the US adult population, and the figure is growing. TV had the second-farthest reach at 89%, followed by smartphones at 83%. The PC and tablet were well behind, at 50% and 37%, respectively.
It's true that there is more time spent with tv for obvious reasons, and the multitude of choices has eroded some radio audience share, but radio remains an excellent cost effective medium that has billions in advertising purchased every year. But enough radio talk. If someone wants to explore the pros and cons of any medium, google is at their fingertips.
Quoted from vid1900:What???????
You got to get out and see the world outside the Puritanical States of America.
Thread officially off the rails. 
Please don't let one person's dim view of having a few drinks color your idea of what you think the whole country is like.
Richard
A few great ideas here from people who either operate barcades or have observed their practices.
I hope nobody tries to emulate McDonald's or Disney's advertising strategies in a little arcade, or thinks what worked for Disneyworld will work in a setting like this. Those strategies are backed by tens of millions of dollars and do not scale down to $180 per week.
As a small time pinball operator (extremely small-time) I can tell you from experience the location has almost everything to do with it. In a good location you can put practically anything in and it will get played. In a bad location you can have something super hot and it won't get played. I have experienced both. Why fight an uphill battle?
As an operator/barcade owner I would never put a cent into radio or TV. We have all been trained from birth to ignore commercials, even more so DJ's talking. We zone it out. Unless you throw big bucks at producing a very clever commercial, forget it. Anyone telling you something different is trying to sell you something. And I would be surprised if radio giveaways - just like Groupons - would attract real customers. The only groupon plays I've seen really work are businesses that get nearly 100% of their business from groupons.
Go big with social media.
Quoted from Topcard:http://www.businessinsider.com/radio-vs-tv-smartphones-reach-in-us-chart-2017-7
Roughly 228 million adults in the US listened to some form of radio at least once a week in the fourth quarter of 2016, the report said. That's good for 93% of the US adult population, and the figure is growing. TV had the second-farthest reach at 89%, followed by smartphones at 83%. The PC and tablet were well behind, at 50% and 37%, respectively.
It's true that there is more time spent with tv for obvious reasons, and the multitude of choices has eroded some radio audience share, but radio remains an excellent cost effective medium that has billions in advertising purchased every year. But enough radio talk. If someone wants to explore the pros and cons of any medium, google is at their fingertips.
It's obvious where the way this data is reported is skewed, it's "some form of radio" and at least once in a week. I'm guessing you work in radio and are happy to pretend that listening to online radio like Pandora and Spotify, non-commercial radio like college stations and NPR, or just getting into my truck and listening to a song or two before switching to Spotify is equal to 93% of adults actually listening to enough commercial radio in a week to hear a bunch of commercials. I do listen to commercial radio, but I also change the station when a commercial comes on, like a lot of people. We are talking about advertising on commercial radio, not just listening to it. I've spend plenty of money advertising on commercial radio and have friends in the business, for a small business it just isn't worth it financially anymore. It's expensive and you can't quantify it's impact. Facebook advertising is so dialed in, you can target demographics, you can target interests, you get charged only per click or an answer to an event invite, you can see and quantify the results and see way more people walk through your door for way less money than commercial radio. With Facebook advertising you can target your ads specifically to people that mention "pinball" "arcade" "games" "videogames" from 18-50, in a 25 mile radius around your business. I've done it all, I've been in marketing and promotion for 25 years, I know what works and what doesn't. Things have changed, radio and print advertising used to be a fantastic way to get the word out, but social media advertising and marketing has really begun to take over, especially for those on a limited budget.
One thing to consider depending on your location and how it might work is a digital jukebox. I installed a Rowe NGX mini last October and it has been amazing. Sometimes the jukebox alone will out earn all the pins. Of course this is a bar/restaurant and the customer base that is interested in the jukebox may not cross over with the pinball customers. And since you have people coming to your location to play pinball, not drink and listen to music, it may not make sense. But if you think it might work, it is easy money. It could help with the ambiance and retention of customers. People like to be able to play their own tunes when hanging out and relaxing.
The jukeboxes aren't cheap, around $3600-3700 plus tax, plus AMI takes 20% for music fees, there are credit card fees, and mobile app payment fees. And you don't own the hard drive with the operating system and music on it, you have to send it back if you quit operating the jukebox effectively making the thing a $3600+ paperweight.
Of course you'll have to have the foot traffic to make such a thing worthwhile. If you're only seeing 10 people a day max, I can't imagine the jukebox would earn much. But if you get the location to the point where you're seeing pretty decent traffic, it might make sense.
