Shooting galleries are a staple for many FECs worldwide, renowned for their longevity and relatively quick return on investment. Is it time you looked at a shooting gallery for your customers?
The shooting gallery is one of the simplest, most
universal concepts you will find in any funfair or
FEC – there is a set of targets, and the customer
has some kind of ‘gun’ to shoot them with. Their simplicity
is certainly part of the appeal; no language or explanation
is generally required, and people of all ages enjoy the
experience.
Has recent history worked against their long-time
appeal though? A series of mass shootings in the US in
recent years has indeed had an impact, says Amusement
Electronics owner Zachary Coxe. He told Global
Amusements & Play that it depends on what region of the
country you are selling to, though. “It has certainly
impacted our industry. I’ve had many negative comments
from people about it; it depends geographically where you
are, to how well it’s accepted. In the western states,
people are fine with it, but places like California are more
stringent and the traditional gun set-up is less appealing
to them.”
Historically, shooting galleries used live ammunition; it’s
only since the late 1950s that the now-familiar beam of
light system has been in use. Zachary’s Amusement
Electronics actually purchased the company that
introduced this system, Taylor Engineering, in the early
1990s. Zachary explained to us that the technology is still
basically the same now: “The mechanism still uses a beam
of light, it’s a little more sophisticated now but the concept
is still the same.
“The only thing you can’t have is direct sunlight on the
gallery, as that means you won’t be able to hit the target.”
TECHNOLOGY
The march of technology catches up to all things, however,
and shooting galleries are no exception. But what can you
add to this simplest of game experiences? Zachary’s
company has dabbled in ‘dark rides’ for customers that
have requested it, for example, and that this is an area of
growth for the company: “It certainly is an avenue for
growth; we’ve done some dark rides for customers, and
walkthroughs where people shoot as they go through a
dark house, for example. That kind of product is usually
when a customer has asked us to do it because we
custom-design a lot of product.”
One avenue for adding technology to the gallery would
be to combine the traditional angle with, say, another ride
– which brings us to Universal Space’s innovative Bandit
Express. Kirill Murawski explains: “What we have done is
combined two old concepts to create a new concept –
we have combined a train ride with a shooting gallery. The
players enjoy not only the mechanical aspect of the
shooting gallery, they also get to enjoy the video aspect of
the experience; while the players are moving around the
track they also get to enjoy the train ride. It’s a three-fold
game, with a train, video shooting gallery with mounted
guns, and a mechanical shooting gallery which is on the
sides.”
The company has borne in mind one of the dilemmas
for4 any FEC contemplating new product – yield, or the
amount of revenue one attraction can generate compared
to the amount of space it occupies. Kirill explains: “New
technology absolutely has to be applied to shooting
galleries mainly because space and its relation to revenue
has become one of the most important parts of creating
an FEC; shooting galleries tend to be quite large. The
relation between what they make and the space they
occupy can work against a shooting gallery. You could have
two or three games in that space instead and they might
each make reasonable money, whereas one attraction in
the area might not make more than the two or three that
could have occupied the space.” Bandit Express can accept
up to eight players at a time, which makes it quite efficient
in this respect – the interest in the product has been
sufficient that the company is exploring this new avenue as
they breathe new life into the shooting gallery. Kirill added:
“This year we will have some other products related to
this category though, which I can’t reveal yet. They are
types of shooting gallery, not necessarily the traditional
kind though; we are exploring that category. It’s the 21st
century, you have to add something to that category to
make it exciting.”
BRITISH EXPERTISE
Oldham’s Pan Amusements specialise in shooting galleries
but most of their business is in export, as General
Manager Paul Adams told Global Amusements & Play.
“Our bread and butter is electronic shooting galleries. The
bulk of our business is export; the English seaside has been
in recession for a long time and the investment just is not
there. Our pieces are not mega-expensive and our
products can last 20, 30 years – there is a shooting gallery
in Cornwall that is 30 years old. They last so long, they
make good money and people stick with them. We have
sold a few more in England this year and we would like to
do more, but we just do not seem to be finding the right
places. Whether the seaside towns don’t want to spend
the money, I do not know – we have been to a few and
you just see cranes and pushers and not much else.”
So what could be holding the UK FEC or attraction back
from the charm, longevity and ROI that a shooting gallery
offers? Zachary Coxe says that his products are paid for in
under two years, with a very long lifespan afterward. He
said: “they do well year after year. It’s a long-term
investment, we have many original Bonanza galleries that
have been in their locations for 30, 40 years.
“Most locations it takes 1-2 years to see a return on
their investment, but they will see a long lifespan for that
product.”
Paul Adams concurs, saying: “If you have a fairly busy site,
you’ll get your money back within 12 months. If you then
have that on site for 20 years, that’s 19 years of potential
profit. It’s plug and play, and we are the only shooting
gallery manufacturer to give a two-year guarantee on all
parts. The most difficult thing our customers have to do is
empty the cash box.”
COMPLETELY FLEXIBLE
Is it some perceived inflexibility in the product? It shouldn’t
be – they can sit in a skill wall concept comfortably, or as
an FEC centrepiece, and fit in with a redemption setup as
Paul told us: “The products are very flexible, they can work
with coins, tokens, swipe cards, ticket machines… I’m not
sure why shooting galleries have not been pulled along
with the success of redemption.”
Pan’s major success currently is Professor Coggins, a
much more light-hearted-looking gallery that promises fun,
fun and more fun – and its success underlines some of the
changes in the landscape for suppliers like Pan
Amusements. Paul said: “The change from traditional
arcade to the FEC is significant; that’s where the success of
Professor Coggins and the single-player galleries are finding
space, it’s different to everything else they have in the
arcade. It fits in with the skill wall concept as well, we are
developing something for Sega at the moment and it’s all
skill; we feel the way to go is to reinvent older games and
themes. Things go in cycles, people want to do more
hands-on things now.”
For Pan Amusements, the company’s main success in
recent years has been export, though it has not been
entirely plain sailing – Pan certainly felt the effects of the
2008 global downturn as their reach into America
suffered. Paul elaborated: “The US pre-2008 was superb
for us, but after the worldwide economic crisis hit, the
doors just closed; last year we started making inroads back
into that market. In 2002 we turned over $2million in one
year of shooting galleries, and it was rolling along nicely
then in 2007-08, it was as though someone had pulled up
the drawbridge. We still did business, but it slowed down a
lot.”
Now the big growth area for the company is China, a
collaboration with a major mall developer bearing fruit,
though the US is coming back on track; it seems shooting
galleries and their manufacturers and suppliers have not
gone away, they have just adapted and survived.
