In Progress Opening a new pinball arcade in York!

[rosflip]

I hope this it allowed - whilst not a typical machine shop log, I thought people might be interested in seeing the work and development of my pinball arcade project. I'll try to keep sharing development and construction pictures through construction and opening.

So, the headline:

Welcome to Oh, Flip!​

I'm opening a pinball arcade in York! The aim is a freeplay ('pay to access') venue. It's situated within a larger gaming venue called Up A Level - they have board gaming and video game spaces, and host RPG and trading card games etc. The guys who run it are lovely and have been really into the idea of giving me space to run pinball.

Our opening is going to be on the 3rd May. You can come to the launch party! The launch party will start at the cinema with a private screening of 'Pinball: The Man Who Saved The Game', then will be an evening pinball at the arcade. If you want to come, please register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/1287304475339/?discount=PINHEAD

So...

Update 1!​

Focusing on planning and getting to this point. My initial aim was to try and open a tiny little pinball arcade in a shipping container unit at Spark York. Spark provides cheap units to startups to help new businesses get established. Mostly its restaurants and bars, but there's some other things there. So, obviously this would have been massively limited for space, but it was a fun way to try and bootstrap the operation and start small.

Trying to get a good pinball offering into a shipping container is sort of crazy, but, I messed around trying to see what might be possible and came up with this:


It's super impractical, the biggest issue is having no room for maintenance and constantly playing a slide puzzle to move any machines anywhere. Maintenance would have been a nightmare. In some scenarios, there wouldn't even be space to remove the playfield glass without moving a machine into an aisle. So, just, really not a good idea. But worth exploring, I think.

Anyway, this concept died when I found out Spark only gives full size units to food/drink outlets. So with half the floor space, obviously this concept was dead on arrival.

I started looking for other places in York, and considered lots of locations. City centre locations, out of town retain business park-type locations. Lots of potential, but, things started moving really positively when I started talking with Up A Level. They've been able to give me a decent amount of floor space. There's space for, at a real squash, up to 16 games, including some back-of-house room for repairs and maintenance, and just to get games off the floor if they're needing work.

There was going to be some construction work, to section off the pinball arcade from the rest of the gaming space. This means building some partition walls. I measured up and took to trusty SketchUp to try and model out some concepts. I've settled on this:



The left-most section is back of house. It'll just be closed off with a curtain initially. (I'll add a door later - both time, and financial budgets mean I'll come back to it.)

The wall in the lower section is going to be re-built. The door will be that gap in the centre. And, there's going to be a big TV on the right-most wall to display high scores. There's room to cram more machines in. I'm pretty happy with this.

One thing I love about sketchup is being able to preview a model in VR. Checking out this space in VR has made me very confident there's going to be enough space for a decent offering here. So, it's all systems go with this plan. I'll share updates as I progress with construction and decorating, and outfitting with the machines.

Hope this is interesting to people! Let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like me to go into more detail on!

Also, would welcome any thoughts, feedback and constructive criticism from those more experienced from me in this field! There's lots I need to learn, but, I figure just go for it and learn as I go...

 

[AlanJ]

Hi Ros, this is great to see your thought processes and journey. I’ve had a dream of a venue in Leeds for years, but it only works if it’s a bar/food place for me, and I’m too old and too lazy to run a bar/cafe, so I’ve never got anywhere.

It woukd be useful for you to connect with the folk on here who run pinball venues :

@Tilt_Birmingham Kirk who runs Tilt bar in Birmingham
@Moonraker - Peter who runs Special When lit in Salisbury
@Chief - chief coffee bar in london
? Who runs retroids bar?
@Matt Vince who is one of the founders of pinball republic in croydon (there are many others involved too!)
@steve brum who has had two electric circus venues in midlands and involved in supplying games to another (forget name)

There are other venues, that have slipped my mind! Hopefully folk here will chip in…….

 

[Taxiturn]

Looks great - what sort of pricing are you looking at for free play, and which machines do you have lined up?