Is there a small business development person in your city? They can probably help you with ideas and can provide some local marketing data or partnerships available.
Beer and food is not the answer. Parent with a food truck in the parking lot and be done. If you’re going to go after a late night crowd - a hot dog cart in the parking lot after 9pm or something when people get hungry after drinking.
Water, cokes, candy bars - just enough to keep someone from leaving while still having a long shelf life is what I’d target.
BYOB after 8pm or something may be helpful for older crowds. Not sure what the permitting or insurance looks like around that.
Perhaps you put an advertising pin in a popular bar around the corner? Set it at straight $.25 or $.50 with a sign to come play more. Give them a $2 discount on an unlimited rate if they bring in their bar receipt or something.
I haven’t seen you post your rates but I’d target something like
$6 hr daytime
$12 unlimited until X time - 7pm?
$8 hr at night
$15 unlimited time after 7pm?
$20-22 unlimited all day
Only 5 games year 2000 or later. Only 8 games from the 90s. So 60% of your pins are 80s or earlier.
Anyway you could partner with the brewery that has 5 pins? Rotate games from your place so they keep a fresh lineup?
Well i dont know much, but maybe some ad signs out on the main street (since you said you where pretty hidden?), just some simple wooden fold sign with "Pinball Arcade around the corner!"?
Quoted from ypurchn:Is there a small business development person in your city? They can probably help you with ideas and can provide some local marketing data or partnerships available.
Beer and food is not the answer. Parent with a food truck in the parking lot and be done. If you’re going to go after a late night crowd - a hot dog cart in the parking lot after 9pm or something when people get hungry after drinking.
Water, cokes, candy bars - just enough to keep someone from leaving while still having a long shelf life is what I’d target.
BYOB after 8pm or something may be helpful for older crowds. Not sure what the permitting or insurance looks like around that.
Perhaps you put an advertising pin in a popular bar around the corner? Set it at straight $.25 or $.50 with a sign to come play more. Give them a $2 discount on an unlimited rate if they bring in their bar receipt or something.
I haven’t seen you post your rates but I’d target something like
$6 hr daytime
$12 unlimited until X time - 7pm?
$8 hr at night
$15 unlimited time after 7pm?
$20-22 unlimited all day
Only 5 games year 2000 or later. Only 8 games from the 90s. So 60% of your pins are 80s or earlier.
Anyway you could partner with the brewery that has 5 pins? Rotate games from your place so they keep a fresh lineup?
Just curious about your background. Do you run a barcade? Operate a small retail business? Have marketing experience?
Jumping in a couple of days late here. I was one of the owners of "Professor Fether's" in C'ville (Jan 1982 to late 1985) which was an arcade and sub shop (no alcohol) and we did gangbusters business, even during what was considered a slump in the industry. (Our ultimate problem was that we underpriced the food to bring in game customers, and underpriced the games to bring in food customers... and tried to make it up on volume! But we sure had a lot of happy customers.)
I've been gone from C'ville for 20 years so I may not be completely aware of what's changed in that time, but I think I can state pretty definitively your single biggest problem is location. UVa may be in C'ville, but where you are in the downtown you might as well be in Ruckersville as far as UVa students are concerned. You don't have to be on The Corner, but you have to be somewhere closer to UVa. We started out in Fry Springs (across the street from Dürty Nelly's) and upgraded to University Shopping Center (Tokyo Rose is in our old spot) after a year. We got UVa students, local students, businessmen during lucnh and after work, families on weekends. UVa student traffic dropped off in the summer, sure, but local kid traffic picked up.
And food. We sold food and encouraged its consumption out by the machines, by providing tall standing tables all over the place. Groups of businessmen loved to come in and play a few 4-player games while eating their lunch. Yes, there was the occasional spilled drink or lettuce all over a pin but we cleaned it up promptly and well.
We actually never had a proper sign at our first location, it was kind of a running joke, but that isn't the worst problem in the world. You need to be somewhere where people can get to by foot and bike, in addition to by car.
I'll add a little of my experience as an operator in a college town (though I don't own the venues).
Several people in this thread have talked about how to get college kids involved. I wouldn't advise wasting any time on that demographic.
Where I am, people assume the same: "oh, you must get lot of college kids playing your machines". At my barcade location, students hardly ever play...even though there can be 500-1000 people passing through the bar on a Friday or Saturday night. (The most common reaction is: "oh my god, look at all these pinball machines - so awesome! Wait a minute!!!! They have GIANT JENGA?!?")
