Oxygen Bar viability

[Maulik]

A suggestion that doesn't meet your requirements but I'll throw it out anyway: girls need a healthy place to eat, "Brown Bag" in Bethesda, MD would do well in a college environment, I'm surprised it hasn't been done at the University of Maryland.

[rutang]

[ QUOTE ]
run video game tournaments out of it in the evenings

80% of the fees go into prize pool and 20% goes to your business

do the popular games that everyone thinks they rule at so u'll get a lot of participants

u could get fancy and do leagues and such with entry every week or join teams, etc...then big end of season playoffs and such, along with regular open tournaments

[/ QUOTE ]

I can speak from great experience here - this is not a good idea. I'll try and list the biggest reasons this will not succeed.

1. The most competitive games don't add a lot by live tournaments. It's possible to have a special event that people get excited about.. but quickly people will figure out it's not a value added experience live.

2. That leaves only profit motive for people to play in the tournaments. Most of these games are not like Poker. The donks in a Halo tournament don't ever "scoop a big pot" after a few tries it's very clear that they are the small fish, and cannot win. They will not return.

3. Even if it succeeded, the take from the tournament will not even cover the setup costs very easily. You have to be counting on the revenue being generated by sales at the venue, that makes this an advertising idea and not a business idea. to make this harder, video game tournament types are not big spenders.

I owned a game store for almost five years (I sold it last year) In a store with tons of target-age customers who regularly played in other game tournaments, I could not get competitive videogaming off the ground. I did have limited success with VG rental time where kids could hang out and play the party games on gamecube.

[jokerthief]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
run video game tournaments out of it in the evenings

80% of the fees go into prize pool and 20% goes to your business

do the popular games that everyone thinks they rule at so u'll get a lot of participants

u could get fancy and do leagues and such with entry every week or join teams, etc...then big end of season playoffs and such, along with regular open tournaments

[/ QUOTE ]

I can speak from great experience here - this is not a good idea. I'll try and list the biggest reasons this will not succeed.

1. The most competitive games don't add a lot by live tournaments. It's possible to have a special event that people get excited about.. but quickly people will figure out it's not a value added experience live.

2. That leaves only profit motive for people to play in the tournaments. Most of these games are not like Poker. The donks in a Halo tournament don't ever "scoop a big pot" after a few tries it's very clear that they are the small fish, and cannot win. They will not return.

3. Even if it succeeded, the take from the tournament will not even cover the setup costs very easily. You have to be counting on the revenue being generated by sales at the venue, that makes this an advertising idea and not a business idea. to make this harder, video game tournament types are not big spenders.

I owned a game store for almost five years (I sold it last year) In a store with tons of target-age customers who regularly played in other game tournaments, I could not get competitive videogaming off the ground. I did have limited success with VG rental time where kids could hang out and play the party games on gamecube.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is very, very intelligent analysis of this idea, and you should consider it carefully.

I would also add another question: Is it legal? Hosting fee based tournaments where you only give out 80% of the entry fees sounds like a casino to me. There is strict legislation against most of these businesses.

[cianosheehan]

I know I said this already but I just wanted to post again cuz I think it merits a bit of discussion.

What if you set up the bar as a hang out, try get a few college people through the doors, do discounts on meals for college students, offer promotions on coffee, smoothies and whatever else.

When you are somewhat established, approach the students who come into your place, and leave an open invitation with them whereby they can use the place for whatever functions they wish. The more the word spreads about this, the better for you, as there must be dozens of little interest groups in the college and having a place to meet that isn't one of their houses would be great for them. As long as it's legal, they can hold whatever kind of night they wish. You just have to supply the venue, they bring in the crowds. If you manage to get a handful of groups who want to have weekly nights of whatever they are interested in, that could mean the place busy every weekday, then the weekends will look after themselves as you will in turn be known as a cool place to go.

To kick start your involvement with the college, you could;

Pay a good local band to play at the opening night.

If there is any art faculty in the college, put up posters inviting submissions for interior design. Most art students would jump at the chance to have this in their portfolio. Make sure they know what they are doing. If you dont like any of the submissions, dont run with them obv.

Get in touch with a talented local graffiti artist and pay him to do a wall or two, interior or exterior whatever is most suitable.

I'd also make sure you have free wifi from the start. You may get people buying one coffee and sitting there for 2 hours, but at the start your main concern is making the place look busy.

If I think of anything else I'll post again

[bogey]

I've never seen an oxygen bar type place that actually just serves oxygen. The only times I've ever seen it is as a little side attraction to the main regular bar and it still didn't seem very popular. I just can't see this working at all.

[freemoney]

jungle grille does real well at u of md for this exact reason it is by far the healthiest place to eat within a reasonable distance.

[nation]

Ok here's the thing. An oxygen bar has a shot of working in an expensive, city full of transient people passing through on business, vacation, etc. There is just no way you're going to attract younger people to keep coming back. It's not something that people are going to go out and enjoy doing with friends on a regular basis without something else attracting them.

I'm not even sure if it's viable in a big city, it's very gimmicky and I'm sure a lot of people are turned off by it. The hamburger stand is a cash cow if it's around bars or on the way back to dorms and apartments. As for the bigger, more involved business, I would look into stuff involving putting in a standardized testing center for mcats, sats, lsats etc. If your area doesn't have one, you could make a lot of money doing that.

[guids]

one thing Ive always wanted to give a try is a bodybuilder/health food restaurant, but not this pansy [censored] that I see, I mean real health food, with a macronutrient breakdown on the menu, serving anything from low carb high protien smoothies to health chicken parm or chilli, etc.

[nation]

guids have you ever posted your pic on 2+2? i have this image in my head of you and im sure that's exactly how you look.

[guids]

[ QUOTE ]
guids have you ever posted your pic on 2+2? i have this image in my head of you and im sure that's exactly how you look.

[/ QUOTE ]


the only person taht has ever seen my pic is gildwulf becuase he wanted to know what I look like. I look like a cross between sean penn, and your typical italian stereotype.