In a world where hi-tech products tend to win in popularity stakes, the humble children's ride remains a staple of the coin-op market. Helen Fletcher takes a look at why this simple concept is still so popular...
It is Saturday afternoon and you are wandering around the supermarket wishing you were anywhere but there.
It is busy, noisy and there are children screaming and throwing tantrums in almost every aisle and at every till point.
They are bored, tired, hungry and generally disgruntled about being dragged around the supermarket for two hours when they could be at home making a den out of their parents’ best sheets - or something along those lines.
And who would blame them? The majority of adults I know cannot abide the ‘weekly shop’ so to expect children to go along with it - and quietly at that - is at best wishful thinking.
This is where the children’s ride steps in - just as the parent thinks they can take no more and is contemplating dumping the trolley and making a break for it, out of the corner of their eye they spot a children’s ride and as if by magic all is well with the world again.
Now bribed with the chance of ‘a go’ on the ride if they behave, the shopping trip continues with a much calmer and quieter child in tow.
Ok, so this happy ending does not always happen and there are times when even the most soothing of children’s ride is unable to rock the child into a giggling and happy state, but you can guarantee it will happen more times than not.
And it is this “welcome break for children as well as parents” as Ulli Kunnecke, director of sales and marketing for Merkur Gaming, puts it, that is one of the main reasons children’s rides are as popular with today’s generation as they were 20 or 30 years ago.
“Children’s rides perform well everywhere because the basic wish to play is the same for children all over the world,” said Kunnecke.
“It is that 90 seconds of being able to live the dream of what they want to be that appeals to them.”
Marshall Ashdown of manufacturer Jolly Roger, based in the UK, added: “Most features offered on rides such as video screens, sound effects and games can be easily replicated at home on PC games or through the latest toys, but it is not easy to play on a full-size ride at home.”
To license or not to license?
The choice of rides available has grown considerably over the years and it could be argued that this in part is a result of the amount of licensed products present in the market.
Characters from Disney, Nickelodeon and so on lure children in and have brought with them many opportunities for the operator.
However, it is not as simple as it would seem and a licensed product does not necessarily guarantee success, as Ashdown points out: “The right licensed rides will often out-perform generic rides but it doesn’t mean this is always the case. The licensed market is getting quite congested and as a manufacturer we have to be very selective and try to predict the next ‘hot’ licence.”
For Kunnecke, licensed products perform much better than other rides.
He said: “We experienced an incredible boom with our Disney licensed rides, especially the Lightning McQueen from the film Cars. The ride has received fantastic incomes with children queuing up to have a ride on their favourite car.”
However, Frankie Wu of Chinese company Zhongshan Luck, which manufactures children’s rides including its latest product Fairyland, feels that whether a machine has a licence attached to it or not does not matter.
He said: “Children don’t care whether a ride is licensed or not they just want to have fun – lots of colour and lights attract their attention more than a licence does.”
And Paolo Sidoli, of distributor SB Machines, based in the UK, added: “There is space in the market for both types of ride and it is important for the operator to keep a good balance of rides on their sites.
“We sell both types of rides and recently begun selling the Looney Tunes range, of which the Big Daffy has been particularly popular. However, over the past 15 year the lion’s share of sales for us has come from generic rides.”
Benefits to operators
The appeal for children is obvious but what benefits does the operator get out of placing a children’s ride?
According to Ashdown, one aspect is that they are simple to service and maintain and they tend to have a longer life than other coin-op amusements as they are not subject to short-term trends or fashion.
There also tends to be more locations suited to placing rides than any other type of amusement machine.
However, the long life that comes with children’s rides can sometimes cause the sector problems, as Ashdown explains: “One of the problems facing the UK, is that there are still many thousands of rides still in use because the build quality of a typical UK manufactured ride is so good.
“An operator should not make the mistake of becoming over-reliant on older rides as modern children are demanding customers and this is reflected in the higher revenues achieved from newer rides that offer interactive features and have licensed character appeal.”
So according to the manufacturers, children’s rides are as popular as ever and bring in high revenues, but what about the companies that operate them – do they have the same story to tell?
