Game Time
There is a direct relationship between the length of the entertainment experience and how far customers are willing to travel. Disney entertains guests for days, and people travel from all over the world to visit. Family Entertainment Centres entertain for hours, drawing customers from a wide radius. But a stand-alone laser tag centre with a 10 to 15 minute game - how far will customers travel for that?
The longer the entertainment time, the further customers will travel. This is the fundamental challenge for laser tag operators who rely on a single short-format activity.
How Long Should a Game Be?
The sweet spot for a single laser tag game is 10 to 12 minutes. Games longer than this can actually hurt your business. Player enjoyment peaks during the first 10 to 12 minutes, after which fatigue sets in and the experience becomes less fun.
This creates a discrepancy: on one hand, you need a long total entertainment time to grow your catchment area and attract customers from further away. On the other hand, making individual games too long reduces player enjoyment and hurts the overall experience.
Packaged Pricing
The solution is to package multiple shorter games together at a discounted rate. This increases the total time a customer spends at your centre without compromising the quality of each individual game.
Example pricing:
- 1 game - $12
- 2 games - $16
- 3 games - $19
With this structure, most guests end up playing for 24 to 36 minutes in total. While this is a significant improvement over a single game, it may still be difficult to compete with Family Entertainment Centres that offer hours of activity.
Alternate the Game
A highly effective strategy is to book a different group between each of a customer's games. Rather than playing back-to-back, guests take a break while another group plays, then return for their next session.
Example schedule:
- 1:00 PM - Group A plays Game 1
- 1:15 PM - Group B plays Game 1
- 1:30 PM - Group A plays Game 2
- 1:45 PM - Group B plays Game 2
This approach offers several advantages:
- Recovery time - Guests get their breath back between games, so they start each session fresh and energised.
- Secondary spending - During the break, customers are more likely to spend money on food, beverages, and arcade games.
- Longer visits - The total entertainment time increases significantly, which means customers are willing to travel further to visit your centre.
- Busier appearance - Your centre looks busier to passersby and potential customers, which is powerful marketing in itself.
How Long Should a Game Last?
Start by planning for 4 games per hour. This means a 10 minute game with a 5 minute turnaround between groups. A 5 minute turnaround is achievable with good staff and reasonable equipment.
With a more efficient product and streamlined operations, you can reduce the turnaround to just 3 minutes. This allows you to extend the game time to 12 minutes while still maintaining 4 games per hour - the best of both worlds.
Final Notes
- Catchment area grows exponentially - Doubling the travel radius that customers are willing to drive increases your catchment area by a factor of 4. Even small increases in total entertainment time can have a dramatic impact on your potential customer base.
- Games over 15 minutes hurt enjoyment - Guests get tired and bored in longer games. Adrenaline peaks and then crashes, leaving players fatigued rather than excited. Splitting the experience into smaller sessions with recovery time in between produces a far better outcome.
- 12 minute games are ideal - but demanding - Running 12 minute games means you only have 3 minutes between groups. This requires equipment that is easy to use and ideally automated, great staff who can manage fast turnarounds, and separate vesting and briefing rooms so the next group can prepare while the current group finishes.