In a series of railway arches not far from London Bridge station, groups of revellers crouch over long brightly lit polished tables, sharing platters of food and taking turns to skim neon-coloured pucks while a DJ spins dance hits. Occasionally a player raises their fists in celebration at landing a high score or bouncing an opponent into the gutter.
Welcome to Electric Shuffle, just one example of an increasingly popular kind of night out – “competitive socialising”. These venues take a traditional game – in this case shuffleboard – and revamp it with technology, striking design and a nightclub atmosphere. Scorekeeping for the multiple ways to play is done automatically by sensor while the best shots are caught on video and shown on screen.
Much of the hospitality sector has been beset by difficulties in recent years, having to navigate Covid lockdowns followed by a cost of living crisis driving up bills and driving away customers – but activity bars appear to be bucking this trend. Customers are flocking to enjoy reinvented pastimes ranging from ping pong, darts and bingo to adventure golf, clay-pigeon shooting and axe-throwing.
“We’re seeing an uptick in the number of venues themselves and the footfall they are attracting. Post-Covid, we’ve really seen a boom in the outlet numbers and investment in the sector of competitive socialising,” Kate Nicholls, the chief executive of the trade body UK Hospitality, says.
She points to the pandemic shake-up of working patterns as a driving factor. “There’s more people working from home, not in the office as part of a team and socialising. Activity is being used at a corporate levels and among groups of workers and friends as a value-added get-together.”
That sentiment is reflected back at Electric Shuffle. “As a team that works remotely, we don’t get together very often. So instead of only speaking to the person sat next to you, we are all mixing together, it’s fun and not just based on drinking,” says Penny Edwards.
That more inclusive atmosphere for teetotallers is a strong aspect of the appeal to the many young people turning away from alcohol. “I like that it’s still quite fun even though I don’t drink,” says Safiyya Deedat. “It’s way better than I expected and much better than bowling.”
Red Engine, the group behind Electric Shuffle and its darts-themed sister brand Flight Club, reported a record turnover last year of £53.8m and expects that revenue to exceed £68m for 2023. The business continues to grow: it opened a new Flight Club venue in Glasgow last month and is due to open another in Edinburgh on 17 November. Meanwhile, the Electric Shuffle brand arrives in New York City next year.
Its founder, Steve Moore, says: “We are seeing consistent performance year on year, with record group revenue this year in line with our expectations and customer numbers up overall, which given the current cost of living crisis is something we do not take for granted.”
Moore says the first Flight Club opened in Shoreditch with backing from a friend, and the chain has since expanded on the back of retained profits and “support from our fantastic investor base and institutional backing from HSBC, Barclays and Santander”.
Nicola Blackford is commercial director at State of Play, which owns three Bounce ping pong bars and the “futuristic bingo” experience Hijingo, all in London. She says a lower focus on alcohol sales and an appeal to a broader demographic have helped push up footfall.
“Behaviour has changed with the introduction of hybrid working with companies more interested in booking activities that encourage social interaction and are more memorable – and they need to book ahead to get the slots they want as the working in the office days like Wednesdays and Thursdays are more popular than Fridays now,” she adds.
State of Play has seen a 20% increase in pre-booked revenue at Bounce in the past 12 months compared with pre-Covid levels in 2019 and activity sales are up 10%, Blackford says, with both its Bounce and Hijingo brands looking to expand into other UK cities, while it seeks a partner across Europe.
Hijingo and its “multi-sensory bingo experience”, combining live entertainment with special light and sound effects, appears to have overcome the unfortunate timing of its March 2020 launch. However, it may struggle to escape the shadow of Bongo’s Bingo, which recently celebrated eight years since its first night in Liverpool.
Splicing the traditional game with dance-offs, “rave intervals” and bizarre prizes such as giant pink unicorns and Henry Hoovers, it holds events in nearly 50 countries and plans to bring the experience to the US, with a New York event on the cards.
Its co-founder, Jonny Bongo, says: “Over the past five or six years, this whole experiential market of doing activities on a night out and not settling for just going to a bar or nightclub, has completely changed. We were lucky to be at the forefront of that.
“Now with the cost of living crisis, people are more selective of what they want to do and would probably prefer to save their money to go to maybe one of our events, where it is all about escapism and letting loose.”
Despite the craze for revamping old activities, classic pursuits such as tenpin bowling still attract far higher footfall in Britain. Ten Entertainment Group, which operates 51 bowling and family entertainment centres, announced its half-year financial results ending 2 July 2023, with like-for-like sales growth increasing more than 46% against its 2019 figures.
The group’s chief financial officer, Antony Smith, attributes its success to tenpin bowling being the “original social activity” event. “It’s one of those where people dismiss it because it’s so familiar but we’ve seen a real post-Covid resurgence. We took a real step change to focus on the customer experience and providing a really strong value for money – we still offer the same prices as 2019 four years on.”
