Of all the franchises on this list, I’ve spent by far the most time evaluating The Park. I’ve been to almost all their locations in Belgium and the Netherlands and spent days at their corporate HQ interviewing their management team. The Park was incubated by Telenet, the largest media company in Belgium. They have more than a dozen locations now and are growing rapidly.

The Park’s operating model is a combination of single-player room-scale, and multiplayer free-roam. They sell a one-hour experience for about $35. There’s a simple café with limited beer, wine, and coffee drinks to extend the visit. They can handle 40 customers at a time in a 4000 square foot space.

The Park recently ported their content from backpacks to native all-in-one headsets using the VIVE Focus 3. They have the most diverse library of exclusive content of any franchise I’ve seen, and they understand exactly which customer personas each game appeals to. This speaks to their marketing sophistication.

The hallmark of a valuable franchise is its operations system. The Park’s gig-economy employment model is one of the biggest innovations I’ve seen in the LBE market. Their staffing model is like Uber (which makes sense since their first CEO ran Uber Eats in Belgium). Casual workers are notified of bookings, and they can pick their shifts. The hiring and training program is gamified, with staff leveling up based on the net promoter scores of their customers.

Opening a Park Playground costs around $300K turnkey. The company is currently focusing on the Middle East and Europe. It has a new CEO in the last year, so their program might have evolved since I did my research. With any franchise, always refer to the most recent FDD.

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