Unmanned Entertainment

unmanned Entertainment

Unmanned Entertainment Whats it about?

Providing varied and absorbing entertainment for guests throughout the year can be a real challenge for park operators. Not only can it be expensive, there are also issues such as licensing to take into consideration. Then there is always the possibility that you can be let down at the last minute by an act and be left with a room full of disappointed people.

Not surprising then that many holiday park operators are now looking to unmanned digital entertainment systems that they can use to provide all sorts of activities – from prize bingo, through to music and karaoke and of course quizzes. The content is always fresh and the compere will never call in sick. Here Holiday Parks Management looks at some of the leading systems on offer and talks to some of the park operators who are using them.

John Flack has been Head of Entertainments at Park Holidays UK for nearly ten years, and is responsible for planning and implementing the group’s entertainments policies across all of its 23 holiday parks in Devon and Southern England..

“Entertainment is a massive part of our appeal to guests, and the quality and scope of what we provide helps to ensure that families return time and time again. Our entertainment programme runs on each park from mid- morning to midnight, every day of the week. It is tailored for all age ranges, and designed to provide a real sense of added value to everyone’s holiday.

Bingo has traditionally been one of our strongest offerings, and if anything it is even more popular today than it was a decade ago. Without a doubt, the Jigsaw system we use has played a big part in ensuring that guests enjoy the best possible experience of the game – and their comments, which we monitor on social media, provide confirmation of this.

In 2011, Park Holidays UK became the first parks group in Britain to link its bingo games amongst member-parks. By doing so, we were able to ensure that no matter how many players were present on any individual park, they would be competing for serious prize money – and not just a sum which represented ticket sales at their particular venue.

This is very important as a variety of factors, such as the weather and the booking levels at the park, can influence just how many are in attendance on a given night.

Nightly jackpots can be extremely high, often in excess of £10,000 – and we were delighted when in 2012 one of guests won the jackpot prize, which then stood at a massive £34,000! This sort of news travels fast, and is a great stimulus to building traffic which benefits not just our earnings on the games, but also other sales in our entertainment centres, restaurants and bars.

For this reason, we see Jigsaw as an income generator across many of our profit centres on the park. It also enhances the overall standing of our entertainments programme in which we invest millions of pounds every year, not least on professional performers and TV acts and personalities.

Jigsaw is extremely simple to operate, so we do not require our entertainments staff to have any specialist expertise. It also ensures that our bingo offering is fully compliant with the regulations, which govern the operation of bingo games and protect the interests

of players.

As a group, we undertake regular audits of our different entertainment strands to assess how well they are performing. Jigsaw makes this task extremely easy by its nightly generated email reports on the precise figures affecting every aspect
of that day’s games. Just finally, I might also add
that the big wins we get as a result of this system
provide us with excellent PR both in the press and
via social media as well as on our website.’

Breakdown of features:

Jigsaw Music

Jigsaw music comes direct from the UK’s leading digitised music content provider Soundnet. 16,000 sites in the UK already benefit from Soundnet’s extensive music library of 500,000 tracks.

Professionally created playlist templates, make
short work of setting up an evening’s music.
Whether it’s low ambient background music, or a 70’s Disco, or even a Big Bangers Party, simply Select, Click and Play.

Jigsaw online keeps your playlists up to date with the latest music content including the very best pre-releases and
back catalogues.

Jigsaw Games

Pub quizzes continue to grow in popularity with increased participation throughout the UK. Jigsaw Pub Quiz can be set up in seconds and distribute questions and answers to all looped TVs and screens within your venue, meaning everyone can join in their favourite quiz.

  • A unique question selection feature prevents the annoyance of repetition.
  • Online updates ensure your questions are relevant and up to date.
  • Instantly recognisable categories with varying levels of difficulty and a unique randomise feature.
  • In-built Tie-Breaker feature ensures there is only one winner at the end of
each quiz.

Jigsaw In-house Bingo

Jigsaw in-house Bingo is easy to set up and easy to play. Graphically rich content displayed on your venues’ TVs and screens ensures every customer can participate.
Cash Bingo and Prize Bingo are included as standard.

Jigsaw Karaoke

Jigsaw plays host to Sunfly Karaoke, widely acclaimed as the most dependable and recognisable karaoke brand in the world.
Jigsaw has more than 6,000 Sunfly karaoke tracks to choose from, and will ensure your customers are entertained any night of the week.

  • Karaoke play lists can be created in minutes, saving time and effort.
  • Karaoke catalogues can be downloaded at any time direct from the Connected Entertainment website and are frequently updated.

screens within your venue,

 

Steve Dixon is the owner of Old Country Park in Berwick,
 an award-winning holiday centre with over 400 caravans on site. He provides entertainment for the many thousands of tourists he accommodates each year, as well as managing a steady calendar of events for local customers. Steve uses his Entertainer, to provide most of the entertainment in
his venue.

“Our venue is split into three separate rooms, each containing a feed from the Entertainer Pro and high tech audio visual equipment – and each able to create a distinctive atmosphere.

It’s ideal because I am able to give my customers what they need, I can set the Entertainer to play 50s music for a party of pensioners in one room, while a group of lads is watching sport in another.

We have held some excellent charity race nights, games nights and children’s mini- discos over the last year, and we stage a popular karaoke disco every Saturday night, but I also use the Entertainer’s comprehensive music programs and advertising suite every single day.

It’s a great piece of kit, and so handy, we’ve purpose-built a DJ booth for the Entertainer, with disco lights and all the gear, but you can just set it up for the night and let it run itself.

We make the most of the Advert Manager and the new backgrounds we receive on the update discs each month. As well as promoting our own forthcoming events, menus and specials, we are also set to start charging local business for displaying their advertisements, after running free trials. This has also proved a financially sound decision for us as the system now more than pays for itself. I used to spend around £200 a week on DJs, and £350 just for New Year’s Eve. We had a superb New Year with the Entertainer last year though, with a full night of games and then a disco – it was a cracking party!”

Breakdown of features:

Music System


The Entertainer contains over 13,000 popular and classic tracks. You can tailor your background music for times of the day or particular occasions with Smart Play, cross-fade music and video tracks with Music Player, take customer track requests on the Jukeboxes, and provide professional DJ quality music play lists with DJ Player.

The Entertainer Touch Screen Karaoke Machine


The Entertainer holds a
massive repertoire of fully orchestrated modern and

classic karaoke tracks. Simple to use, tracks can be found immediately, and there are no discs to change over.

The Entertainer Touch Screen Game Machine

The Entertainer Games features are a brilliant way to give your customers an amazing night. Live action horse and dog Racing, and the electrifying Spin to Win, offer the opportunity to host amazing charity nights or popular community events. Our celebrity Bingo, and

superb Quizzes, with picture rounds and multiple choice answers, are the perfect way to encourage new and repeat custom into your venue.

Touch Screen Pub Jukebox


The Entertainer now features a coin- operated Jukebox as part of the package. You can still entertain your customers day and night with a great selection of music, karaoke, games and quizzes, but now you can switch to Jukebox mode whenever you want, and let your customers pay for the tracks they choose!

On Screen Promotion Features


The Entertainer features Advert Manager and Scrolling Text functions to help you advertise your events and promote your

offers. Advert Manager allows you to create your own artwork with ease from your own digital images, or choose from the vast catalogue provided on the system. Scrolling Text enables you to display quick messages on the screens in your venue to advertise a last minute offer, call time at the bar, or even wish a regular customer a

Happy Birthday.

 

 

March 24, 2015

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