Hey gang!
Haven't updated things here in a while - we've got exciting stuff going on (and stressful!) --
Hooksett has been open for 4 years now, and our second location in North Reading, MA has been open just over a year. Both stores are doing great.
Hooksett is the smaller town. In January, a trampoline place opened up the next town over - it hasn't hit our business much *except* for february vacation week; they did their big grand opening that week, and we were down about 30% in sales. All other weeks have been up about 15% to LY.
The trend in Hooksett has been to change up layouts and stuff often; forcing customers to not get too comfortable and seek us out to see what's what - it has helped, but over 2015, we kept it close to our belt as we navigated opening the second location. We were saving our pennies for some sort of change, but we didn't know what. Bouncies are great, but now that we're doing more business, i was feeling the pressure to mix up our offerings and venture out of our comfort zone.
We went to IAAPA with an open mind, and chose to install a "Ball-ocity" type feature, a climbing structure with the usual slides and obstacles, with nerf blaster guns to shoot balls all around; all custom designed and themed.. (~$90k, indoor playgrounds, intl on the west coast; they've been great) -- there are several basic climbing structures in a 15mi radius, 2 facilities that have it as their main attraction, with nothing much else) -- This thing is great because it's a climbing structure with so much more to offer.. the perfect thing to step up our game while keeping things familiar for guests.
We called it 'Tiki Blast' and made a fun logo for it and are in the process of hyping it up like crazy -- www.mycowabungas.com/tikiblast - facebook has construction updates and stuff, too.
I am confident this will give us a nice spike in business, and give us some legs to go the next few years.... I feel like this is not the best time to debut something new (the onset of our quiet period...) but maybe it'll drive business at this time.. (I like to hit a reset button in the fall)..
The MA store is doing great with just bouncies, and we figure at around year 3, if we like it, we'll dream one of these up for there. We're knee deep in working out a 3rd lease, but now the pressure is on to open that one with one of these, too, which makes all my upstart costs spike like crazy...
.. We opened the entire first location for less than what we paid for this thing, so it's surreal we're knee-deep in this install right now.
I haven't shared in a while, thought I'd update ya! Surf's Up.
-matt
Edited by Cowabungas NH, 14 March 2016 - 06:58 PM.
