Commercial units

[closedclubface]

I know some have their doubts based on my location, but I am definitely going ahead with a very small commercial operation. My basic setup is likely to consist of optishot and GC2 units. The location I am looking at has 14' ceilings which seems more than enough. I am confused on the space for each enclosure. A net return with the runners is 8' wide and the runners are just 10' long. Most contributors say you need an enclosure to be 15' wide (which I understand) but 20' deep. I am not sure why I need the full 20' depth - I can guess, but I hope you can help me with this?

[Dax]

I think you would tee up about 10 feet from the screen, but you will want to have a safe distance for people to stand or sit behind you while playing. In a commercial set up you may need more as you will need room for people to walk to the sims and not disturb those playing and having fun with their friends.

[Richard_Askren]

I built my simulators at 18 ft. deep x 16 ft wide. They work great at those dimensions. Width is a bit more important than depth, but you do need close to 20 ft. If mine were any shorter golfers would be too close to the screen or their club would be outside the hitting area on their back swing with a driver. You'll want to have 7-10 feet of space outside the simulator for seating and a safe area to stand while someone's swinging. My building is 30x90 ft and it was just enough room for 4 simulators and to have good seating. Using the Optishot or GC2 systems you could build the sidewalls shorter than I did for mine to save some building cost.

Make sure you have more to offer than just the simulators. I built in tv's to each hitting bay with their own Directv box on each. They're a great addition that I spent less than $1000 on. My customers love having a game or ESPN or something on in the background while they golf. Think about the atmosphere of your place. You can't just build the simulators as cheap and quick as possible and expect people to keep coming back. They need to have a good experience and the environment needs to be comfortable.

Get as high of lumens of projectors you can. 2000 at minimum, 3000 or more is best and 1080p. All of this adds to the experience of your customers. You need to impress them, not just give them an outlet to golf in the winter time. If you get Directv or cable service be sure to hook up the box to the projectors, too. You could even rent out the big screens for people to watch big games on.

If you don't have the capital for food and drink inventory then work out a deal with a local vending machine company. That's what I did. Golfers WILL want snacks and drinks available on site. I don't make any money on my vending machine, but I don't do any work or pay anything for it either. They installed it and they keep it stocked. I still encourage my customers to bring in their own food and drinks if they want. You might find a company that's willing to give you a commission on whatever's sold from the machine. I didn't worry about it for me. I just wanted to have snacks and drinks available on site.

Set aside some space for a small waiting area, too, if you can. You'll sometimes have people show up early or walk-ins come in while all your simulators are in use. You don't want them just standing around or to have to ask them to come back unless there's a very long wait for a simulator to be open (which is the situation you'll want to be in eventually )

All that being said, those are just my opinions and experience so far. I've only been open for a month and a half now, but it's going great. I have quite a few regulars already and my sim time on weekends is filling up quite a bit. It's been good so far and every week sales are better than the last.

[Bubba22]

That's great Richard. Thanks for posting your experience and suggestions for those venturing this way.

[closedclubface]

Thanks everyone. Richard, your input has been great, I had already seen the pictures of your build and was really impressed. I had not realized the enclosures you have built were as deep as they are. Really pleased to hear things are going well for you. We had been looking at two spaces and based on your comments I am sure we need the larger one.
We are looking at the Optoma HD25LV which ticks all the boxes you have mentioned, The Wirecutter website has been helpful as it just looks at what it believes are the best two or three options (their top recommendation was the BenQ HT1075). We are definitely going to have a few extras like TVs for sports. As for food, we are next to a good restaurant and hope to arrange some kind of deal with them. Once we are further along I hope to post some pictures and pass on our experiences too.
Off topic, but I saw ZMax's comment that most people (I am hoping that does not mean only those based in the US) will be able to play TGC soon, but its not with Optishot, as I said in an earlier post, reading between the lines it sounds like there is a new device coming, or that TGC are in talks with a cheaper hardware provider. I love the idea of a GC2 but I am going to focus on the build first and hope that information comes available before I finish. I bought a couple of the Optishot 2s with the 25% discount promo yesterday, (they were only $375) - I have these as part of the fit-out, but could always open with these in the main enclosures if something great is on the horizon.

