By Marcus Webb - Vending Times: Vol. 45 No. 2, Feb 2008
Las Vegas – The amusement
rentals business is no longer a low-rent niche of the coin-operated music and games
industry. At least, not as practiced by Eric Brashear of Amusement Game Rentals.
“At AGR, we are redefining the amusement rentals business,” he said.
Most operators
are familiar with the low end of the rentals sector, which typically focuses on backyard
birthday parties and high school fundraisers. But relatively few operators realize
that the top end of this business caters to some of the swankiest private parties
and brand-name corporate events in America – with levels of presentation and ROI
that far exceed anything most operators ever imagined.
Case in point: Brashear’s
team recently loaded up a couple of deluxe trailers and drove them to Phoenix to
provide entertainment for a glitzy GoDaddy corporate party. GoDaddy is a high-profile
Internet domain registrar and Web hosting company that also sells e-business-related
software and services. The marketing-savvy firm has one of the coolest corporate
images this side of Apple, bolstered by its Gen-Y attitude, creative online marketing,
sexy and attention-getting Super Bowl TV ads and party-hearty ethos.
AGR strives to
provide entertainment that is just as cutting-edge – and upscale – as its clients’
businesses. To cite one example, Brashear’s company charges $2,900 for a one-day
rental of Global VR’s Nascar Racing game, installed in a real, full-size automobile
chassis. Brashear rigged up a mirror-projection system that reflects game images
from a monitor hidden under the hood, along with the game’s PCB. From the driver’s
point of view, the computer-generated graphics show up on the front windshield, replicating
the Nascar experience.
For another $750, AGR will add the client’s corporate logos
to the car. This unique, ultra-deluxe presentation is typical of the creative marketing
and showmanship practiced by Brashear and his team. Imaginative upgrades of football
video-games rent for $1,200 a day. A pool table with customized felt, displaying
a client’s choice of image, rents for $1,400 a day – and AGR’s customers happily
pay for it.
These are the fees for one game for one night. When a client rents a
whole suite of games, the company sometimes earns as much as $65,000 for a single
night’s business. A national tour for a world-famous telephone service provider
billed at $107,000 in 30 days (the client requested confidentiality). AGR provided
rentals for 18 associated events on both coasts simultaneously during the month-long
tour.
ROI in this range adds up quickly when you’re servicing 500 events each year.
Founded here in 2001, AGR doubled its revenues annually in its first three years.
In 2007, revenues grew another 50% beyond 2006 earnings, reaching into seven figures.
Bookings for 2008 are already indicating another record-breaking year. “At this
point I’m actually hoping things will level off a bit so we can catch our breath,”
Brashear said.
Son of 1980s coin-op basketball game manufacturer Foster Brashear, Eric got involved
in the industry with Wedges and Ledges during the Challenger Crane days, and was
an operator in Southern California during the 1990s and early 2000s as owner of Spectrum
Games. He got started in the rentals business gradually, beginning a decade ago
when a client offered him $1,000 to bring a basketball game to Palm Springs for one
night.
It didn’t take long for this lifelong industry member to realize that rentals
were an untapped goldmine. “Most operators get calls to rent equipment, but they
charge far below what the market will bear,” said Brashear. “For Example, they may
ask for $150 per game, per day. Their thinking is, ‘Well, that’s a week’s worth
of income on location, so that’s a lot of money.”
But in fact, Brashear says his average
daily rental is more then two months’ worth of on-location earnings for any given
piece. Although the money is good, it’s definitely earned, he adds. “You absolutely
must provide clean, attractive, working equipment; show up on time; and do exactly
what you say you will do,” he said. “If you fall short on any of those factors,
the rentals market is an extremely unforgiving business.”
Today, Brashear puts this
philosophy into practice with aggressive fee schedules and exacting service standards.
He is proud of having perhaps the highest rate card in the U.S. rentals segment.
In fact, he happily provides his rate card to any other operators who rent games
– to encourage them to bring their prices up to current standards, he says.
And, while
many operators strongly prefer to keep a low profile, Brashear also pens a regular
newspaper column in Exhibit City News, a newspaper for the trade show industry. The
column serves as one form of promotion for AGR, along with Internet marketing and
ongoing phone sales by staff. The vendor also works with well over half of the professional
party planners in Las Vegas.
Nationwide, Brashear estimates that few than 50 operators
specialize in amusement rentals in this league, with perhaps two or three notable
ones in each major city. While the niche is obviously lucrative for those who can
compete at this level, it’s also challenging. “The kind of street operator who is
more comfortable in a mom-and-pop bar than in a swanky restaurant might not be a
good cultural fit for the high-end, high-stress rentals business,” Brashear said.
“At
the same time,” he continued, “we occasionally find that we have to remind some of
the professional party planners who deal with the wealthy individuals and high-profile
corporations that these clients don’t want the cheapest – they want the best. They
want to be dazzled. They want to have their socks knocked off. If you can do that,
with reliability, integrity and a bit of imagination and innovation, you can be a
success in the amusement rentals business.”
About AGR - We couldn’t have said it better ourselves...
