Indoor sites - can they work?

sliabh

There is a bit of a discussion going on one of the retailer threads about indoor sites. The two we had in Ireland seem to have been popular but are now gone. I have been wondering whether an indoor site in Ireland can pay its own way so I thought I would throw some numbers up here and see what people think.

Assumptions
As the guys from Airsoft Reloaded said it needs to be "huge, cheap and very local". So for a city that means you are talking about a warehouse in an industrial park (unless NAMA decides to let us have some old office buildings). You will need about 1000sqm (I believe the warehouse was 840sqm). And we will assume a cheap rent of €6.5 per square metre per month. To make things easy we will say €12,000 for fit out, or €1k per month. €7,500 per month for the facility.

For staff, 3 people, 40 hours per week, costing €15 per hour (you have to allow for PRSI and so on). That allows one on the front desk and 1-2 marshals in a place open 4 hours each week day, and 10 hours a day at weekends. 3 x 40 x 15 x 4.3 = €7,740 per month.

For light, heat, cleaning, and all that, say another €1000 per month.

I have no idea about insurance or rates. I am going to say €5000 for insurance, and €25,000 for rates per year. That's €2,500 per month.

Income is players, and the going rate in Ireland is €20 per game. Allowing for the VAT man, there is €16.50 to the site owner per punter.

The Numbers (per month)
Costs
Rent and fit out - €7,500
Rates and insurance - €2,500
Wages - €7,700
Light heat cleaning - €1,000

Total - €18,700 per month.
And remember this is a simplification - it doesn't include things like advertising, rental guns, and so on. For the sake of argument we can say that is covered by selling BBs, drinks etc. At €16.50 per player then you need 1133 visitors per month, or about 260 per week, just to break even.

That seems like a lot. But it is maybe just about possible. Say half come during the week. Then you need 26 per night, across two 2 hour games. And at weekends you need 65 per day across 4 two hour games.

Conclusion
It is probably only a venue in a big city (i.e. Dublin or Belfast) that can get those sort of numbers week in week out. The trick then is to find a place that will be very accessible (bus, Dart, luas), and is still going to have a low enough rent. No one is likely to get rich out of this though. You will be doing well to cover your costs.

It would probably be more viable to find an idle building where the owner is willing to let it go for a non-commercial rent, i.e. just make some money on the side. That would bring your costs down, but of course you would have to expect to be turfed out as soon as they find something that pays better.

Puding

they can work but in Ireland at this point in time i think not, just using your figures you would almost need every single airsoft in Dublin and the area around it for some way to go at least once a month, sorry not going to happen

this may be a hard pill to follow but a full time open all week indoor site needs a large pool of players to pull from or enough of an attraction to pull a lof of people in from far afield ( the mall for example) this just does not exist in Ireland whatever anyone says are player pool in the country is small and there are so many site pulling people left right and centre in Dublin, as a business your simply not going to get the consistent numbers you need in the long run

for me the most viable set up ifor a cqb site is like maz, i would like to see this format developed more by sites in the long run and taken onwards to better things

gerrowadat

Two indoor site have opened in Ireland. Both shut down. QED.

kdouglas

Agree with Puding, while I applaud Airsoft Reloaded and GTAC for doing indoor sites, the rent alone must be an absolute killer, before you even factor in any other costs.

Danin

I'd say I'd have to agree with the lads, the foot fall is just not there to make an indoor site work even if you never took a wage out of it and tried to just cover overheads. Unfortunately the auctioneers and estate agents have put an unrealistic cap on the lease value of most of the warehouse/retail units and they just will not see the light therefore in my opinion there is no way to make these units viable. Its unfortunate as they would rather leave them unocupied and at the hands of vandals than have a paying client.

I'd say though that if you look at the growth of the sport year after year it may be viable in the future as in a couple of years possibly in Dublin

Airsoft Reloded

They definitely are viable, its about finding the right place though. The rent is the killer and ofcourse you have to deal with rates and in some places servce charges.

The trick is to find a place thats easy to get to, huge and far enough away that the rent isn't completely insane.

More info to come soon

Inari

If it was to be done, I reckon it needs to be done more "outside of the box"


For this very rough example, I will use simplify things down so that everything is juuust right.

