What can you do with a 500 sqm unit?

The short answer

At 500 sqm the area stops constraining you and starts forcing a choice. Either a single activity run at high throughput, or a complete venue whose bar is the heart of it. Both models exist in our work, at 400 and at 600 sqm.

Choosing depth

Pirate Experience, Paris: 400 sqm, one action game. A single activity, with several teams playing at once. It is the most efficient format in floor area per player: the same set, the same staff and the same supervision serve several groups simultaneously.

This model is judged on hourly throughput, not on the number of attractions. It does require a reception able to absorb several groups arriving and leaving at the same time, which is the real difficulty in the layout.

Choosing breadth

Le Temple, La Rochelle: 600 sqm, five activities. Games bar, escape game, action game, karaoke and bar. The venue is built around the games bar, which holds the central space and gives customers a reason to stay after their game.

It was our first project, commissioned in late September 2023 and open before Christmas. Le Temple called us back the following year to rewrite a room, which remains the only measure of quality that counts in this trade.

The calculation that settles it

Between the two, it is arithmetic rather than taste:

• Hourly throughput. How many people the venue can put into play per hour in normal operation, not at peak.
• Dwell time. A single activity moves people in and out. A bar makes them stay, and raises revenue per customer without any new floor area.
• Payroll. Five activities and a bar cannot be run by two people on a Saturday night.
• Rent per square metre. At 500 sqm, a two-euro difference per square metre per month is a sum that weighs on breaking even in year one.

What to check at this size

• Available electrical supply, which becomes a governing constraint: stage lighting, sound, air conditioning and effects all run together.
• Air conditioning. A venue where people run has a heat load unlike any retail use.
• Circulation and evacuation for a markedly higher occupancy.
• Clear height, if the project includes an intermediate level.

Next step

This size band is decided on operating figures before it is decided on a layout. That is the purpose of a feasibility study, then of a business plan.