The Start of School is a good time to Ramp Up

Often at this time of year there is a down turn in participants, particularly on the weekend.  With all the new things that are going on, and with your successful summer of camps and events, a little slower time now could be a good time to look to finish a project, take a much needed vacation, get the team together for a planning session, and review the year so far.  If you see a time in your schedule where you will disrupt the fewest number of people, you can use that as a guide for when you should be planning your events and remodels.  If you are newer, and need to see what happens at this time of year, keep track of when your numbers dip over according to the school and town calendar.  Those are times when, if you are closed for a week or two, you will effect the least number of people and so your planning and your work on the park will not effect your bottom line as much as closing some other time.

You should remodel every so often.  Changing ramps up, putting in new course design and new obstacles is a way to get visitors who might be a little tires of skating the same old thing back into the building and excited.  You can have a launch party once you reopen, generating buzz and revenue, send a press release, invite pros, really work it.  If you need to clean up the appearance, put some paint on the walls, re organize your front, this could also help generate some good feeling for your park.  While certain things don't require you to close or not for long, remember to see all projects through the lens of your patrons and if putting up caution tape and protection walls is going to be too restrictive, or limit too much skating area, then shutting down for a few days can serve as keeping your quality high while improving your value.  Staging your build is a good idea, having all the needed supplied and workers can speed up the remodel.

Doing other things like review, summer review, staff training, and vacationing is all a healthy part of running a business.  You just worked for thousands of hours, you can take a little break.  You should constantly be reviewing what worked and what didn't, how to work better, and where you can provide for your customer's needs better.  So if it slows down a bit at the start of the school year, Ramp UP.

Online Session Sales

Presale sessions can help everyone plan

Like movie tickets or concert tickets your skatepark can pre-sell tickets to sessions you sell, online or in the store.  Showing people that there are limited numbers of session entrances can also help sell more sessions ahead of time.  So if you have a lot of people coming in groups from out of town and they know their schedule, you can ensure these people that they will be able to get in and have the trip they were planning.  Similarly if skaters and bikers see that a session is almost selling out, they can elect to come at another time rather than trying to pack in to a crowded session.  Having a website that enables session sale and provide data in real-time can also help you plan on staffing needs.  By seeing that there are a lot of sales on afternoon sessions or on weekdays, you can staff the appropriate number of people to make sure that everyone is having fun, and all areas have enough people to keep lines down.  An additional benefit of adding online sales is that people won't show up despite having paid, or they will have bought too many tickets and will absorb the cost for a variety of reasons.  After your stated "no refunds after this date/time" it is reasonable to assume that giving a refund could have turned away others who would have paid, thereby losing you money.  While you could give a rain-check, this could be a way to increase sales and keep a steady flow of capital into your business even on non-weekend/busy time periods.  Adding functionality like this could go hand-in-hand with having a mobile ready and truly interactive site will help you and your customers get the information they need, to make their visit better.

Skate School

Adding value is a way to increase revenue and provide for a need in the community.  Often times parents want their kids to be safe and have fun.  Providing a structured program of lessons and "camps" is one way to implement a program of skate school.  Taking a weekday and having lessons in the evenings, providing for younger kids to skate in the weekend mornings with instructors, scheduling a sign up for specific skill sessions like kick flips and ollies.  Designing a program that works for your population needs to be planned based off of conversations with customers.  Without their input on what works for them, you could make a lot of work for little reward.  These lessons and sessions are a good way to sell camps too.  Remember to add the little things that make these special like prizes and certificates and stickers.

Skateparks Don't Have To Be A Stand-Alone Business

While most people reading this blog are interested in building or operating a skatepark, thinking about the opportunities that exist out there for recreation based businesses could allow for a more diverse market.  You often don't have to look very far to see that many public and some private places offer a skatepark as part of their park or complex.  Woodward Camps in PA is one example where skateboarding and extreme sports is just one of the several camps they offer.  The YMCA and their many parks around the nation is another example that comes to mind.  Both of these well respected businesses don't look to skateparks as their only source of revenue, but rather look to offer a park as part of a larger complex and a broader market.  As you look to either add a skatepark to your existing facility or start with a skatepark and build from there, consider companion areas that might make sense for your market, town, or facility.  If you have a large warehouse and a small skateboarding market, then utilizing part of the space for another business might make sense.  Whether you operate that or rent the space it could be a better to create something that fits with your market size, than something that is mostly empty due to limited numbers.  Adding a companion place like a bounce house, trampolines, go carts, basketball courts, or other entertainment type recreation facility could help bring customers in, utilize the space better, and help with cross selling.  This could be a good space where some in the family go to one side and the others go to the skatepark.  Careful design could also eliminate doubling staff as one check in area could allow for entrance to either part.  This would also be good for concessions to centralize operations so less people could serve both areas.  So as you are looking into your business plan, think about how you can monetize your space to the maximum effect.

Setting your year's goals and benchmarks

Now that the new year has turned, and the holiday vacation rush has come to an end you should set goals and benchmarks for the year.  With another (or just one) year behind you, it is possible to now look at the year, it's ups and downs and take that information to make plans for this year.  Make sure that you make time for yourself to do this especially if you are manning some part of the park.  If there are slow days or closed days, use these times to gather your information together, look at your receipts, and plan your year accordingly.  Here are some of the typical things you should be looking at:

Busy Times versus Slow Times - more than anecdotal information, you want to really see where your slowdowns are and where you were busy.  What patterns arise?  If the start of September is slow,  figure out why.  If summer was slow here and there, try to look for other things going on like July 4th, or lots of people going on vacation at the start of August.  If things were busy, like June or 2 weeks in March, try to see why.  Then, when you have an understanding of the year, figure out what you can do to increase slow times and monetize busy times better.

