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Pinball in a pub?

edsr

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Joined
Oct 7, 2017
Messages
415
Location
Cheltenham
Wondering if any of you guys have machines out there in pubs, or elsewhere?

I know there are a few in Birmingham and London, possibly Bristol.

Any ideas on what sort of takings they’ll get in an average week?

There’s a pub near me that’s crying out for one (at least) and I’m toying with the idea of putting one in there as an experiment.

I can’t buy another pin without getting a bigger house and I’m struggling to convince my wife it’s a good idea (IKR!?), but I’m thinking if I could rotate a couple and keep one in the house to play/repair/shop, that might be a solution.

But I’d need to recoup the investment over time for it to be worthwhile.

Any advice? Would any of you put yours in a pub or is that asking for trouble? I noticed Pinball Heaven supply 13 machines to Tilt so I’m guessing it’s not entirely pointless?





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Also, Tilt is basically a showroom for PH. So a completely different business model.
 
Also, Tilt is basically a showroom for PH. So a completely different business model.

Yea I did consider that may be the case as the machines are all new-ish models.

I was thinking at £10/day you’d get £1500 back in 6 months. But is that realistic?
 
Is that machine in a seaside resort on the coast in Brighton Sarge? Cos that's not your usual pub.

I did some looking into it a while ago and back in the day TAF could take in £40,000 in a chip shop (can't remember the location or timeframe). But those days are long gone. I guess mostly it depends on your perspective. I'm too much of a worrier to trust an expensive temperamental machine into the hands of drunk strangers. But some people like to do that sort of thing.
 
Is that machine in a seaside resort on the coast in Brighton Sarge? Cos that's not your usual pub.

I did some looking into it a while ago and back in the day TAF could take in £40,000 in a chip shop (can't remember the location or timeframe). But those days are long gone. I guess mostly it depends on your perspective. I'm too much of a worrier to trust an expensive temperamental machine into the hands of drunk strangers. But some people like to do that sort of thing.
It's in Brighton yes, but in a neighborhood local - totally off the day tripper radar.



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Do they have security bars over the coin door? (Sorry for 20 questions)


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Yea I did consider that may be the case as the machines are all new-ish models.

I was thinking at £10/day you’d get £1500 back in 6 months. But is that realistic?
Don't forget the 50/50 split with the venue....they don't give up the space for free...
 
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Go 60/40 in your favour. No rental charge but you do the work and call outs. An older machine is more likely to break. But that doesn't mean a new machine won't.
At first it may do well but give it a month and it will drop off. Expect about £80 a fortnight, but it all depends on location of course. I've found that a lot of people couldn't care less about pinball
 
Probably not worth the bother.

What a doomsayer!

How do you get out of bed in the morning? :)


Dood - go for it before you buy a machine to replace it - see how it goes for three months - worst case you bring the machine back - best case it’s helped the pinfund and you can buy another.

I put Star Trek in my office initially for a charity event which did really well.

Neil


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Looked at this myself. Was considering getting a pin in my local. He didn't want to go for it. Theres another pub that would gladly have one but there isn't even room to stand in there when its busy so that's a no go

I reckon a busy enough pub would make it viable. Maybe select the machine carefully though, or even turn off some of the more problematic features ( TOMs trunk!)

Maybe even put up that the high score of the day on weekends gets a free pint.
 
Also, Tilt is basically a showroom for PH. So a completely different business model.

Perhaps so but it stands alone without the showroom aspect. Are you actively trying to put someone off putting a pin in a pub?!

@edsr go for it. If the pub wants a pin vs you want to put one in there, get them to agree that you get the first £xyz per month then the rest is splits.....
 
I have a TAF in my pub and can easily take £100+ a week. Machine paid for itself in under a year and I can still sell it for what I paid for it.

My advice, do it. Spread the pinball love. Worst case scenario you can sell it and get your money back.
 
Get something like a GB Pro/Star Trek pro for 4500 ish, in a years time they will probably be worth 4k, so £10 a week depreciation.... maybe less.
 
Getaway is the best for pub. Affordale game. Awesome to play. No plastic ramps to smash to bits. Everyone loves that flasher on top. Great sounds.
Just make sure the diverter ramp and supercharger are solid.
 
Perhaps so but it stands alone without the showroom aspect. Are you actively trying to put someone off putting a pin in a pub?!

@edsr go for it. If the pub wants a pin vs you want to put one in there, get them to agree that you get the first £xyz per month then the rest is splits.....

Just my honest opinion. As a business concept there's little or no money in it. As a way of owning more machines than you can fit in your house the drawbacks are that the machine is likely to get some abuse. Better off hiring them out on freeplay to offices for breakout areas.
 
I shudder at the thought of games on Free Play in busy areas!

