17/05/2025
Well.. rather sadly, itās time to close the doors at FreePlay. I know many of you will be sad to see it go, but as a business.. itās just not working. Iād love to āgive it more timeā as many suggest, but what you need to remember is, if thereās no money coming in, there are still bills to pay. The longer I wait it out, the more debt I get into. Then when it eventually completely falls on its ass, all of my assets (the machines) will be sold to pay off debt, rather than go back into the bank. I simply can not let this happen. Many people have suggested āadvertising betterā but Iāve done my best. Iāve been marketing it since it was just an idea back in October. We have nearly 2,200 followers on facebook, so we arenāt completely unknown.
As Iāve always said, everyone that has been, has absolutely loved it, the feedback has been fantastic, which makes it even harder to call it a day.
Just to put things in perspective, the business needs to make Ā£500 a day on the weekends to break even, itās making around Ā£200. āWell, open more days thenā this has been proven pointless, we tried week days and most days the takings were ZERO.. the odd day made Ā£30-40-50. Everyone is at work or at school, and even after school and work, people are busy with their weekly lives.
The plan was to break even on the weekends and make profit in the holidays, easily doable I thought, but itās haemorrhaging money on the weekends and just about breaking even in the holidays.
Money is tight for everyone and an arcade is a luxury at the end of the day, not a necessity. This combined with people just not knowing we are even a thing and the hefty overheads of the building, electricity and booking system. Are the dagger to the heart of poor old FreePlay.
Thank you to everyone that has shown their support over the last 6 months, also, shout out to the guy who came and bought a ticket just to show support but didnāt want to play š I didnāt get your name, but thank you.
I have considered moving the arcade to a more affordable location, but I donāt think Iām prepared to take yet another gamble.
TO ANYONE WITH A OUTSTANDING BOOKING: Donāt panic, your bookings are still valid and will be honoured before we pack up.