Target News – Page 3 – SmartTarget.Golf

SOUTHAMPTON DRIVING RANGE AND OVERNIGHT TRANSFORMATION

Post author:rob peterson
Post published:August 1, 2020
Post category:Uncategorized
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"TOPTRACER AND TARGETS ARE LIKE BEES TO HONEY" 30ft DRIVING RANGE TARGETS NIGHT AND DAY After months of planning, It took less than a week to install the new glowgear interactive targeting system on the field. The range is now packed every night. Thanks to the hard work of staff to help build the ground work, we were able to build the field of 6 -30ft range targets and two 12ft front field targets over a series of mornings without interrupting play. Of course it wasn't the most fun experience waking up at 4am but the result speaks for itself. HAPPY JULY 4TH 2020 Prior to our arrival the range had installed 8 Toptracer bays. Within three days of opening they had to switch…

Tee Box to Target Field – 360 degree Imersion

Post author:jasonsmith
Post published:May 13, 2020
Post category:Uncategorized
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HOW TARGETS CREATE A 360 DEGREE IMMERSION FOR THE CUSTOMER This is an amazing time for the driving range industry when large venues can bring together tee box scoring with big field targeting to create an experience that is more captivating as a drive in movie. By combining Interactive driving range targets with tee box scoring systems like TopTracer and Inrange you create the complete 'bowling alley' from the crashing of pins when you walk in the door to the experience of victory when you win a game. Visual impact is the first step in having customers want to start playing and stay through a few more games than they thought. They need to be stopped in their tracks and reaching for…

What is the value of interactive targets on a driving range?

A driving range without repsonsive targets or greens is like a bowling alley without the crashing pins. Field targets and greens that respond when hit give players immediate and real feedback and a real world goal like knocking down the bowling pins. With just kiosk scoring and no targets, you are offering augmented practice and a video simulation that only gets the customer half way from practice to play. But with targets and gaming, you now can move into evening entertainment and the evening date night opportunities.

Intelligent driving range targets are like giant bowling pins that give the customer a visual and visceral impact
Target are the first thing customers instagram when they arrive
Targets give a real world light and sound response that completes the experience and creates critical mass where customers stay longer

ROI for a 10 bay Golf Entertainment facility Driving Range - $80k!

Kiosk scoring and Smart Targets are proving to be the highest per bay revenue generator in the industry.

Small facilities with only 10-20 bays of available tee line have many options and a very bright financial horizon. By tracking tee line rentals we are seeing that 10 bays are able to generate up to $80k per month in just bay rentals. This does not include food and beverage. These are game changing numbers kiosk scoring alone cannot match.

With targets as your social anchor, you can support this with at least a 20 table restaurant, which will bring in about 60% of your customers final ticket. This $1.2ml plus combined with bay rentals has a 10 bay facility generating $2ml+ a year. If you don’t believe us, give a call and we will prove it.

The strength of this new ‘Microsite’ model is that both the camera or radar scoring bays and the targets can be leased and represent between $5-7,500 per month in cost but drive $160k+ in overall sales.

10 – 20 bay model does not require being placed in a large city or population center. Many of these small venues are seeing 80-90% daily subscription while being in a town with as few as 15k population.
Many venues choose to put in 10 bays and leave the rest open for normal practice. This works well by making day and evening golfers happy.
The only downside of a 10 bay golf entertainment venue is that you will not be able to take full advantage of the weekend evening hours where you could book 30 bays if you had the space.
On the other hand, more bays are more work when you are considering table service. So a well run 10 bay facility can be a very successful venture.

SMART TARGET - sizes and shapes

Permanent targets for the golf driving range come in sizes from 10ft to 75ft in diameter. Targets can be made in custom sizes, and color combinations. We also make interactive golf greens that respond when hit. Since every driving range venue is different, we can design a custom field that accents the strengths of your range.

How do Smart driving range targets augment today's tee line scoring systems?

By giving the customer live targets that are placed to simulate the scoring games on Toptracer or Inrange, customers are now getting a complete ‘bowling alley’ experience where they actually see the ‘bowling pins fall’ when the target is hit and goes off.

Live targets also give the customer a double feedback loop when hit. Our interactive targets are measured and placed on the field so that they are the real world anchors for the tee line target games. Targets are placed at 25yds increments. We do this so that the virtual game scoring zone is 100ft. As a result the virtual game scoring zones touch one another. So when a customer hits a target they are scored and the target goes off with sound at the tee line. When they miss the target, the 100ft round virtual target zone ensures a very good chance the player scores. This is key to wanting to play more.

By having a real world game on the field that the virtual kiosk can emulate, customers have a more complete experience vs. coming to an empty range with only a kiosk scoring system. The kiosk cannot entertain enough to keep groups of customers playing into the evening. It’s simply not fun enough. Combine the two technologies and you get critical mass and customers stay longer.