I have found moderate success in renting them on a minimum rent plus shares over £xyz, but perhaps because I usually have games kicking around I can use, I still don't think you can go wrong with a 1 year old modern game on site and sell it on before its worn out and needs lots of maintenance.

But I have plenty of classic games in Tilt, we recently took the TAF out and gave it a full refurb to keep it going. Plenty of decent WMS games will still take money, just don't put **** out and expect it to take coin.
 
Just my honest opinion. As a business concept there's little or no money in it. As a way of owning more machines than you can fit in your house the drawbacks are that the machine is likely to get some abuse. Better off hiring them out on freeplay to offices for breakout areas.
Agree on aspects. Yes, you can't quit your day job. It doesn't earn much money when you have to pay out for parts.. board repairs etc. Also your time to fix the things costs money. But if you enjoy it and it makes some drinking money, then why not. They can take quite a pounding, so i wouldn't worry about drunks. Also if you get along with the staff, they tend to really watch over it for you too.

^
As phil said. You need to make sure it's fully working. Broken games don't make ****. Would you go back and play a game that was knackered? I know i wouldn't.
 
I shudder at the thought of games on Free Play in busy areas!

I have found moderate success in renting them on a minimum rent plus shares over £xyz, but perhaps because I usually have games kicking around I can use, I still don't think you can go wrong with a 1 year old modern game on site and sell it on before its worn out and needs lots of maintenance.

But I have plenty of classic games in Tilt, we recently took the TAF out and gave it a full refurb to keep it going. Plenty of decent WMS games will still take money, just don't put **** out and expect it to take coin.

Depends on the office, but I would expect it to be fairly quiet except for break times. People need to be seen to be working. We used to hire them at a company I worked for in Sweden. I think they paid about £200 per month per machine. Usually we had between one and three machines in at any one time. The only downside as an operator is that if the machine needs fixing you'd need to do that during office hours, which might not be compatible with your own day job.
 
The last thing I would ever do is stick a Pin on Freeplay in a pub. When the coin mech went I had to put it on freeplay until I got it sorted. The amount of kids that just start the game and just bash the flipper buttons continually is astonishing. The noise sends you up the wall. The parents don't care as their kids are being distracted and away from the 'grown up' table. If kids want to press the shiny yellow buttons, their parents can pay!
 
I shudder at the thought of games on Free Play in busy areas!

I have found moderate success in renting them on a minimum rent plus shares over £xyz, but perhaps because I usually have games kicking around I can use, I still don't think you can go wrong with a 1 year old modern game on site and sell it on before its worn out and needs lots of maintenance.

But I have plenty of classic games in Tilt, we recently took the TAF out and gave it a full refurb to keep it going. Plenty of decent WMS games will still take money, just don't put **** out and expect it to take coin.

Thanks for the lowdown Phil - think I may have just bought a c220 mech from u on eBay!

Cheers to all for opinions - good discussion.

I’m thinking about putting my Baywatch out there - I’ve not touched the cabinet up yet though.

Anyone reckon it’d be up to the job? It’s just been shopped.

Also interested in views on fitting a security bar. I’d rather not, having filled and painted the old holes.

The pub I have in mind is a trendy craft beer pub that sells expensive burgers and is popular with middle aged blokes. Thinking it should be a good location - seems similar to Tilt. Only issue is I think the pin would be in the back room where they have a table tennis table, and babyfoot. Feels like a good compliment but a bit out of sight (I.e crowbars etc)




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Thanks for the lowdown Phil - think I may have just bought a c220 mech from u on eBay!

Cheers to all for opinions - good discussion.

I’m thinking about putting my Baywatch out there - I’ve not touched the cabinet up yet though.

Anyone reckon it’d be up to the job? It’s just been shopped.

Also interested in views on fitting a security bar. I’d rather not, having filled and painted the old holes.

The pub I have in mind is a trendy craft beer pub that sells expensive burgers and is popular with middle aged blokes. Thinking it should be a good location - seems similar to Tilt. Only issue is I think the pin would be in the back room where they have a table tennis table, and babyfoot. Feels like a good compliment but a bit out of sight (I.e crowbars etc)

Location sounds right - middle age blokes is prob your market, they at least remember the 90s glory days of DMD pins in pubs :) Baywatch is a suitably retro cheesy theme ...the 90s is the new 80s .

Unless the pub is in a dodgy area I wouldn't be concerned about security. And it doesn't sound the punters are the types to pry a machine open for a handful of nuggets to fund their next fix :D You could always put deterrent stickers on coin door ....Machine Alarmed , or Machine Emptied Daily ... ??

If just been shopped then in theory all the mechs should be good. Just make sure it *is* playing faultlessly - you can't have it *sometimes* not detecting a ball etc, thats ok at home but won't fly on site. The factor you don't know is how it stands up to being switched on for 12 hours+ at a time. Heat is the enemy with these old fellas.

Try it and see - nothing to lose :thumbs:
 
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