Let us say that a retailer (i.e. Airsoft Shop) wishes to open an indoor CQB site. They could rent/purchase a large property with enough space for BOTH the shop, and the site. By doing this the cost of running the site is subsidised by the shop's profit margin. Flipside of this is that you're also losing out on said profit margin until it takes off, and god forbid you need to eat.

It would have to follow the same formula as sliabh said i.e. CITY CENTRE...cause, we're all lazy as hell

J.D.R

Just wondering, why does it have to be huge? I know 1000 sqm of airsoft space sounds absolutely savage, but if its not kitted out properly, then its just a waste, instead of 500-750 thought out, planed, tested, and built absolutely SAVAGELY, would be better, at less cost.

Its all in the layout in my opinion

Oh, and if this may be happening, like might be in the development stage, can there be some serious talk about Public Transport? I knwo people say ot will be a bit strange to take the bus or the train with a gun bag on your back, but once it stays in the bag, there should be no problems. Just my suggestion

horgan_p

Inari wrote: »

If it was to be done, I reckon it needs to be done more "outside of the box"


For this very rough example, I will use simplify things down so that everything is juuust right.

Let us say that a retailer (i.e. Airsoft Shop) wishes to open an indoor CQB site. They could rent/purchase a large property with enough space for BOTH the shop, and the site. By doing this the cost of running the site is subsidised by the shop's profit margin. Flipside of this is that you're also losing out on said profit margin until it takes off, and god forbid you need to eat.

It would have to follow the same formula as sliabh said i.e. CITY CENTRE...cause, we're all lazy as hell

Did the figures on that very thing over christams.Didnt go ahead with it because I couldnt get the figures to stack up to a point where at least 4 people (and thats what it would take) could make a half decent wage.
At least not in cork , not at the moment.
I based it on €1 per sq. foot - which was at the time about right in cork.
I also based it on 4 people at 2 evenings and 2 full days per week. 1 person booking in / manning the shop , 2 marshals and built in 1 extra person for unforeseen circumstances. even at an obscenly modest wage (think minimum wage) it wouldnt wash , between tax and prsi for each employee (you cant employ dole scammers - well you could but when you get caught it isnt pretty) then rent , heating and lighting (cause you're mostly open in the evenings when everyone is finished work) finished off with insurance and all the safety stuff you'd need to get done i'd have been better off lighting my money in the back yard.

There is a HELL of a lot more to running an airsoft site than ordering bbs and mags. It's a business - first and foremost. no matter what the heart wants - your head must over ride it.

J.D.R

Can I just ask one question to people in the know. Is it now easier, or more difficult to build/run airsoft sites after the building colapse? And is it more expensive or cheaper?

Not looking for help or tips on setting one up. Just curious...

Danin

J.D.R wrote: »

Can I just ask one question to people in the know. Is it now easier, or more difficult to build/run airsoft sites after the building colapse? And is it more expensive or cheaper?

Not looking for help or tips on setting one up. Just curious...

We are in the progress of opening in Sligo at he moment and you wouldn't believe the ups and downs and jumping through hoops you have to go through, hopefully it will work out in the end but what I would say is people that run sites are diffenitly not in it to end up rolling in money quite the opposite I'd say it's only the love of the sport that keeps them going cause there are much easier ways of making money ha ha.

captaindanwaldo

Would the length of the lease decrease your likelihood of success in a situation like this? would it be possible to arrange something on the short term say maximum 2 weeks and organise it along the lines of an event not so much a site with advertisement and booking in advance, just ideas...

Airsoft Reloded

captaindanwaldo wrote: »

Would the length of the lease decrease your likelihood of success in a situation like this? would it be possible to arrange something on the short term say maximum 2 weeks and organise it along the lines of an event not so much a site with advertisement and booking in advance, just ideas...

You would have zoning issues with something like that (and by that I mean there is absolutely no clause in the national development plan that covers a temporary airsoft event), you would just have break clauses in your lease e.g. after the 12 month mark you reserve the option to give the land lord 2 months notice without penalty (thats one plus side of the recession, most landlords will negotiate a little anyway).