#1216 – Social Entertainment Dines Out, Part 2

Continuing our coverage of the “Eatertainment” sector and its growing impact on the market, we look at the involvement in the Social Entertainment aspect of the business and the need by the market to expand into new territories. At the same time, we look towards the Theme Park and Resort sector, and how changes in branding and the movie sector are reflected in changing business conditions.

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Imbiba-backed Clays secured £6m in new investment to support expansion, with plans to open its first regional venue in Birmingham, UK. The digital clay pigeon shooting concept is poised for significant growth. Another Imbiba-supported chain, F1 Arcade, announced plans to roll out 30 venues in the US over 5 years, partnering with D-BOX for haptic technology. Sixes Growth, a new cricket-themed venture, raised £1.5m in seed funding and aims to open ten sites by 2026. The social entertainment sector continues to see substantial investment and expansion across the UK, Europe, and North America, with new concepts and venues opening in various markets.

Disney‘s D23 Expo showcased ambitious expansion plans for their theme parks and cruise line, aiming to counter declining attendance and revenue. Major announcements included new lands based on popular IP, like Disney Villains and Monsters Inc., as well as significant investments in cruise ships. However, subsequent revelations about demolishing beloved attractions sparked fan backlash. The $60 billion investment and aggressive timeline (projects to be completed within five years) demonstrate Disney‘s commitment to maintaining market leadership, especially considering Universal‘s completion of “Epic Universe” development. This comes amid broader industry challenges, with major U.S. theme parks experiencing attendance drops. The global amusement park market is still projected to grow significantly, reaching $84 billion by 2030, though economic uncertainties may temper these forecasts.

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Eatertainment Feels the Heat (Part 2)

Concerning the continued investment into the Social Entertainment space, and it was revealed that the chain Clays had received help from Imbiba in raising some £6m in new investment. The digital clay pigeon shooting and F&B chain saw its first site opened in London in 2021, the second in 2022, and announced the opening of their first regional venue in Birmingham. The operation is one that has been on a slow growth plan towards a massive rollout spurt that this new investment will engender.

Another Imbiba supported social entertainment chains, F1 Arcade, announced plans to roll out 30 venues in the US in the next five years. Boston has been first, with Washington next in October, and then Las Vegas for early 2025. The corporation stated, in a media interview, that they saw their racing experience “best compared to a “plussed” version of a racing arcade game”. Sites so far comprise some 60 to 70 simulators. Regarding these simulators, the venues have gone with Vesaro high-end racing simulators, that incorporate motion provided by D-BOX actuators. It was announced in September that D-BOX had struck a partnership directly with F1 Arcade. This will see their haptic technology featured in all existing and future venues.

While the venues are known for their race simulator experience, the addition of “Watch Parties” to the core venues’ makeup has offered a strong retention of visitors and generated that all-important secondary spending. Recently, F1 Arcade revealed a new deal for children, with it reported that the venues were open to players aged 7-years and upwards, although, after 7pm their venues are only 21-years and upwards. During the summer (July to September) the venue offered a “kids eat free” deal. How much of this deal was to encourage attendance to the venues during the quiet time of the holidays, or if this was a serious experiment to evaluate targeting a younger audience, was not know at this time.

That need for new investment towards growing the brand was also seen with the news that the co-founder of Capital Pub Company and City Pub Company was reported by the UK media to be launching what was described as an innovative leisure cricket venture. Branded Sixes Growth, the new venture started May of 2024. The new Sixes Growth also revealed that they had raised some £1.5m in seed funding, looking to a further £10m raise in the next 24-months as part of a national expansion that hopes to see some ten sites opened by 2026. The first of these updated venues will be in Leeds.

It was reported that this new operation was building on the establishment of the Sixes Social Cricket chain – the indoor screen-based cricket social entertainment space. First started in 2020, the operation has 14 UK locations and has opened a new venue in the US market, in Dallas, TX. The appearance of the PubCo specialist and new seed funding is expected to start a growth spurt in this Competitive Socializing venture – although the exact details of how these ten new locations by 2026 will impact the existing 14 sites was yet to be revealed.

Regarding new opening venues in this sector, Paris, during the Olympic celebrations in the city of light, saw the opening of Boom Boom Villette. Along with an iFly Paris and Pathé Cinema, the space includes a new social entertainment and activity space. Along with a new shuffleboard social entertainment venue called ‘Shuffled’, Batman-themed escape room, trampoline park, and food hall with karaoke within the space, which includes ‘Seven Squares’ – comprising boutique bowling, VR arena, and amusement. The venue is also the first site to install a ‘Hyper Golf’ mini-golf attraction.

