Just over £60,000 of new kit went into the fleet in the first weeks of 2019, and most of it is still out on events now, several seasons on, only with better specs than the day it arrived. This is what came in that year, what each product does, and where the ones that survived are working today.
What arrived first
The winter deliveries set the tone. A brand new deluxe rodeo bull came from G.S Engineering straight to the Rotherham warehouse, joining a rodeo bulls and multi rides range that has been the backbone of the business since the core bull, bungee run and sumo days. Then we travelled over to Manchester to collect the Chaos strike-a-light game, a cube table with neon LED buttons that we had been hiring in for long enough to know it earned a permanent place. The pattern in both cases was the same: hire a game in a few times, watch how it holds up, then buy it properly.
The interactive archery arena
The game we were most excited about that spring was the Interactive Archery Arena. Two players take life-size bows and fire safe foam-tipped arrows at electronic targets in a head-to-head timed game, and the scoring is handled by the IPS system, which lights targets in sequence and announces the winner on an electronic board so nobody has to count. The arena is 15ft by 15ft and 13ft tall, needs a 16ft by 18ft minimum space, and suits ages eight and up indoors or out. It took three bookings in its first week on the fleet, which is as good an argument for buying a product as any spreadsheet.
The ultimate wipeout
The sweeper arms had been two of the most popular items on the fleet for a couple of seasons, so we added the Ultimate Wipeout, the eight-player deluxe version. Two padded arms spin the bed, one low to jump and one high to duck, and they speed up every rotation and can flip direction mid-spin, so the longer you stay on the harder it gets. The bed is 22ft by 22ft with eight podiums, it needs a 25ft by 30ft footprint, and it comes with a DB operator who runs the game for the whole hire. Last one standing wins, and the landing is onto a bouncy bed, so dignity is the only casualty. Selina, who had one alongside an assault course for her daughter's birthday, said: "The kids loved it (and the big kids) and Kane was brilliant with them. Easy to book and thoroughly professional throughout." One surface note: it plays on grass or hard standing outdoors, and indoors on hard floors, but it will not go onto outdoor concrete or wood chip.
Where those games went next
A couple of the electronic games went on the road properly. The Batak Pro reaction game and The Vault spent much of 2019 out on a UK-wide tour of corporate events, running break-time competitions and exhibition stand challenges, and both have stayed in demand since. The Batak Pro has twelve LED targets that light in random patterns, scores on two central displays, and it is now the flagship of a Batak range that is the largest hire stock in the country. The Vault is the 30-second stop-the-light challenge in a bank vault cabinet, short enough to keep a queue moving and easy for anyone to pick up in seconds.
The limits worth reading before you book
Two constraints apply across most of this kit. The staffed games are exactly that: the wipeout and the archery arena come with an operator, which is the only way they run safely, so on the busiest summer Saturdays the number of staffed games we can have out at once is a real ceiling, and early enquiries get the pick of the dates. And the footprints are the real numbers: the wipeout's 25ft by 30ft includes the run-off, the archery arena wants 16ft by 18ft with 13ft of ceiling if it goes indoors, and squeezing either into less than that is not something we will do. Measure first, then ask, and the answer comes back quickly, whether the event is a hall in Sheffield or a field outside Doncaster.
Most of the electronic range sits in the electronic interactive games category, and the office can tell you inside a phone call whether a unit is free on your date: 0114 345 0135.
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