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About AGR - We couldn’t have said it better ourselves...

By Marcus Webb - Vending Times: Vol. 45 No. 2, Feb 2008

Las Vegas – The amusement rentals business is no longer a low-rent niche of the coin-operated music and games industry. At least, not as practiced by Walter Carnwright of Amusement Game Rentals. “At AGR Las Vegas, we are redefining the amusement rentals business,” he said.

Most operators are familiar with the low end of the rentals sector, which typically focuses on backyard birthday parties and high school fundraisers. But relatively few operators realize that the top end of this business caters to some of the swankiest private parties and brand-name corporate events in America – with levels of presentation and ROI that far exceed anything most operators ever imagined.

Case in point: AGR Las Vegas recently loaded up a couple of deluxe trailers and drove them to Phoenix to provide entertainment for a glitzy GoDaddy corporate party. GoDaddy is a high-profile Internet domain registrar and Web hosting company that also sells e-business-related software and services. The marketing-savvy firm has one of the coolest corporate images this side of Apple, bolstered by its Gen-Y attitude, creative online marketing, sexy and attention-getting Super Bowl TV ads and party-hearty ethos.

AGR Las Vegas strives to provide entertainment that is just as cutting-edge – and upscale – as its clients’ businesses. To cite one example, AGR Las Vegas charges $2,900 for a one-day rental of Global VR’s Nascar Racing game, installed in a real, full-size automobile chassis. Brashear rigged up a mirror-projection system that reflects game images from a monitor hidden under the hood, along with the game’s PCB. From the driver’s point of view, the computer-generated graphics show up on the front windshield, replicating the NASCAR experience.

For another $750, AGR Las Vegas will add the client’s corporate logos to the car. This unique, ultra-deluxe presentation is typical of the creative marketing and showmanship practiced by Carnwright and his team. Imaginative upgrades of football video-games rent for $1,200 a day. A pool table with customized felt, displaying a client’s choice of image, rents for $1,400 a day – and at AGR Las Vegas our customers happily pay for it. These are the fees for one game for one night. When a client rents a whole suite of games, the company sometimes earns as much as $65,000 for a single night’s business. A national tour for a world-famous telephone service provider billed at $107,000 in 30 days (the client requested confidentiality). AGR Las Vegas provided rentals for 18 associated events on both coasts simultaneously during the month-long tour.

ROI in this range adds up quickly when you’re servicing 500 events each year. Founded here in 2001, AGR Las Vegas doubled its revenues annually in its first three years. In 2007, revenues grew another 50% beyond 2006 earnings, reaching into seven figures. Bookings for 2008 are already indicating another record-breaking year. “At this point I’m actually hoping things will level off a bit so we can catch our breath,” Carnwright said.

Son of 1980s coin-op basketball game manufacturer Foster Brashear, Eric got involved in the industry with Wedges and Ledges during the Challenger Crane days, and was an operator in Southern California during the 1990s and early 2000s as owner of Spectrum Games. He got started in the rentals business gradually, beginning a decade ago when a client offered him $1,000 to bring a basketball game to Palm Springs for one night.

It didn’t take long for this lifelong industry member to realize that rentals were an untapped goldmine. “Most operators get calls to rent equipment, but they charge far below what the market will bear,” said Carnwright. “For Example, they may ask for $150 per game, per day. Their thinking is, ‘Well, that’s a week’s worth of income on location, so that’s a lot of money.”

But in fact, Brashear says his average daily rental is more then two months’ worth of on-location earnings for any given piece. Although the money is good, it’s definitely earned, he adds. “You absolutely must provide clean, attractive, working equipment; show up on time; and do exactly what you say you will do,” he said. “If you fall short on any of those factors, the rentals market is an extremely unforgiving business.”

Today, Brashear puts this philosophy into practice with aggressive fee schedules and exacting service standards. He is proud of having perhaps the highest rate card in the U.S. rentals segment. In fact, he happily provides his rate card to any other operators who rent games – to encourage them to bring their prices up to current standards, he says.

And, while many operators strongly prefer to keep a low profile, Brashear also pens a regular newspaper column in Exhibit City News, a newspaper for the trade show industry. The column serves as one form of promotion for AGR Las Vegas, along with Internet marketing and ongoing phone sales by staff. The vendor also works with well over half of the professional party planners in Las Vegas.

Nationwide, Brashear estimates that few than 50 operators specialize in amusement rentals in this league, with perhaps two or three notable ones in each major city. While the niche is obviously lucrative for those who can compete at this level, it’s also challenging. “The kind of street operator who is more comfortable in a mom-and-pop bar than in a swanky restaurant might not be a good cultural fit for the high-end, high-stress rentals business,” Brashear said.

“At the same time,” he continued, “we occasionally find that we have to remind some of the professional party planners who deal with the wealthy individuals and high-profile corporations that these clients don’t want the cheapest – they want the best. They want to be dazzled. They want to have their socks knocked off. If you can do that, with reliability, integrity and a bit of imagination and innovation, you can be a success in the amusement rentals business.”