An operator’s view
Photo-Me International, based in the UK, is one of the biggest operators of children’s rides in Europe and Francois de Freitas told InterGame: “We have seen a significant increase in the children’s ride market and compared to last year have doubled the number of rides that have been installed throughout the UK and Ireland.
“We believe that frequent rotation of rides is essential to maximise ride revenue and is a critical part of the successful operation of children’s rides. We carefully monitor the ride revenue in each centre to determine the optimum time to carry out a ride exchange.”
Steve Friss, an independent operator in New Zealand added: “For us, performance is largely down to pedestrian count so the more people that pass by the more customers we get.
“I don’t believe there is one company that makes the best rides as fashions change and sometimes a company will just produce a ride that has the right look such as a popular film, TV or book character or is novel in some way to capture the child’s attention.
“The visual appearance, reliability and the robustness of the components is what makes a good ride from a long term point of view but in the short term a ride must produce an acceptable payback period.”
Although children’s rides are popular all over the world there are some markets that are performing better than others and according to Ashdown and Sidoli, eastern Europe has emerged as a strong market and there have been positive signs from the Indian sub-continent.
Commenting on the market in the UK, Ashdown said: “UK seaside resorts now only represent about 10 per cent of our business and the vast majority of our sales are to operators in the retail sector.
“The market has grown over the years but has now reached a plateau. Demographics have had an impact, with less children being born reducing the number of customers. Although this is starting to change as last year saw the first increase in birth rate in 10 years.”
Sidoli said: “In terms of volumes and turnover we have seen a year on year growth in the UK and there are many reasons for this including a significant replacement market.
“Customers are realising that the latest rides have made huge technological advances in terms of looks and ride appeal and this manifests itself in the final cashbox take.”
Technology and developments
Ashdown added: “There is also no doubt that developments in licensed and video interactive rides have boosted the popularity, appeal and revenue enhancing capabilities of rides in recent years and hopefully this will continue.
“Rides don’t perform as well in less developed countries as there isn’t the disposable income available for leisure products, which makes it difficult for local operators to get a satisfactory return on investment. But we do try to address this by selling lower-priced used rides into these markets.”
Kunnecke added: “Our products are present in the whole of Europe, the Middle East, North and South America as well as Australia and there are many second hand rides in operation.
“However, we have had indications that the demand for quality rides is picking up and that we will be able to succeed in different emerging markets.”
So what can we expect from children’s rides over the next few years?
According to Jose Saus, export manager for Spanish company Falgas, one of the main trends within the sector at the moment relates to new movements.
He said: “Here we need only turn our attention to the most common children’s ride – base rides. Whereas typical base rides consist of an animal or vehicle situated on a vacuum-formed base that moves up and down or side to side when activated, some more advanced rides now have more complicated mechanisms that can alternate between different speeds and motions. This marks the transition into what we call a premium line of children’s ride locomotives.”
Future trends
Commenting on future trends and markets, Saus said: “There will be a focus on the timeless popularity of the traditional formats, which will push generic rides forwards in terms of new movements and different ideas.”
Freitas added: “As children are becoming more and more demanding in their entertainment requirements we have started to offer interactive rides and they are proving to have the capacity to generate incomes previously unheard of in the industry.
“Highly sophisticated rides such as interactive helicopter simulators can have a premium charge attached to them, resulting in higher revenues.
And according to the operator, Friss said: “Change seems to be building pace in options for children’s entertainment. They can choose from traditional rides, skill testers and video-based equipment and I expect there will be an increase in sophistication and interaction and screen-based rides will proliferate over the years.
“With inflation and higher costs for modern equipment, coin-operated equipment will also move more to note-readers and probably mobile phone payment systems.”
According to Ashdown rides will always be popular and as they appeal to the three to five year age range, operators get a completely new set of customers every few years.
Ashdown also sees that one of the big challenges for the future will be regarding the reduction of coins in circulation as we move towards the “cashless society”.
“This will create the need for a low-cost ride payment system but ideally without the high third party charges that would make the typical low-value transactions of a ride unviable for the operator,” he said.