I was excited to put 4 pinball machines at the bowling alley in the student center. Certainly it will just take one pinhead to get all their friend into it as well? Those machines are played mostly by professors and regulars at the barcade who work at the university or spend lots of time on campus. The second biggest demographic are kids under 12 who are there for bowling birthday parties (and a little from their parents). College kids are dead last. The have no affiliation with pinball, and no money to spend on it.
On a campus with over 30,000 students, my three games are getting around 12 plays per day...combined.
So, I'm not saying that you can't make it work in a college town...just that based on my experience, the college demographic should literally be the last one you should market to.
Quoted from stangbat:The jukeboxes aren't cheap, around $3600-3700 plus tax, plus AMI takes 20% for music fees, there are credit card fees, and mobile app payment fees. And you don't own the hard drive with the operating system and music on it, you have to send it back if you quit operating the jukebox effectively making the thing a $3600+ paperweight.
If you have any old physical touch screen jukebox, the program Album Player has a coin-op commercial software and costs less than $100.
I know a few ops who use it to bring their dead Tunes Choice and JukeTouch boxes back to life and with AP as the software, there are no royalties to pay.
In fact the $50 version 5.3 has a checkbox to turn it into commercial, before they got the idea of selling a separate version for 2x the price.
Quoted from ryanwanger:So, I'm not saying that you can't make it work in a college town...just that based on my experience, the college demographic should literally be the last one you should market to.
Even if you go to huge pinball places on campus (like the two Pinball Pete's up in Michigan), no college kids are playing pinball.
They DDR, Hoops, Air Hockey, Billiards, HOOD, Walking Dead (arcade), anything but Pinball.
Quoted from vid1900:If you have any old physical touch screen jukebox, the program Album Player has a coin-op commercial software and costs less than $100.
That's cool as long as it covers all the RIAA, ASCAP, etc. licenses and will keep their minions off your back. If not, be aware that they will probably find you and bug the shit out of you until you pay them to go away.
Quoted from nwpinball:It's obvious where the way this data is reported is skewed, it's "some form of radio" and at least once in a week. I'm guessing you work in radio and are happy to pretend that listening to online radio like Pandora and Spotify, non-commercial radio like college stations and NPR, or just getting into my truck and listening to a song or two before switching to Spotify is equal to 93% of adults actually listening to enough commercial radio in a week to hear a bunch of commercials. I do listen to commercial radio, but I also change the station when a commercial comes on, like a lot of people. We are talking about advertising on commercial radio, not just listening to it. I've spend plenty of money advertising on commercial radio and have friends in the business, for a small business it just isn't worth it financially anymore. It's expensive and you can't quantify it's impact. Facebook advertising is so dialed in, you can target demographics, you can target interests, you get charged only per click or an answer to an event invite, you can see and quantify the results and see way more people walk through your door for way less money than commercial radio. With Facebook advertising you can target your ads specifically to people that mention "pinball" "arcade" "games" "videogames" from 18-50, in a 25 mile radius around your business. I've done it all, I've been in marketing and promotion for 25 years, I know what works and what doesn't. Things have changed, radio and print advertising used to be a fantastic way to get the word out, but social media advertising and marketing has really begun to take over, especially for those on a limited budget.
Of course I work in radio I mentioned it in one of my posts. You should go to work as a marketing consultant to fortune 500 companies who are spending millions on radio and let them know they can stop wasting their money and just run ads on facebook.
The top 10 national radio advertisers for 2017 are: No. 1 The Home Depot, No. 2 GEICO, No. 3 JC Penney, No. 4 McDonald’s, No. 5 Lowe’s, No. 6 AutoZone, No. 7 Staples, No. 8 Mattress Firm, No. 9 Macy’s and No. 10 US Dept. of Transportation.
Quoted from stangbat:That's cool as long as it covers all the RIAA, ASCAP, etc. licenses and will keep their minions off your back. If not, be aware that they will probably find you and bug the shit out of you until you pay them to go away.
As long as it looks like a Tunes Choice, Touch-A-Tune or whatever, I'm sure no one will be the wiser.
Quoted from vid1900:Even if you go to huge pinball places on campus (like the two Pinball Pete's up in Michigan), no college kids are playing pinball.
They DDR, Hoops, Air Hockey, Billiards, HOOD, Walking Dead (arcade), anything but Pinball.