 

[DAD]

Good luck with your venture. the more good commercial places there are to play pinball the better

The problem I see with venues that run on a free play, pay to enter, basis is that the games get hammered through constant play, often by people who don't understand pinball and just flip both flippers constantly

The games then get dirty quickly, and things start to break or malfunction. It's expensive keeping them clean and in good repair, but if you don't then "real" pinball players will desert you and you will have to rely on the public who may well leave disappointed if they realise the games aren't very enjoyable to play

If I was running a pay to enter venue, I would include a set number of tokens for play in the entry price, with more available for purchase. They wouldn't have to be expensive once you'd covered your budgeted income per visitor but would cut down on the wear and tear caused by people playing more games just because they can for free

It's interesting that all of the venues Alan cites are coin in the machine to play, not pay to enter, except Special when Lit, which I think operates more as a kind of club - it may be particularly helpful for you to talk to Peter there

 

[DAD]

oh, and do try and visit one or more of the Arcade Clubs: Bury (the original) Blackpool and Leeds, as part of your research. They do operate as pay to enter with freeplay pinball as part of the mix and have historically suffered the kind of issues I described in my previous post. I've not actually been to one of their venues for quite some time, so I can't tell you what the current situation is - maybe others can comment on that.

 

[Taxiturn]

Good luck with your venture. the more good commercial places there are to play pinball the better

The problem I see with venues that run on a free play, pay to enter, basis is that the games get hammered through constant play, often by people who don't understand pinball and just flip both flippers constantly

The games then get dirty quickly, and things start to break or malfunction. It's expensive keeping them clean and in good repair, but if you don't then "real" pinball players will desert you and you will have to rely on the public who may well leave disappointed if they realise the games aren't very enjoyable to play

If I was running a pay to enter venue, I would include a set number of tokens for play in the entry price, with more available for purchase. They wouldn't have to be expensive once you'd covered your budgeted income per visitor but would cut down on the wear and tear caused by people playing more games just because they can for free

It's interesting that all of the venues Alan cites are coin in the machine to play, not pay to enter, except Special when Lit, which I think operates more as a kind of club - it may be particularly helpful for you to talk to Peter there

Special When Lit, open to all but only routinely open Friday nights. £5 per two hour slot and then occasional weekend tournaments throughout the year. 28 machines

Pinball Republic, open Thursday nights and all day Saturday and Sunday, machines are on free play, over 70 machines. Can pay a monthly membership or per session - think a weekend day there is £25 for non-members. They average one big tournament a month to draw those in from further afield

 

[DAD]

Special When Lit, open to all but only routinely open Friday nights. £5 per two hour slot and then occasional weekend tournaments throughout the year. 28 machines

Pinball Republic, open Thursday nights and all day Saturday and Sunday, machines are on free play, over 70 machines. Can pay a monthly membership or per session - think a weekend day there is £25 for non-members. They average one big tournament a month to draw those in from further afield

quote from the Pinball Republic website. I'm not sure this is what Ros is looking to achieve :

"Even now the club is entirely run by volunteers using their own machines and is a non-profit operation, with the entry fees going into repairing the games and making Pinball Republic the best it can be"

 

[SteadyP]

I hope this it allowed - whilst not a typical machine shop log, I thought people might be interested in seeing the work and development of my pinball arcade project. I'll try to keep sharing development and construction pictures through construction and opening.

So, the headline:

Welcome to Oh, Flip!​

View attachment 274016

I'm opening a pinball arcade in York! The aim is a freeplay ('pay to access') venue. It's situated within a larger gaming venue called Up A Level - they have board gaming and video game spaces, and host RPG and trading card games etc. The guys who run it are lovely and have been really into the idea of giving me space to run pinball.

Our opening is going to be on the 3rd May. You can come to the launch party! The launch party will start at the cinema with a private screening of 'Pinball: The Man Who Saved The Game', then will be an evening pinball at the arcade. If you want to come, please register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/1287304475339/?discount=PINHEAD

So...

