Entertainment businesses are no strangers to large group bookings.
And with the vaccine rollout, these bookings are back. Whether we’re talking corporate team building events, children’s birthday parties, or bachelor/bachelorette parties, there’s nothing your bottom line loves more than knowing you’ve got 20, 30 — even 40 or more people booked.
They’re coming in, they’re paying for your services, they’re buying drinks and snacks, and they’re heading out with some amazing experiences they’ll tell all their friends about. Of course, you want to make sure that story is a good one, and for that, you need the right attractions.
The key to succeeding with any business is this: convince your customer you’ll fulfill their needs and follow through. There's a lot of needs that lead a group to make a large event booking at your business, but let’s stick to these three: corporate team building, birthday parties, and bachelor(ette) parties.
These groups are booked by whoever at the company is responsible for this programming. They’re looking for something that a whole company, department, or team can do together — depending on company size. They’ve got a budget, and they’ve got the most powerful tool of all: the ability to enforce attendance! There’s opportunity here to turn these events into regular repeat bookings — as long as you can keep it fresh!
With a birthday party, the focus is on keeping things fun for the kids — and manageable for the frazzled parents. An activity that requires minimal supervision is big: it gives the parents a chance to catch their breath while keeping the kids entertained. And while you may or may not get any individual kid back for another birthday next year, kids talk, word will get around the school, and you’ll even have kids who weren’t there begging their parents to book their party with you!
With these events, you might just be one stop in a chain of evening engagements (or, if you’re licensed to sell alcohol, maybe not!), but this is an important one-off party for those involved. Guests are often invested in making the night unforgettable for the bride or groom, so the more you do have to offer them — the better! Bachelor parties are in the mood to party, so take advantage of that!
So we know what the groups are looking for. How does virtual reality help?
First up? The wow factor. Many people have limited VR experience — but even frequent users probably don’t have a whole room in their house set up to give them space to actually walk around. Whichever kind of group you’ve got in, then, you’re probably going to blow their minds.
Second? Multiplayer. Whether you’re looking at a large, arena-style VR laser tag sort of experience, or a deeper VR escape room experience, VR for location-based entertainment (at least when you’re going beyond the booth model), isn’t just the player versus the computer. It’s everyone versus — or cooperating! — with everyone.
When it comes to VR escape rooms, here’s the real killer feature: multiple groups can challenge the same room at the same time. With a normal escape room, you’re only building each room once, so when you get a group booking that’s too big for a single room, they’re playing through different rooms.
But when you’ve got a couple of VR escape rooms set up, there is no physical construction. So teams can compete directly with each other on time — the perfect balance of collaborative team-building and friendly competition.
VR escape rooms also typically run as 35 - 45 minute experiences. That’s long enough to be satisfying complete experiences for the players, and certainly long enough to let parents get the birthday cake and all the other food and snacks set up.
And finally, with new games being released all the time, you’ve always got something new to offer repeat business, and an even wider variety to offer first-timers. Plus, got some room after the booking? Capture that post-game excitement by offering a great deal on round two for your bachelor party group!
So, VR is great for repeat bookings, can fit plenty of people, takes a good amount of time, gets people talking, and is just plain a whole ton of fun. Those are all things your group bookings are looking for.
vrCAVE has been in the location-based entertainment game for years now. We’ve built up a library of 6 compelling VR escape room games (plus a couple of useful extras!), and we’ve helped our partners amaze groups of all sizes. So if you want to get started offering VR for your large groups? Get in touch!