Pinball Pete's is the whole reason I'm into pinball - played their machines to death when in college...20 years ago Kids today...
Quoted from Topcard:Of course I work in radio I mentioned it in one of my posts. You should go to work as a marketing consultant to fortune 500 companies who are spending millions on radio and let them know they can stop wasting their money and just run ads on facebook.
http://www.insideradio.com/free/top-radio-advertiser-of-geico-or-home-depot/article_15a0c036-072b-11e8-9948-7fe1e83aec83.html
The top 10 national radio advertisers for 2017 are: No. 1 The Home Depot, No. 2 GEICO, No. 3 JC Penney, No. 4 McDonald’s, No. 5 Lowe’s, No. 6 AutoZone, No. 7 Staples, No. 8 Mattress Firm, No. 9 Macy’s and No. 10 US Dept. of Transportation.
I don't doubt your statistics and industry expertise. Obviously it must still be working or it would have stopped by now. It's just hard on a personal basis for me to see the impact of radio advertising when I literally can't think of the last time I've listed to terrestrial radio, or have been in anyone else's car or house that had it on. It's all streaming/digital services all the time... and I'm not exactly a millennial... Even my parents who are pushing 70 use streaming services for their music listening.
Quoted from Topcard:Of course I work in radio I mentioned it in one of my posts. You should go to work as a marketing consultant to fortune 500 companies who are spending millions on radio and let them know they can stop wasting their money and just run ads on facebook.
http://www.insideradio.com/free/top-radio-advertiser-of-geico-or-home-depot/article_15a0c036-072b-11e8-9948-7fe1e83aec83.html
The top 10 national radio advertisers for 2017 are: No. 1 The Home Depot, No. 2 GEICO, No. 3 JC Penney, No. 4 McDonald’s, No. 5 Lowe’s, No. 6 AutoZone, No. 7 Staples, No. 8 Mattress Firm, No. 9 Macy’s and No. 10 US Dept. of Transportation.
I think you exactly proved my point, you are pitching to a small business a type of advertising that is only affordable to some of the companies with the biggest advertising budgets in the country. I do the exact opposite, I buy advertising and do marketing for pinball shows, events and small businesses that can't afford radio. The minimum radio advertising campaign in my town will run 2K, most are going to be 4K and up. Do you honestly think a struggling pinball museum can afford that? Or they will see it pay off for them? Seriously, for $250 they can do a targeted Facebook campaign of boosting posts and tournament invites, bump up their social media presence for free while running the place, paint a couple sandwich boards for about $30 in supplies, and print 1,500 color postcard flyers with Vistaprint for $100 and flyer cars. I'd even look into telephone pole postering, if there is a local company that prints and hangs them for you, I've found it's still a productive medium for marketing. I'm giving realistic tips on marketing a small pinball business, I don't have any industry to hype.
We did a 5K radio campaign for the NW Pinball & Arcade Show a few years and really didn't see the payoff. When we dropped radio and started to move away from print advertising to social media and targeted Facebook campaigns, as well as web campaigns with local publications, we really saw our attendance numbers start to jump. We spend less and get more now. The world of advertising and marketing has changed in the past 5 years and will continue to change and radio and print are not the future.
I have a friend that splits her time between Charlottesville and RVA and she was giving me a rave review of your place.
Have you checked with the richmond pinball collective to see what has and has not worked for them? I know they regularly hold tournaments, have a few leagues, and seem to be doing ok.
One of the only public places to play pinball in VT is a barcade and they are just killing it. If you were to take anything out of their book, its all about location and how you present the business. They have an extensive drink menu with hand crafted cocktails for the hipsters, and classics for people who don't care. Every time I'm there the place is packed full of college kids and most of the crowd is near the pinball machines. GL http://www.thearchivesbar.com/
Quoted from Brijam:Just curious about your background. Do you run a barcade? Operate a small retail business? Have marketing experience?
No but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night and I watched lots of Bar Rescue so I’m basically an expert per internet guidelines. 
Quoted from Mike_M:I don't doubt your statistics and industry expertise. Obviously it must still be working or it would have stopped by now. It's just hard on a personal basis for me to see the impact of radio advertising when I literally can't think of the last time I've listed to terrestrial radio, or have been in anyone else's car or house that had it on. It's all streaming/digital services all the time... and I'm not exactly a millennial... Even my parents who are pushing 70 use streaming services for their music listening.