Update 1!​

Focusing on planning and getting to this point. My initial aim was to try and open a tiny little pinball arcade in a shipping container unit at Spark York. Spark provides cheap units to startups to help new businesses get established. Mostly its restaurants and bars, but there's some other things there. So, obviously this would have been massively limited for space, but it was a fun way to try and bootstrap the operation and start small.

Trying to get a good pinball offering into a shipping container is sort of crazy, but, I messed around trying to see what might be possible and came up with this:

View attachment 274014
It's super impractical, the biggest issue is having no room for maintenance and constantly playing a slide puzzle to move any machines anywhere. Maintenance would have been a nightmare. In some scenarios, there wouldn't even be space to remove the playfield glass without moving a machine into an aisle. So, just, really not a good idea. But worth exploring, I think.

Anyway, this concept died when I found out Spark only gives full size units to food/drink outlets. So with half the floor space, obviously this concept was dead on arrival.

I started looking for other places in York, and considered lots of locations. City centre locations, out of town retain business park-type locations. Lots of potential, but, things started moving really positively when I started talking with Up A Level. They've been able to give me a decent amount of floor space. There's space for, at a real squash, up to 16 games, including some back-of-house room for repairs and maintenance, and just to get games off the floor if they're needing work.

There was going to be some construction work, to section off the pinball arcade from the rest of the gaming space. This means building some partition walls. I measured up and took to trusty SketchUp to try and model out some concepts. I've settled on this:

View attachment 274015

The left-most section is back of house. It'll just be closed off with a curtain initially. (I'll add a door later - both time, and financial budgets mean I'll come back to it.)

The wall in the lower section is going to be re-built. The door will be that gap in the centre. And, there's going to be a big TV on the right-most wall to display high scores. There's room to cram more machines in. I'm pretty happy with this.

One thing I love about sketchup is being able to preview a model in VR. Checking out this space in VR has made me very confident there's going to be enough space for a decent offering here. So, it's all systems go with this plan. I'll share updates as I progress with construction and decorating, and outfitting with the machines.

Hope this is interesting to people! Let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like me to go into more detail on!

Also, would welcome any thoughts, feedback and constructive criticism from those more experienced from me in this field! There's lots I need to learn, but, I figure just go for it and learn as I go...

Hope this works out well for you matey- short train journey from Newcastle so it’s the sort of place I’d definitely want to visit

 

[rosflip]

First of all, thanks everyone for the words of encouragement. Loads of good thoughts and comments here, thanks everyone for all the input.

First thing to say is that I know plenty of people are going to tell me this is a bad idea for lots of different reasons. That's absolutely fine - anyone who has ever done anything knows that people are always quick to tell you why you're going to fail! And I don't mean this to sound cynical. I know that people are coming from a place of concern and trying to look out for me. But I really believe that everything that's worthwhile is hard, and just trying something is better than not trying. If I try this and it fails, that's fine - I'll be disappointed, of course it's better than having never tried. Also I just always have to be doing something to keep busy, and pinball is my obsession at the moment!

I absolutely love York. I've lived here a long time. It's an awesome city, and I love being a part of it. As a teenager I used to go out on the streets and busk as a street musician. I even did street magic for a tiny while. I worked at the York Dungeon. I just really liked being part of the entertainment offering in York. And I'm really excited to get back to being involved in that.

I know there's a lot of challenges associated with freeplay pinball. Some say it's impossible, and some run successful businesses doing it. I'm just coming from an angle of "what do I think is going to give the best experience to the average person who is interested in trying pinball"? and I really believe that freeplay is the way to go for that. It lets a beginner experiment, fail, learn the game. Try different games and see what they like, etc.

Initially, pricing will be £10 for 2 hours of play. I know that's more than some places charge, but it's a competitively priced entertainment offering for the area, and I still think it provides really good value. I'm prepared to have to change this, but, I just want to get the doors open and start gathering data and tweak from there. I want to find a model that works. I believe pinball is valuable, people understand there's a cost to keep it running, and there is a model that delivers a valuable play experience whilst still brining in enough money to cover the maintenance. It might take some time to settle in and find that, but, finding that sweet spot is the aim! (Memberships and day-long access are something I'd like to do, but initially it complicates the data, so, I'm going to hold off on that for now.) We can move away from freeplay if I really can't get it working, but for the time being, that's what I want to try and solve for.