What features make a great Golf Entertainment venue?

Besides offering up an awesome tee line and epic targets, you need plenty of parking and lots of non-golf social areas for games like ping pong, bag toss and putt putt. This goes for a stand alone driving range or a retrofit in the middle of a golf course. The more ways you can entertain the family, the more customers garner in the early evening and into the evening date-night crowd.

Key municipal issues will be sound and light pollution. As a result, it’s not a good idea to build a golf entertainment facility on a range that has homes overlooking it. Per light pollution, there are radar scoring systems that go with SmartTargets for which venues do not need overhead lighting. Combine this with modern, focused sound design and you can have a fully interactive range in places that will not allow overhead lighting.

HOW MANY RANGE TARGETS DO YOU NEED FOR A 10 - 20 BAY GOLF FACILITY

For a small golf entertainment venue you don’t need to go overboard the way you need to when you have a much wider spread of 30 bays wide. We recommend 2-3 10ft targets in the front field and 6-8 30-50ft targets for the backfield. You can also add a signature green in the front field to give your venue its own unique look.

If you are putting in tee line scoring like TopTracer or Inrange, we recommend placing a target every 25yds so the live field targeting match the scoring games in either Toptracer or Trackman or Inrange.

You will need to run power to the targets since they need to be very bright to create the right impression.

HOW DO TARGETS AFFECT DAYTIME AND EVENING DRIVING RANGE USAGE  

Field targets define your field and anchor the visual experience with the customer. We have found an increase in all day-parts when targets are installed.

In the morning you will rent blocks of bays for everything from kids parties to company meetings.
In the afternoon scoring and targets attract the serious golfer more than just those wanting to hit a bucket of balls.
In the evening weekends a 10-20 bay facility will see over subscription. The big surprise is that you will also fill up the early week evening blocks (Monday-Wednesday) with social league play.
Note that without targets no tee line scoring system alone has been able to fill evening time slots. With range targets it’s a breeze.

CAN MY DRIVING RANGE MAKE MORE MONEY AT NIGHT THAN DURING THE DAY

EVENING ENTERTAINMENT WINS HANDS DOWN

Practice and play are completely different animals that attract different customers.

DAYTIME PRACTICE

Practice generates about 10% of a driving range’s potential.
In the evening no one goes out to practice, especially on Saturday night.
Only a small percentage of non-golfers practice…but they sure like to play

EVENING PLAY
No one goes out alone. So in the evening you will see 3-6 people per bay asking for food and beverages.
Customers lose track of their spending as they get more and more into their gaming experience.
Customers are paying for the table, before they buy a meal
By renting the bays for an hour and then having games that last 45 minutes you are nearly gauaranteeing customers stay for at least an hour and a half.

CAN I JUST PUT IN TEE BOX SCORING ALONE AND STILL MAKE MONEY  

Sure. Toptracer, Inrange and Trackman offer kiosk scoring solutions that are all very robust and they will increase your daytime and practice bottomline. Definitely worth putting on your range. The issue is how to get to the extremely lucrative golf enteraintment evening hours where you make four times what a bucket of balls can generate. This requires a complete tee box to target solution that automates the driving range as much as it automates the tee line. By combining real with virtual, the impact is multiplied 5 fold. To be more blunt. With only scoring kiosks you have only half a bowling alley. You need the pins. Smart Targets are the bowling pins that increase your business by 300% and more.

HOW ARE TARGET GOLF DRIVING RANGES EASIER TO MARKET

INSTAGRAM IS EVERYTHING

Today, your customers are your advertising agency. What they say and send to their friends is everything. Giant smart targets cause customers to pull out their phones cameras and click away. In fact, we design your field so that even the worst photographer will take an impressive shot. Without anything in the field and only a scoring kiosk, customers simply don’t instagram their kiosk. They shoot the field like crazy though.

It is also much easier to sell the evening bay hour experience because the majority of your customers work during the day and the evening is when they can spend their leisure money.

Selling play and fun is far easier than selling competition and skill. The easier it is and the more fun it is, the more customers will want to play and stay.

HOW WEATHERPROOF ARE PERMANENT RANGE TARGETS  

When dealing with freezing weather of the north or the humidity of the south, all weather durability is very important. More importantly, targets need to withstand the riggers of most driving range sprinkler systems.

To combat weather, we’ve designed a multi-layer laminate target topped with synthetic turf designed to hear every ball strike while protecting all the vital lighting and sensors components from the severity of mother nature.

MOBILE TARGET SYSTEMS 

Mobile golf targets are made of optical ripstop nylon for easy storage and activation. They inflate in a few minutes and house a smart target light that can sense any golf ball that hits it. So players know when they scored. This feedback is key to creating all types of evening target golf parties and competitions.