It's human nature for people to take their own experiences and then project them into their own belief system. It's like how many people think satellite radio has taken over but the subscription numbers just don't bear that out. You're right though that streaming and online is the future. That's why all of our radio stations have apps and stream online, with the exception of our news/talk/sports stations as licensing agreements with major sports leagues such as the Red Sox and the big name news/talk folks, limit your broadcast to the specific geographic area you have bought the rights for. At any rate, I feel we're getting way off topic as I was just trying to provide the original poster a little insight on how it could be beneficial if he could work out a trade for advertising. The nature of his business just doesn't allow for a large expenditure for any form of advertising, it has to be mainly grassroots, and social media is very good for that.
Quoted from ryanwanger:...based on my experience, the college demographic should literally be the last one you should market to.
Sad to say mine too.
Much like the play tally and shop threads I have enjoyed reading, I shall (while we are still open) endeavor to show what the inside of this business looks like.
5/10/2018:
Fri nite - 20 (better than last week)
Sat nite - 25 (8 of those were for a strike tournament in the afternoon)
Sun afternoon - 11 (yes ... a whopping 11 for 5 hours open)
On both Fri and Sat, last person was gone by 10pm
Oddly, one would have thought with Mother's Day and all that we might have gotten more Dad/kid business. Alas no. Did we advertise as such, run some fancy promotion ... of course not.
I do find that whether you have alot of people show up or not, trying to guess the reasons for any one event is much like the ancients must have done when explaining away eclipses of the sun with some random explanation. I do find it odd in that we flipped the narrative this weekend, more people at night than during day for the first time.
Signed up a 4 hour party.
Got us signed up for Yelp, reached out to the local parents events website and at least got us listed. Updated the website so it is just terrible, rather than completely terrible.
Onward and upward.
Quoted from ryanwanger:I'll add a little of my experience as an operator in a college town (though I don't own the venues).
Several people in this thread have talked about how to get college kids involved. I wouldn't advise wasting any time on that demographic.
Where I am, people assume the same: "oh, you must get lot of college kids playing your machines". At my barcade location, students hardly ever play...even though there can be 500-1000 people passing through the bar on a Friday or Saturday night. (The most common reaction is: "oh my god, look at all these pinball machines - so awesome! Wait a minute!!!! They have GIANT JENGA?!?")
I was excited to put 4 pinball machines at the bowling alley in the student center. Certainly it will just take one pinhead to get all their friend into it as well? Those machines are played mostly by professors and regulars at the barcade who work at the university or spend lots of time on campus. The second biggest demographic are kids under 12 who are there for bowling birthday parties (and a little from their parents). College kids are dead last. The have no affiliation with pinball, and no money to spend on it.
On a campus with over 30,000 students, my three games are getting around 12 plays per day...combined.
So, I'm not saying that you can't make it work in a college town...just that based on my experience, the college demographic should literally be the last one you should market to.
You are dead right on this one. I literally have no college kids in my place. Nevertheless I am still looking at a very high traffic corner adjacent to the university. I would assume it would be parents and people coming to see the famous UVA Lawn (earliest incarnation of UVA designed by Thomas Jefferson) I would be getting here. Will look at some other places as well.
Quoted from fisherdaman:One of the only public places to play pinball in VT is a barcade and they are just killing it. If you were to take anything out of their book, its all about location and how you present the business. They have an extensive drink menu with hand crafted cocktails for the hipsters, and classics for people who don't care. Every time I'm there the place is packed full of college kids and most of the crowd is near the pinball machines. GL http://www.thearchivesbar.com/
I am strongly resisting barcade mode if I can. If I wanted to run a successful business and pinball was just a hook, then absolutely this would be the only way to go. BUT Asheville has some 1000 people per week come thru there (per their website) and no barcade that I can see. http://ashevillepinball.com/
They only have some 90K residents (double size of Cville), so I'm guessing unless Asheville is just nuts about pinball that they are tourists mainly. And tourists during the day/ early evening since they are only open til 9. So it would seem possible in a touristy type town to have a touristy type clientele.
My question is how do I get to their status. Answer is probably alot of time and devotion, many years becoming an institution, and luck.
That said, if the numbers dictate this has to be a barcade, a barcade it shall be. Got more than enough college kids to be a barcade. Actually have enough of a collection to have both a regular location AND a barcade I guess if I wanted.