In North America we have seen construction start on a new concept – called ‘Lumos’, the self-styled social venue, restaurant and events space will cover 45,000-sq. ft. in Houston, Texas. The State has been a hotbed for new LBE and Social Entertainment concepts, and this new project hopes to combine bowling, lasertag, axe throwing, and XD Theater, along with 6,000-sq. ft. state-of-the art amusement space and VR attractions, supported by 40-ft. LED screens. This venue will be supported by extensive F&B. With the commencement of construction, the site is aiming to open Spring 2025. The venue is part of the 60-acre Valley Ranch Entertainment District which will offer numerous entertainment spaces, including a Cinemark movie theater along with restaurants.

Investment into the European family entertainment centre and social entertainment scene has continued to mushroom. Celebrating their 50th anniversary in the bowling and entertainment venue scene, Ozone Bowling announced what they have labelled Europe’s largest leisure center. Opening in Campo de Gibraltar, the 12,000-sq.m. facility comprising 24 bowling lanes, indoor karting track, soccer field, basketball courts, and F&B accommodation for 550 patrons. The venue represents a €4.5m investment. This will be the fourth of their chain in the Andalusia region. The Ozone operation comprises more than 30 entertainment facilities across Spain. For comparison, the Gravity MAX facility in Wandsworth, one of the UK’s largest Mixed-Use Leisure Entertainment venues, is roughly 7,900-sq.m.

Other news saw the Roxy Leisure Holdings announcement of the rebranding of the group to Professional at Play. The Competitive Socializing chain with ‘Roxy Lanes’, ‘Roxy Ball Room’, and ‘King Pins’, has also launched a new chain brand ‘Star Pins’, which will see the opening of this first site in November. The new brand will launch a 32,000-sq.ft. flagship site, comprising mini-golf, AR darts, shooting and American pool along with other entertainment.

Other UK centric news saw the announcement of ‘The Cube’ – the immersive entertainment experience from the Mellors Group rolled out into its own standalone site. The new venue is based on the standalone immersive gameshow system based on the gameshow IP, and is opening at Carney Wharf, in London. This new installation follows the inclusion of the attraction, first in Manchester, as part of the ‘Urban Playground’ facility. The new site includes ‘The Butcher’ chain supplying the F&B.

One aspect of the Social Entertainment explosion has been the way that other sectors have embraced the opportunity of offering engagement and experience, in an entertainment package, to their customer-base. Away from the hospitality, restaurant and bar sectors, the retail scene (defined by some as Retailtainment) have been working to develop brand promotion through themed venues. This is mostly looking at popup installations than permanent venues. Brands such as Mattel and Hasbro have been reported on regarding their involvement in LBE and theme park projects based on IP. And regarding Eatertainment and social venue engagement, restaurant chains and food brands have started to pivot towards a popup entertainment venue offering. Examples include ‘Care Bear Café’ (Cloudco Entertainment), and ‘Malibu Barbie Café’ (Superfly). Branded food anchors are able to be dropped into empty units.

The next few months will see the last mad rush of new openings. What will follow is a taking stock of which of these new ideas are viable business propositions and which are concepts that do not stand the hardest test – that of audience acceptance and profitability.

Theme Park and IP Repositioning

Following on from the resurgence in theme park revenue post-pandemic, and there have been signs in a fall in revenue, and an impact on visitor numbers across the main North American theme parks and resorts. At the same time, the corporations behind these operations, as well across the movie and sector, have been embroiled in upheavals and restructures, as inflationary and political issues impact their operations.

This can be seen in the theme park sector, with the news that Comcast, owners of Universal Studios theme parks, saw a ten-percent fall in revenue and blamed this on an easing of attendance. To address this, Comcast has invested in new immersive worlds at their parks, including the mega investment in their ‘Epic Universe’ gate, along with ‘Super Nintendo World’, and ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ areas – all leaning heavily on brand and IP recognition.

The impact on financial conditions was felt across the theme park sector, with news that all the major US parks were seeing a drop in attendance. In media reports, Disney conceded that attendance was down across their parks’ group – a division that represents one-third of the profits for the corporation. August saw the holding of D23 – the Disney Experiences showcase at Anaheim, with live conference sessions revealing the lineup of new movies and series, as well as theme park investment. This year’s event marked a concerted effort to wow the audience – and address the spectre of the Universal Epic Universe opening. 2025 will mark the 70th anniversary of Disneyland, and the operation confirmed an animatronic theater attraction based on the corporation’s founder. Disney World was also promised new lands based on Disney Villains, and Monster Inc. IP.