[Richard_Askren]

One thing to be aware of with that projector is it's not a short throw projector. If you use screens as big as mine, 10'x15', then that projector has to be 23 to 27 feet back from the screen for the image to fill it. A short throw projector needs to be 13-15 ft back to fill the size of my screens. I used the BenQ 1080ST projectors for my shop, but I wish I had went with higher lumens short throw projectors. These do work decently, but I have to keep it very dark in here for the image to not be washed out. Will definitely be one of the things I upgrade down the road.

If you can't devote at least 20 ft to the depth of the enclosures then you definitely need short throw or ultra-short throw projectors.

[closedclubface]

Location has now been confirmed. The dimensions are 47' X 30'. I need to get two enclosures into the 30', which will be tight but should be doable. Do you think we could still consider the GC2 option? CustomDesignGolf has a 'position track' which acts as a housing for a GC2 which can be flipped between left and right handed play. Even this might be cumbersome and run the risk of damaging the GC2. Still love the look of TGC, so ProTee is the other option we are considering and would make LH/RH play easier, although at 15' it could still be an issue. I am intimidated by the increased 'moving parts' for ProTee, but perhaps this is my best option?

[Richard_Askren]

15' in general is enough room for LH and RH, but using a GC2 in that space would definitely be better. Plus the GC2 will have much less build out needed than the ProTee system. With ProTee you need to build a sub-floor to recess the sensors into, or buy a couple of the mats from Par2Pro that can hold the sensors. Both options are costly. With GC2 you can get a reasonably priced LH & RH hitting mat and just put regular carpeting down underneath for the rest of the booth. You do give up getting clubhead data with the GC2, but your sims will still be perfectly playable. I do love knowing my swing path and face angle with the ProTee sensors, though.

With 30' wide you'll probably want just a canvas curtain in the middle to separate the hitting areas and absorb a ball strike and then put something on the walls to protect them on each side. You can use cheap carpeting on the walls or make some kind of padding. If you go with carpeting check with your city building inspector and make sure it meets the Flame Spread requirements of your city's ordinances. Pretty much everything you use to build will need to be ok'd by the building inspector before you build. They're picky when it comes to commercial installations. So find out what your materials are made of before you order anything and ok it with the inspector. It will save you some grief, money, and time.

[closedclubface]

I spoke with Foresight today. The LH RH issue is fixed by either lifting up the unit and moving it between each shot (or using the position track that I mentioned above), or having 2 GC2s plugged into the same PC. I was offered a discount to buy two units. I would love to have club data too, I have a Swingbyte 2 which for the price shows me at least a rough idea of what i am doing (obviously other products are more accurate, but I know what I have to work on and can see if I am improving, so that's fine for now). We have pretty much finalized the concept now and are going to have the canvas curtain between the two, but want to make sure that a shank does not move the side curtain too much - we are hoping to put in some nice padding of our own. We are really keen to push on now and hope to open by the end of March.
We will hope that the device(s) Zmax has hinted at will be announced before we finalize our hardware choice as my best guess is that it is TGC compatible and priced with TGC at $3K- $4K. Whether it is a LM or a system more similar to Pro-tee's current offering I am not sure, but if it has decent accuracy and can accommodate LH & RH play I will feel like I am getting into the market at a great time. I have seen many of the players in the market have new patents registered and with tech like Kinect and VR one day this industry is going to be something really special.

Thanks once again for your insight.

[Bubba22]

Foresight - 2 GC2's is very expensive. Surprised they gav you a deal on 2.
I have the position track. It's ok but not perfect. Can do the job.
I wouldn't place any confidence in th Swingbyte 2. I have one and it's not that accurate.