Quoted from nwpinball:I think you exactly proved my point, you are pitching to a small business a type of advertising that is only affordable to some of the companies with the biggest advertising budgets in the country. I do the exact opposite, I buy advertising and do marketing for pinball shows, events and small businesses that can't afford radio. The minimum radio advertising campaign in my town will run 2K, most are going to be 4K and up. Do you honestly think a struggling pinball museum can afford that? Or they will see it pay off for them? Seriously, for $250 they can do a targeted Facebook campaign of boosting posts and tournament invites, bump up their social media presence for free while running the place, paint a couple sandwich boards for about $30 in supplies, and print 1,500 color postcard flyers with Vistaprint for $100 and flyer cars. I'd even look into telephone pole postering, if there is a local company that prints and hangs them for you, I've found it's still a productive medium for marketing. I'm giving realistic tips on marketing a small pinball business, I don't have any industry to hype.
We did a 5K radio campaign for the NW Pinball & Arcade Show a few years and really didn't see the payoff. When we dropped radio and started to move away from print advertising to social media and targeted Facebook campaigns, as well as web campaigns with local publications, we really saw our attendance numbers start to jump. We spend less and get more now. The world of advertising and marketing has changed in the past 5 years and will continue to change and radio and print are not the future.
Based on everything written here I am going the social media route. We are posting more and trying to increase our presence. We shall see how that does.
I am also taking out a few targeted ads in weekly that tourists tend to frequent. Perhaps a wasted effort, but will be curious to see if we can boost the out of town ratio and if so where that gets generated from.
Quoted from frobozz:Jumping in a couple of days late here. I was one of the owners of "Professor Fether's" in C'ville (Jan 1982 to late 1985) which was an arcade and sub shop (no alcohol) and we did gangbusters business, even during what was considered a slump in the industry. (Our ultimate problem was that we underpriced the food to bring in game customers, and underpriced the games to bring in food customers... and tried to make it up on volume! But we sure had a lot of happy customers.)
I've been gone from C'ville for 20 years so I may not be completely aware of what's changed in that time, but I think I can state pretty definitively your single biggest problem is location. UVa may be in C'ville, but where you are in the downtown you might as well be in Ruckersville as far as UVa students are concerned. You don't have to be on The Corner, but you have to be somewhere closer to UVa. We started out in Fry Springs (across the street from Dürty Nelly's) and upgraded to University Shopping Center (Tokyo Rose is in our old spot) after a year. We got UVa students, local students, businessmen during lucnh and after work, families on weekends. UVa student traffic dropped off in the summer, sure, but local kid traffic picked up.
And food. We sold food and encouraged its consumption out by the machines, by providing tall standing tables all over the place. Groups of businessmen loved to come in and play a few 4-player games while eating their lunch. Yes, there was the occasional spilled drink or lettuce all over a pin but we cleaned it up promptly and well.
We actually never had a proper sign at our first location, it was kind of a running joke, but that isn't the worst problem in the world. You need to be somewhere where people can get to by foot and bike, in addition to by car.
Hey thanks so much for reaching out. I have had MANY people coming in that have lived in Cville a long time and talked about your place in almost mythic terms. Great to connect the actual person to the myth.
I am actually looking at the Corner since there are a couple of open and affordable spots, though "noisy arcade" is not usually the best tenant to keep your other tenants happy.
And from what you describe, I don't think Charlottesville has changed all that much except for now being ridiculously expensive.
Quoted from Blu:I have a friend that splits her time between Charlottesville and RVA and she was giving me a rave review of your place.
Have you checked with the richmond pinball collective to see what has and has not worked for them? I know they regularly hold tournaments, have a few leagues, and seem to be doing ok.
Thanks so much for letting me know about your friends time at the PPP. Absolutely am following the Richmond Collective, and yes they are doing great. But they have an entirely different model. Their members all put their own personal machines together to make the place (collective ownership helps for sure in staffing the place), they all pay a monthly membership fee (helps cover the rent), they seemed to have chosen a location they can play at and afford rather than high foot traffic, more of a club than anything. I am entirely envious of them and their model, but unclear if what works in a city as big as Richmond would work at Cville. Still if our models continues to tank I will look to copy anything successful out there.
Quoted from vid1900:If you have any old physical touch screen jukebox, the program Album Player has a coin-op commercial software and costs less than $100.
I know a few ops who use it to bring their dead Tunes Choice and JukeTouch boxes back to life and with AP as the software, there are no royalties to pay.
In fact the $50 version 5.3 has a checkbox to turn it into commercial, before they got the idea of selling a separate version for 2x the price.