Membership, Entrance Data and Promotions- Since you have data from your computer entrance program (hopefully), you can mine this data to help you either resell memberships, or get members to come back for a visit.  If you haven't been doing this, try to set it up so you can get this data.  You can get data on members and non-members if you have a check in your system for waivers.  If you don't have this set up, do so. It could be the way to get more money out of each and every visitor to your park.  What is a membership worth?  What if you tracked it versus a non-member?  Create a non-member card (make it cheap with either a number to be keyed in or a barcode to be scanned.  This way when they come in you can quickly check that the person has a waiver on file.  It will also allow you to track their visits and if you see they are coming often, or that they have a birthday, or that they haven't been back in months (through data analysis from your membership software) you can send a note to these people whether they are members or not.  A discount entrance ticket, a "come in raffle", a note on a pro demo or what not is good advertising and cost effective.  You can even track how often these promos work so that this time next year you can stop sending stuff to skaters who have moved on.  Using member data and tracking can help you better see how often members come in and how much they spend.  You can offer discounts with a membership that allows you to see how much and how effective these programs are.  So go to your data to figure out ways to get people back in, ways to upsell them more stuff, or and create promotions that work.

Review How Your Workers Work - If you hire staff, you need to ensure you are getting the most out of them as possible.  Perform a review of expectation and areas of needs for the park that might be addressed by your hired staff.  If you have someone who is really tech savvy then they could be tapped to update your Facebook, twitter, Instagram, and website.  If you have others who are sitting around reading Thrasher while on duty, maybe a cleaning or mending project could be completed.  Filing and data entry is always needed.

Review Areas of Park - Does no one ever go on one of the ramps?  Is it used enough to warrant the space used.  Space in the skatepark is like money.  If skaters aren't using it, it is wasting money.  It may be a great thing to have a 12' tall vert ramp, but if only 5 people use it a year, that space is losing money.  Survey skaters about their favorite parts of the park, study where they skate the most and see if you can't create more spaces that help sell entrances.  Similarly if you have shop that people don't use enough it might be time to pull the plug.  The costs of keeping it open should be paid for by sales, if not, it needs to go.  Skaters are loyal to their shops so if you aren't getting market share for your shop, either you need to change what you are doing there or get out of the business.  Review of areas where money goes can help you create a lean and profitable park.  You can't afford to have a shop or a ramp that doesn't support itself.  The things need to be an attraction that draws people to your park to spend money, that is why you are in "business".

Make New Things- What is going to be your fresh addition this year?  A new type of contest?  A new ramp? A new Free day?  A new connection with the community?  Figure out new things and see how they can be rolled out and promoted.  Being new, relevant, or cutting edge can help keep people interested in your park.  One idea - DJ night - try it for a few weeks, then stop and see if it works so you either pull the plug or keep it going.

Take time to Recharge - Schedule a vacation for yourself now.  Have something to look forward to that rewards all your hard work.

Use The Holidays to Celebrate

Often times we come to the end of the year and things heat up in the skatepark.  Lots of kids coming in with the bad weather, lots of vacation times, sales and park rentals.  But make sure that with all the things going on you take the time to celebrate your people.  A holiday party is a great way of letting your workers and your people whom you feel add so much value to your park know you appreciate them, their commitment, and their efforts.  It's ok to close early one day during the holidays, many stores do.  Celebrations can be at the park if you all like to skate, they can be at a restaurant, your home,  the bowling alley, or a bar.  Depending on who your workers are, you can set the event to be the type of celebration they'd enjoy.  Make sure you get some unique gifts to give out, and something for everyone like a hoodie, special order hat, or something.  There are many ways to celebrate the season and your people so take the time to show you care.  It is ok to do your celebrations after the holidays especially if people you ask can't make it.

The holidays can also be a good time to celebrate your members.  I have written often about how to make your memberships "value added".  Having a member celebration day with lots of extras, a DJ, a raffle, some special food or other offering goes a long way to making those members feel a part of something special.  While you could be monetizing the time, spending some money to make people feel like a part of something special can go a long way to making your park work financially.  If you think about what it could mean to you, each member that talks you park up positively, whether they come down regularly or not is free advertising.  Word of mouth is a "viral" loop you need to create to get people in the door and excited about springing for the extra membership cost.  So a special holiday member party is a good way of helping create and keep the positive buzz about your park.

Happy Holidays.  I hope you can make 2015 the best one yet!

The Key Activities of Skatepark Owners

Owning a skatepark can be as complicated as you make it.  I've seen some barn based parks that simply float a key system around for friends and the like.  Making a living owning and operating a skatepark however requires a lot of work to get paying customers in the door.  The complexity of a skatepark then makes for a lot of activities for the owner and managers.  Here are a list of some of the main activities a skatepark owner should be completing on a monthly basis.

Promotions
schedules - park and staff - calendar year tweaks and plans
advertisements - monthly and target market specific
Events planning-
stocking, buying goods
inspecting ramps
manning the desk
talking with suppliers and key partners
meeting with finance people both investors and accountant
inventory
financial review (reconciling the cash register, imputing into quickbooks, reviewing costs -v- income
cleaning
replacing broken supplies, fixing, painting, refining
Community outreach, public relations
Outreach to area organizations for cross promotion and group visits
Managing skate team
upgrading systems and controls.
meeting with staff, training staff
calling and corresponding when appropriate
Updating web, social media, other media
Skating a little too!

Lots to do every month undoubtedly.  Try to get some of these things handled by delegating.  Paying for services is a good way to increase staff's feeling of importance as well so maybe promotions, or staffing, or updates can be handled by savvy hourly staff or salaried managers.  Taking the time to be the leader of the business is necessary so don't just man the front desk but also don't be totally absent from the front desk either.  Good luck!