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Ladymeeps, Gentlemeeps and other peeps, the Unboxed Gaming Café has now been open for over a month! It’s been a wild ride so far, we’ve had our fair share of ups and downs already but we’re still here and we still have so much to learn.
Worrying about numbers
The first week of July was an odd one. After our opening night the numbers understandably died down.... Way down. Not to say that we were struggling that week but it certainly seemed as if we had lost some momentum.
However, we were champions of optimism and nothing could bring us down from cloud nine. Week two of July was a bit of a different story. It was our third week of business and business was, in a word, plummeting. Or at least that’s how it felt. We had a few days of very few customers in the cafe and Blair and I were in foul moods about it.
Nobody tells you how terrifying it is when you consistently fall short of your targets, even if its only for a couple of days. It’s beyond frightening.
You can't distance yourself from thoughts like “if we don’t get customers soon this business is going to fail,” which is an obvious over-reaction but luckily for me I have a very proactive wife who is very good at shifting my broody ass into gear.
Since then we’ve actually had a steady stream of customers and we realised that we don’t need that much business in a day to cover our ‘overheads’. We might not be able to pay ourselves very much but it’s fiiiine…
Word of Mouth
Most of the problem seems to be that we’re waiting for word of mouth to spread. We can only do so much promoting on social media but that side of things has been slowly gaining momentum too. We hit 500 likes on our Facebook page this week! I’ve been told that, in terms of business, page likes don’t mean anything but screw it! I’m excited about it and its awesome!
Nobody tells you how terrifying it is when you consistently fall short of your targets, even if its only for a couple of days. It’s beyond frightening.
You can't distance yourself from thoughts like “if we don’t get customers soon this business is going to fail,” which is an obvious over-reaction but luckily for me I have a very proactive wife who is very good at shifting my broody ass into gear.
Since then we’ve actually had a steady stream of customers and we realised that we don’t need that much business in a day to cover our ‘overheads’. We might not be able to pay ourselves very much but it’s fiiiine…
Word of Mouth
Most of the problem seems to be that we’re waiting for word of mouth to spread. We can only do so much promoting on social media but that side of things has been slowly gaining momentum too. We hit 500 likes on our Facebook page this week! I’ve been told that, in terms of business, page likes don’t mean anything but screw it! I’m excited about it and its awesome!
Woooo! Ahem. Excuse me…
To be fair, page likes are all well and good but they don’t really translate to bums on seats. To that end, we were trying to come up with some events to get people through the door and went back to our business plan for inspiration.
Then we remembered about an idea we would steal from Common Ground Games: A 24-hour Game-A-Thon. We had wanted to attend the last Game-A-Thon Common Ground organised but I think I had to work that weekend or something. But it struck us at the time that it was such a good idea; not only would it be great fun but a portion of the proceeds would go to a local charity.
Help out a charity AND have an excuse to play games all night long? Sign me up, right? So we put the idea in our business plan back in March and promptly forgot about it. Then, a week or two ago we decided to put it in motion, so we started promoting it on social media and got in touch with Ayrshire Hospice, a worthy charity that provides care to people with life limiting illness, and received some fundraising tips as wells as donation boxes, banners etc.
And now, on Saturday August 5 we are going to be gaming all night long in aid of an excellent local cause.
Other Unboxed Gaming Café News
In other news, we were approached by one of the staff of Games Centre, a high street gaming store (not board games, more video and card games), to see if they could host their fortnightly card game night at Unboxed instead of renting out a space at a nearby leisure center. We were more than happy to oblige.
In fact, we had them in at the weekend for the first card game night and it’s fair to say it was a success.
The place was packed to the rafters, not one seat was bum-less, which was great to see. Long may it continue.
That’s about it for this month. We’ll keep trying to set up more clubs and events. A chess club is next on the agenda since I keep hearing that lots of people play chess in Ayr. A dedicated board game night would be fun, and of course, a Dungeons and Dragons/RPG night is definitely on the cards. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but there is a rather large RPG-playing community, of which I count myself a proud member.
All in all, since we opened it’s been pretty tumultuous and I don’t think it’ll let up anytime soon but, to be honest, I’m all right with that, it keeps things interesting. I’ve got lots of support from my family and friends, an awesome business partner and I can take a moment every day and think to myself... “We own a freaking gaming café! How cool is that?!”
- Don't forget to check out ISSUE ONE, ISSUE TWO and Issue Three of our Unboxed :The story of a Gaming Café journey to see how our Café came together!
And now, on Saturday August 5 we are going to be gaming all night long in aid of an excellent local cause.
Other Unboxed Gaming Café News
In other news, we were approached by one of the staff of Games Centre, a high street gaming store (not board games, more video and card games), to see if they could host their fortnightly card game night at Unboxed instead of renting out a space at a nearby leisure center. We were more than happy to oblige.
In fact, we had them in at the weekend for the first card game night and it’s fair to say it was a success.
The place was packed to the rafters, not one seat was bum-less, which was great to see. Long may it continue.
That’s about it for this month. We’ll keep trying to set up more clubs and events. A chess club is next on the agenda since I keep hearing that lots of people play chess in Ayr. A dedicated board game night would be fun, and of course, a Dungeons and Dragons/RPG night is definitely on the cards. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but there is a rather large RPG-playing community, of which I count myself a proud member.
All in all, since we opened it’s been pretty tumultuous and I don’t think it’ll let up anytime soon but, to be honest, I’m all right with that, it keeps things interesting. I’ve got lots of support from my family and friends, an awesome business partner and I can take a moment every day and think to myself... “We own a freaking gaming café! How cool is that?!”