FECs and COVID-19

THE NEW NORMAL

Public Response and The Future of Entertainment

Our Sektor offices are located in the belly of the beast; Houston TX. It’s been a wild ride with businesses opening and closing again, masks/no masks, stay at home orders coming and going, and a swiftly rising number of confirmed Covid 19 cases. We’ve already seen loads of local businesses shut their doors permanently. Ultimately we’re hopeful for the future. As a country we’re innovative and the entertainment industry is resilient. The data is in on many aspects of this thing so I’m confident that adherence to some simple safety measures will have a positive impact on the spread of coronavirus.

Corporate Response

Arcades and FECs were able to reopen in Texas on June 10th, although their capacity limits have since been reduced. These restrictions have been unfortunately treated as loose suggestions by many people and businesses here in Houston, which isn’t good for virus spread. You see those crazy videos of crowded nightclubs with little regard for the pandemic. It’s bizarre, to say the least. Some FECs have opted to close their VR attractions for safety (OMNI ARENA at Dave & Busters Houston), seen here:

So that’s good, right? Well for a closed-air attraction like the OMNI there might be some improvements to be had, such as industrial air filtration. D&B also closed their VR “rides” (supplied by VRStudios), likely due to proximity between the seated players. So here’s where the plot thickens; while these VR games were off-limits D&B was total nightmare fuel for the germophobe. Of the nearly 200 patrons inside (it was fairly busy) only 2 of them were wearing masks. All of the staff was wearing masks of course, but games and tables were treated as normal with zero effort to distance tables or barstools. We stayed for almost 20 minutes and didn’t observe any effort to keep games or tables clean. Take a look at all the people there, unmasked…

Lots of people, no masks, no distancing, no cleaning of equipment

This is partly the fault of D&B, but partly speaks to the fact that the population will absolutely disregard safety at the first opportunity. Thankfully since this photo was taken we now have a mandatory mask order in place, so this unfortunate situation from June hopefully won’t be seen again for a while.

Doing it Right

Main Event and Andrettis are doing much better in terms of cleanliness and distancing solutions. One suggestion we heard before arcades reopened was to deactivate every other game on your line as a means to distance players from one another. Andretti’s had a really clever twist on this idea to keep their 4 Cruisin arcades on - spread the machines into a cross-like pattern.

Keep all the games on if they’re arranged correctly

The staff at Andretti’s was furiously cleaning every game and surface consistently. It was a really welcomed sight. They’ve got the new Hologate tower there and while they didn’t have any Cleanboxes the attendants were spraying the VR headsets liberally with cleaning solution between uses. Major props to operations like these that are going above and beyond to put their patrons at ease. Unfortunately for business owners it’s incumbent on us to maintain safety this since the public won’t put in the effort if they don’t have to.

We like to use disposable face coverings with Sektor VR. They look goofy, but it’s more sanitary and boosts the cleaning efforts between uses.

What Next?

Even the smartest people in the world are guessing at this. Industry vets are making their guesses and putting their best foot forward. There are lots of ways this can go, but you can indeed open your business responsibly and return to this new normal. People want to get out of the house, have fun and socialize. We’re hardwired that way. We hope you can weather this storm, finish the year strong and most importantly stay safe and stay healthy. Cheers, friends! See you soon.

Amusement Expo in March 2020, just before lockdown