Meanwhile, new ‘Indiana Jones’ attractions and ‘Marvel’ experiences were added to a roster of new investment, heavily focused on existing IP and needing to keep abreast of the impact expected from the competing parks. On stage, the chief executives of Disney Imagineering cited these developments. as representing the biggest expansion in the park’s entire history. And they confirmed that “earth is already moving” – meaning that development was in process. These are projects, if completed, that will happen in the next five years and will be legacy projects for the current Disney chairman, departing in 2026. While the parks were the focus, it was also reported that the Disney Cruise line will be expanding to 13 vessels, adding to the considerable $60b investment into the operation.

One aspect touched upon briefly in the D23 slew of announcements was the progress between Disney and Epic Games, towards incorporating the theme park and entertainment companies’ IP into the videogame universe of ‘Fortnite’. The partnership, first announced in 2022, will no see its manifestation with skins and characters available in a unique Disney storefront in the game. This will include characters based on the successful Marvel IP and will tie in with new movie and stream show announcements. The dropping of IP properties into existing attractions was announced during D23, with the inclusion of characters from the ‘Mandalorian’ Star Wars series into an updated ‘Millenium Falcon: Smugglers Run’ attraction.

Following the Disney announcement, there was immense social media backlash by the very Disney fans that D23 is curated to appeal to. This backlash was to the detail of these new projects, only revealed days after the high-profile announcements. Unhappiness was voiced over the revelation that Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World would be seeing a brand-new ‘Monsters Inc. Land’… as sources later revealed this would involve the complete demolition of the ‘Muppets Theater’. This hallowed space was created by legends Frank Oz and Jim Henson (including his last performance before Jim’s untimely death). Some sources said this would also involve the demolition of the original ‘StarTours’ attraction that was created with George Lucas.

If the news could not get worse, it was then revealed that the planned Disneyland Resort in California, the new ‘Cars Land’, would see the complete destruction of the original ‘FrontierLand: Rivers of America’ and ‘Tom Sawyer Island’ (with its iconic cave system). This part of the park held a special place in Disney fans hearts, as it was directly created by founder Walt Disney and played a pivotal part in his ideas for the park. Attempts to manage the backlash continued, following the breaking of the news of these iconic attractions’ destruction. Disney is working hard to avoid directly confirming or denying the status of these installations. Meanwhile, observers of the Walt Disney Corporation pointed to the issues effecting the company in general and noted that the replacement of the CEO and key board members, expected in the next 24-months, could see reversals to any announcement new plans.

Regarding changes seen in other corporations in this sector, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) made the announcement regarding restructuring of their theme park division. It was reported that a new department of Warner Bros. Discovery has combined the Global Themed Entertainment and Tours & Retail operations into the new Warner Bros. Discover Global Experience division. This will see the corporation undertake a new approach to the Out-of-Home Entertainment landscape. This looks towards their IP deployment in the theme park and resort sector – such as the ‘Harry Potter’ attraction for Universal Destination & Experiences, ‘Studio Tours’ in California, London and Tokyo, ‘Movie World’ in Abu Dhabi, and Australia, and ‘Parque Warner’ in Spain. The new WBD division will also combine the use of IP in other entertainment in other venues, such as the popup installations and retailtainment offerings like the ‘Harry Potter Store’ in London and New York – all now combined under common management.

The inclusion of an “experience” division within the major theme park and movie corporations has become a trend across the sector – seeing Disney, Universal and even the new Six Flags Entertainment conglomeration. Retailtainment and LBE will play a major part in future revenue streams for these groups.

The upheaval in park business and the restructuring of operations compounds the information from certain media sources and analysts, that the global amusement parks market is projected to grow significantly over the next several years. Starting from $50b in 2023, it is expected to reach $54b in 2024, representing initial growth. By 2030, the market is forecast to expand to $84b, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.41-percent over this period. This impressive growth trajectory reflects several factors driving the amusement parks industry, including: increasing participation in recreational activities; the growing popularity of regional, amusement and theme-based parks; the integration of advanced technologies like XR and gamification; and rising draws on disposable incomes from emerging markets.

The projected expansion indicates strong consumer demand for immersive entertainment experiences and suggests continued investment and innovation in the amusement park sector over the coming years. But there is now greater concern that the last factor of disposable income is about to be hit hard by the cost-of-living crisis which is impacting the international market. Ambitious speculation on massive growth may have to be tempered considerably.