I actually almost purchased an old CD jukebox, but realized we didn't have the space. Thus for now its just radio in there. But if we relocate I might change that and reconsider
Quoted from ypurchn:Is there a small business development person in your city? They can probably help you with ideas and can provide some local marketing data or partnerships available.
Beer and food is not the answer. Parent with a food truck in the parking lot and be done. If you’re going to go after a late night crowd - a hot dog cart in the parking lot after 9pm or something when people get hungry after drinking.
Water, cokes, candy bars - just enough to keep someone from leaving while still having a long shelf life is what I’d target.
BYOB after 8pm or something may be helpful for older crowds. Not sure what the permitting or insurance looks like around that.
Perhaps you put an advertising pin in a popular bar around the corner? Set it at straight $.25 or $.50 with a sign to come play more. Give them a $2 discount on an unlimited rate if they bring in their bar receipt or something.
I haven’t seen you post your rates but I’d target something like
$6 hr daytime
$12 unlimited until X time - 7pm?
$8 hr at night
$15 unlimited time after 7pm?
$20-22 unlimited all day
Only 5 games year 2000 or later. Only 8 games from the 90s. So 60% of your pins are 80s or earlier.
Anyway you could partner with the brewery that has 5 pins? Rotate games from your place so they keep a fresh lineup?
Thanks for the advice, but pretty much all other pins in Cville are run by a single operator who has been here for years. We are not unfriendly, but we don't cross paths much. I try to make sure pretty much that I have pins he doesn't have on location. Kinda consider it professional courtesy, since I'm the new kid on the block here. So rotating pins wouldn't work.
Yes, 60% of pins are from 80s or earlier. I have a few marque games like Hobbit and Star Wars, but I purposely wanted to get games on location you really wouldn't see anywhere else. Who needs another boring lineup of Stern pins and if so why bother even calling it a pinmuseum. I actually have a collection over double what is in there now so if we stay open I intend to rotate thru 1-2 games a month to keep it fresh as you suggest.
I am however looking at possible locations next to a couple of breweries here that don't already have pinball machines in them. And yes perhaps then putting one or two in with a sign pointing across the street to my place could be helpful
My friends run The Pinball Lounge just North of Orlando. When they opened they had 14 pins more or less equally spread between EMs, Solid States and DMDs. They just had their 3 year anniversary party last weekend and are now up to 24 pins: 20 DMDs and 4 Solid State. As much as they love EMs they can't justify having 4 games each making $4 a week when new Sterns can make hundreds. They do bring in EMs for special events/tournaments, and said they'll soon bite the bullet and commit to having a rotating spot for an EM. So I'd swap out EMs for DMDs for now until you build enough of a following to ease in some older games.
Quoted from miracleman:My friends run The Pinball Lounge just North of Orlando. When they opened they had 14 pins more or less equally spread between EMs, Solid States and DMDs. They just had their 3 year anniversary party last weekend and are now up to 24 pins: 20 DMDs and 4 Solid State. As much as they love EMs they can't justify having 4 games each making $4 a week when new Sterns can make hundreds. They do bring in EMs for special events/tournaments, and said they'll soon bite the bullet and commit to having a rotating spot for an EM. So I'd swap out EMs for DMDs for now until you build enough of a following to ease in some older games.
Fully agree with them. Only 3 EMs (compared to 30 SS) in the house at one time and I will try to rotate them over time.
Quoted from pookycade:Fully agree with them. Only 3 EMs (compared to 30 SS) in the house at one time and I will try to rotate them over time.
As much as we like SS and EMs, the fact is the general population want 90s or newer DMD games that they remember from when they went to college.
I’ve been trying to battle this for 5 years but now I’ve just given up lol
Eventually “players” come around but it seems to take a few years.
The general public just want DMD or newer.
rd
Quoted from Topcard:It's human nature for people to take their own experiences and then project them into their own belief system. It's like how many people think satellite radio has taken over but the subscription numbers just don't bear that out.
There's currently 32.7 million subscribers to SiriusXM radio, or 10% of the country. That's pretty high for a luxury service like satellite radio, and investors have been enjoying the company's the growth.
EM's I think to me are easier to play. I am not distracted by a SS pin or newer talking at me. But for a new person they might be harder as a 2" flipper vs the 3" flipper and keeping it alive for a long play would I think be more difficult. So they would drift back to the newer pins. Haven't played any but would even try a woodrail or bingo just to see what that is about. 
