Sports Entertainment (EATertainment) Facilities

We all remember the old bowling alley stained with cigarette smoke trying to sell you an overcooked hotdog and stale nachos. Those days are over and for good reason. 

Companies like Dave & Busters pioneered the combination of sports, entertainment food and beverage, the advent of new “social sports” like pickleball, cornhole, ax throwing, putt putt, and more have created a burgeoning industry filled with new concepts. 

What these concepts have in common is the necessity to maximize the use of a variety of assets to maximize their return on investment.

Nowadays there are a lot of other options for your customers to choose from so if your eatertainment concept isn't delivering, customers will find ones that are. 

Goals & Challenges

In particular, these “EATertainment” concepts need to:
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Maximize the utilization rates of their sports / entertainment assets (pickleball/volleyball courts, putt putt tee times, cornhole lanes, etc.) to draw the highest possible visitor counts.
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Maintain the highest possible   "time on premises” to ensure the highest possible revenue per visitor
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Maximize transactional efficiency to minimize labor cost per visitor session. 

The main trend in eatertainment is a higher level of quality of food, drinks, and service paired with a fun activity. Accordingly, it is typical that these kinds of facilities will prioritize the efficiency, reliability and user-friendliness of their tech stack accordingly.

Bookings & Reservations

Customers / visitors must be able to reserve a court, field, private event space, picnic table, etc., pay for it, and complete any necessary waivers or agreements so they can “show and go”.  This process has to be user-friendly with minimal data points, fields, process steps, etc.

Having reservations in advance also allows you to staff accordingly so you aren't over or under staffed based on the number of visitors coming in.

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Events

Event programming is the most important tool to bring in customers in slow times. Planning, communicating, marketing, and executing events is a subject all it's own. Making sure it's easy for customers/visitors to sign up for events (open play, tournaments, camps, clinics, pickup, etc.) is extremely important.

Lessons

New social sports like pickleball require instruction to understand the game and improve skill levels.  In many cases, an increase in skill is accompanied by a deeper interest (and investment) in a given sport. Lessons require a coach and an asset to be available at the same time which means scheduling can be challenging.

Lessons do a great job of filling gaps in your schedule during the day as the customers who typically want lessons will come during off-peak hours. 

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Leagues & Tournaments

Leagues & Tournaments come in handy for filling weekly gaps at your facility.

Depending upon the facility and the sports they may offer, leagues and/or tournaments may or may not play a role in their participation/revenue generation strategy. 

For those who do run their own leagues and tournaments, it's important to make it as easy as possible to participate.

Memberships

Memberships are a great way to give your raving fans exactly what they want, more access and priority at your facility. 

Memberships, while not common yet in EATertainment facilities, offer a unique opportunity for increased engagement, particularly when integrated with a CRM system or other marketing engine, to offer discounts, special privileges, etc. 

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A Solution That Covers All of Our Bases

"Facility Ally has been a great asset for the Elizabethtown Sports Park. It allows us to quickly book events and relay the bookings to our operations team.

With our operations team able to clearly see the daily and weekly schedule, along with any notes added during the booking, they can efficiently prepare the fields for the event. During the events, managers can quickly reference the calendar so they can see when fields are done for the day.

Overall, from booking, to setup, to post-event tracking, using Facility Ally has been a great benefit to our facility."

Brandt Pawley

Event Operations Manager, Elizabethtown Sports Park

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This Software is The Backbone of Hy-Vee Arena

Facility Ally has been the backbone of Hy-Vee Arena since its inception.  

The flexibility of Facility Ally has allowed us to create a fully customized experience to efficiently manage our multi-purpose facility.  Facility Ally's ease of use and simplicity allows us to create reservations ranging from daily bookings through our website to booking multiple recurring reservations, all of which can be accessed by Hy-Vee Arena staff members from anywhere through their mobile devices.  

Facility Ally has saved our staff so much time, energy, and effort.

Chris Coffin

General Manager, HyVee Arena

Ally With Us and Take Your Facility's Operations to the Next Level