Basically, whatever pricing I go with, some people will say its too expensive, and some will say it's not going to bring in enough to cover maintenance! Can't please everyone - I think I've just got to try it, measure, adjust.

Looks great - what sort of pricing are you looking at for free play, and which machines do you have lined up?

Pricing - as above. Machines lined up - it's still very much in flux to tell you the truth. I want a line up that has games from all eras, from an EM to a modern Stern. Trying to just provide a varied lineup. I'll share more specifics as everything firms up over the next few weeks. But I'm targeting 10 games at launch.

quote from the Pinball Republic website. I'm not sure this is what Ros is looking to achieve :

"Even now the club is entirely run by volunteers using their own machines and is a non-profit operation, with the entry fees going into repairing the games and making Pinball Republic the best it can be"

What am I looking to achieve is an interesting question. I'd obviously like to make some profit from the operation, but, this is a side/hobby project for me. If it makes enough to help me cover the costs of the machines, I'll be very happy. I have a part-time day job that pays the bills, and that won't be going anywhere!

 

[Spandangler]

Have you listened to the Electric Bat Cast pinball podcast?
Their “USP” as a podcast is talking about operating pins as business. If you have seen it, I’ll shut up. If you haven’t, i strongly suggest you give it a listen. They’re great people too.
Best of luck mate. I visit York regularly so I’m all for it!

Electric Bat Arcade

Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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[DRD]

Any startup venture is a risky endeavour and well meaning people might try to talk you out of it.

A restaurant for example is financially risky. Many fail, but some do succeed.

But Pinball is very different. Literally no-one makes any money out of pinball venues in the UK. The venues that have stood the test of time are essentially subsidised through a mix of volunteer labour and or volunteer machines.

Sex, gambling and alcohol consistently make money. If you can bring one or more of these into the mix you might turn a financial profit, otherwise this will probably be a lifestyle thing.

 

[rosflip]

otherwise this will probably be a lifestyle thing.

Well, I need somewhere to put my games!

 

[Fubar]

Good luck with your project, it's great that new pinball arcades are opening even if they're hours away from me

Further to Alan's list above, another person you might want to chat with is Chris @Hiltoncriss who opened The Pinball Office in Sawbridgeworth a couple years ago. https://www.thepinballoffice.co.uk

One impression I got was that the majority of patrons weren't the pinheads on here since they have games at home already - instead it was mainly casuals who don't have games at homes. Organising competitions is a way to get the pinheads to visit though

 

[Taxiturn]

There is definitely a lot of pent up demand for competitions in the north, obviously get established first but if that’s an avenue you wanted to explore in due course then I’m sure it would be well received

 

[DRD]

oh, and do try and visit one or more of the Arcade Clubs: Bury (the original) Blackpool and Leeds, as part of your research. They do operate as pay to enter with freeplay pinball as part of the mix and have historically suffered the kind of issues I described in my previous post. I've not actually been to one of their venues for quite some time, so I can't tell you what the current situation is - maybe others can comment on that.

@DAD knows his onions.

The mixed venues - ie arcade games and video games are a totally different proposition. Video games are profoundly more reliable than pinball machines. They tend to work and when they die, they really die - you don't tend to get crap/ poor quality gaming on video games.

So for the visitor the video games are abundant and offer a high quality playing experience.

I'm not naming names, but in my experience of mixed venues in the UK and the US, the pinball machines are often poorly maintained and I have zero interest in playing a shoddy game unless it is a very special/ unusual title/ something I've never played before.

Even though I much prefer pinball machines, I probably spend 90% of my time in mixed arcades on the video games

 

[wastestudio]

I would love to see this open up and for sure would pay you a frequent visit