Quoted from pookycade:Hey thanks so much for reaching out. I have had MANY people coming in that have lived in Cville a long time and talked about your place in almost mythic terms. Great to connect the actual person to the myth.
I am actually looking at the Corner since there are a couple of open and affordable spots, though "noisy arcade" is not usually the best tenant to keep your other tenants happy.
And from what you describe, I don't think Charlottesville has changed all that much except for now being ridiculously expensive.
Haha, glad to hear someone still remembers us. If you want to start serving food, we should talk about our Cheese Dip recipe. I'm sure all those same people are STILL addicted to it, despite not having had any in decades. I used to get people stopping me on the street, shaking, begging for just one last hit of cheese dip.
Quoted from pookycade:Thanks for the advice, but pretty much all other pins in Cville are run by a single operator who has been here for years. We are not unfriendly, but we don't cross paths much. I try to make sure pretty much that I have pins he doesn't have on location. Kinda consider it professional courtesy, since I'm the new kid on the block here. So rotating pins wouldn't work.
Who is that? I may know them. Or know someone that knows them. (You can put it in PM if you'd rather not talk about it here.) It's always good to be friends with other operators in town. I used to fix a lot of games for "competing" operators, which led to a lot of game horse trading too. If you're just in a fixed location, not out trying to steal street locations from them, you're not really competing that much.
Quoted from pookycade:I am strongly resisting barcade mode if I can. If I wanted to run a successful business and pinball was just a hook, then absolutely this would be the only way to go. BUT Asheville has some 1000 people per week come thru there (per their website) and no barcade that I can see. http://ashevillepinball.com/
They only have some 90K residents (double size of Cville), so I'm guessing unless Asheville is just nuts about pinball that they are tourists mainly. And tourists during the day/ early evening since they are only open til 9. So it would seem possible in a touristy type town to have a touristy type clientele.
My question is how do I get to their status. Answer is probably alot of time and devotion, many years becoming an institution, and luck.
That said, if the numbers dictate this has to be a barcade, a barcade it shall be. Got more than enough college kids to be a barcade. Actually have enough of a collection to have both a regular location AND a barcade I guess if I wanted.
Having been to Asheville several times, I can tell you it's both. Location for them (and anyone) is huge. They are right in downtown, easily accessible by walking from any of the other bars/restaurants/shops in the area that's already huge on tourism and people walking from place to place and just killing an afternoon. A lot of the tourists there fit the vibe of the city - the hippy/college/hipster feel with the older locals hanging around - your ideal location pinball market.
Quoted from pookycade:Absolutely am following the Richmond Collective, and yes they are doing great. But they have an entirely different model. Their members all put their own personal machines together to make the place (collective ownership helps for sure in staffing the place), they all pay a monthly membership fee (helps cover the rent), they seemed to have chosen a location they can play at and afford rather than high foot traffic, more of a club than anything. I am entirely envious of them and their model, but unclear if what works in a city as big as Richmond would work at Cville. Still if our models continues to tank I will look to copy anything successful out there.
First, just let me say as technically your first paying customer (at least that's what Dan said!) that your place is awesome, and I appreciated the quite varied lineup, especially all the SS machines, and it was a pleasure to meet you. I think the proximity to the downtown Mall is great, as it offers plenty of food/beverage options, but I agree you'll have no foot traffic at the current location.
A few things to touch on about RPC. They've gotten a good amount of volunteers (of which I am one), to staff the front desk and even do some maintenance work for free. I'm a fully paying club member, but still try to put in 2 staffing shifts a month so the founders don't have to be there 3 times a week. As you said, its the time commitment that's the hardest part. Can you get enough locals to help support you?
As far as beer goes, VA has some fairly strict laws (as I'm sure you know) so I understand your reasoning of shying away from that. For others reference, the RPC is considered a members club, which allows us a beer/wine ABC license and we can only sell to full time members. Guests can still drop by for a day pass, but no sales to them. This took almost a year to set up as well.
Our barcade in town is massively popular, but that is due to the 50 self serve beer taps and the video games. The 12 pins are usually getting played, but mostly by first timers who then move on. Some lackluster maintenance has actually kept some of the pinheads away.
I think for C-ville, a high traffic location would be a huge help. Whether the downtown mall, or closer to UVa's campus is a better choice, I'm not sure.
I hope to be back up to check it out again soon!
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!
This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/resurrecting-a-failing-pinmuseum-business/page/3?hl=frobozz and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.
Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.
Pittsfield, MA
Sana'a