11/29/1990 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Portable minigolf courses, which can be installed on surfaces sucb as tennis courts anal playgrounds, offer a variety of obstacles. and population of your area should be expected. Weekends are gener- ally the most profitable times regardless of locale. You can also add concessions, with little effort and expense. Outdoor courses in the Northern United States will have a season of four to six months, while operators further south can expect a pro- portionally longer season. You can have the best of both worlds by op- erating the same course outdoors during the summer season and moving it to a nearby indoor loca- tion when the weather turns cold. Portable mini -golf courses can be moved and set up in a new location within one day. Whether you own or can rent land and a building, es- tablishing an indoor/outdoor mini - golf business will provide year round revenue. Many resort areas have installed portable mini -golf courses. While they usually don't charge a fee for a mini -golf game, the more amenities they offer, the more people the re- 34/DECEMBER 1990/P&R sort will attract. From this marketing standpoint, Dario Belardi, executive vice president of Caesar's Pocono Re- sorts, said mini -golf "placed high on the list to attract customers—in the top five as far as amenities are con- cerned." For the most part, course oper- ators report only minor renovations such as lighting and plumbing in addition to the purchase price of the course and cost of land as start-up expenses. Cost of landscaping for outdoor or remodeling for indoor courses depends on how elaborate a look you want. Ongoing costs will include util- ities, rent, if applicable, and liability insurance, the rates of which differ from state to state. Mini -golf courses usually require only one or two em- ployees to hand out equipment and take fees, and those same people can be caretakers. Often mini -golf courses are family -run operations in which each member takes a turn caring for the business. Portable mini -golf courses offer a variety of obstacles—animals, trains, buildings, and so forth, each of which has a way to challenge the golfer, such as barn doors that close or windmills that turn, all using timers. Courses are usually set up so that the obstacle presented at each suc- cessive hole is a little more difficult than the last. Being "portable," you can change the obstacles; many course operators do so on a regular basis to keep their steady customers coming back for new challenges. A specialty of Mini -Golf, Inc., is the theme course. MGI built some of the obstacles at the Gotham Golf course, which uses a Manhattan motif with obstacles like the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, and Bronx Zoo. "Around the World" is another theme course the company has available. The course features obsta- cles representing different parts of the world, including a Dutch wind- mill, a replica of England's Big Ben,