Mobile targets open up the night by providing a tight, social golf experience where everyone can hang out, heckle their friends and be social. Target parties can range from large 20 bay events to simple 3 target ‘cigar parties’ down a fairway or off the back of the pub. Then, as quickly as the targets went up, you can deflate them and make your facility a golf course for the morning.

WHAT ARE THE BEST EVENTS FOR MOBILE TARGETS  

1 Target hole in one
3 Target ‘cigar’ Parties
Cosmic Skills Competitions

HOW TO TREAT MOBILE TARGETS 

Mobile nylon targets are designed to inflate quickly and deflate almost as fast. Targets come with a zipper in the back and on the top.

WHEN SETTING UP A TARGET roll out target to set flat on the ground
– Place Smart target light inside the center of the target using the zipper at the center of the target. Depending on the angle of the target, place the light onto the plastic container the components come in.
– Attach light to lithium battery at back of target
– Attach blower at the back of the target with the Lithium battery
– Turn on the blower. In about 20 minutes the target will be up and ready. If you would like to inflate the target faster, use a backpack blower and blow air through the zipper at the back of the target.
– Go to tee line and turn on your laptop and cosmic communicator. Then attach the laptop to any wireless speak.
– With the targets turned on and the tee line sound ready to go, you can begin playing target golf.
WHEN TAKING DOWN THE TARGETS open up the zippers. Remove lighting and detach the blower. Let target deflate naturally.
– Once deflated, fold target in half. Make sure you are folding so that the outside zipper is in the crease of the fold. Then fold it over a 2 time. Once the target is in a 4ft wide roll, begin rolling the target toward the zipper so that all extra air goes out the end as you are rolling.
– Take the rolled up target and place in the nylon bag. If the target is wet from weather or moist from evening dew, we recommend not packing up the target until you are able to lay it out and dry it out. Not storing wet targets helps prevent mildew and mold issues over time.
– Store targets in a dry space between events

HOW DO YOU HANDLE REPAIRS AND MAINTENANCE 

One of the strengths of the Smart target system is that all our compoents from lights to sensors are made to b modular and easily interchangeable.

Smart target hotline will allow us to tap into your system and diagnose any issue on any target in a matter of moments. Let us help you change the light and sound on your system. We are happy to do it.
All components are IP67 rated for adverse conditions
All vital components that make the targets work, are housed in a metal weatherproof case at the back of each target. This case holds the cosmic communicator that is part of our wireless mesh network that controls all the targets.
All venues are supplied with backup components along with a Cosmic hotline where we can tap into your system and see all the vital stats of every target from color to its operating temperature.

CAN PICKERS DRIVE OVER THE TARGETS

NO DO NOT DRIVE ON TARGETS – Yes our targets can handle a beating but they are not designed to be driven on. They are targets. They are your money makers. Treat them with as much respect as you would your tee line scoring system. We recommend putting a 2ft ring of aggregate around the target protects the target from picker inadvertently driving over and hurting the target.

DO YOU MAKE CUSTOM COURSE DESIGNS 

Yes, we are a proud manufacture of all types of custom target sizes as well as replica ‘power greens’ that respond with light and sound.

All permanent targets are designed and manufactured in the US with US components and materials. We also manufacture segmented ‘dart boards’ and greens for golf team practice areas.

IS THERE A DESIGN FEE? 

We do charge design and installation fees, depending on your field layout and requirements. Some fields do not require design work. It all depends on your visual and interactive goals.

IS THERE A SET UP FEE?

Yes, ask about our lease program and the set up fees associated. They are generally in line with the number of targets you are needing.

WHAT ABOUT A WARRANTY?

All permanent targets come with a 2 year warranty on all components. All permanent target systems come with online customer support along with quarterly maintenance.

DO YOU HAVE A LEASE TO BUY PROGRAM? 

Yes we do. Qualifying venues are eligible to license our Smart Targets and Smart laser module. Our lease program incorporates a setup fee along with a monthly license/lease for 4 years.

WHAT ARE THE LEAD TIMES TO INSTALL A PERMANENT TARGET SYSTEMS:  

Mobile targets are presently built to order 60-90 days lead time. Permanent targets are fabricated in the US with a lead time of 60-90 days.

STORAGE REQUIREMENTS?  

A 30ft target can fit in a 30×40” vinyl bag that can be stacked and stored. Glow balls and ball chargers come in hampers that can be stacked together between events.

WILL PICKERS HURT THE TARGETS 

Yes they will. We do not recommend driving over range targets. Generally the range is picked clean before an evening event. Then the targets are taken up before the range is picked after an event or the next morning.

LEAD TIME FOR MOBILE TARGET DELIVERY 

Depending on air or water shipping the order will take 60-90 Days