OPEN HOURS

This might be a long(ish) read so bare with me :

TLDR: We reserve the right to refuse entry to non paying spectators

I am always extremely grateful that people come by and play at Retrovolt. But, I am starting to run into a bit of an issue and that issue is “Spectators”.

A while ago we had to put in a strict No Spectators policy for our pre booked party room. We were getting bookings for 15 people and we were getting groups of 30+ show up. 15+ were spectators. Unbelivably we had another group show with over 60 guests with the intention of only paying for 15. 

Invariably the spectators would end up playing, because “The games are on free play anyway”. You can imagine how awkward that is and it also filled up the arcade with non paying guests. We were also having to turn away paying customers, or at least make them wait outside until we could fit them in. To counter this, we put in place a strict no spectator policy for birthday parties but we also lowered the additional guest charge down to $10 ($5 / hour) and that seems to have worked.

But now we are running into an issue where groups are showing up for general admission with masses of Spectators. As an example a group paid for one child recently and had 7 adults spectating and again the spectators went to the top part of the arcade and started playing games. Another group showed up with 6 kids and 18 spectators….. the list goes on. It becomes very difficult for us.

Ultimately what we actually sell is Time and space. We sell you guys time in our space to enjoy the games we have on offer. A spectator takes up time in that space that another customer could pay for. Also I would say from experience that 70% of the time spectators do end up playing without paying.

We are rated to have 90 people in the arcade at any one time by the Fire Marshal. This includes staff. We also lower that limit down to 75 ourselves because I dont want people not being able to get on a game and its way more comfortable.

We also try to keep our prices as low as possible to encourage families to come to the arcade. We haven’t raised our standard admission price for 9 years and our kids U10 admission price is still super reasonable at $8 / hour. We would also encourage you guys to take advantage of the Four pack (four people for an hour for the price of 3). Weekday all day passes are still only $15 too!

Again, I am very grateful that people choose to come to the arcade and spend their hard earned money with us. I FULLY understand how difficult things are these days. We will always try to accommodate our guests the best that we can – but please when you bring a group dont bring a mass of spectators. 

I hope you guys understand, I’ve always tried to be as transparent as possible on issues at Retrovolt – sorry for the long post, thank you for reading – if you got this far 🙂

Thanks

Bob
Retrovolt Arcade