AMF Game Rates?

[hewer]

AMF are no longer owned by Macquarie Bank so you can scrap that idea, however yes obviously Ardent Leisuire do still want to make money... That's obvious to all.

I have seen an AMF manager search up on the league data base (because that is what the introduction of all these roller / gold roller cards was made for so all league bowlers could be found and seen which centres they have bowled at etc) for this couple that came in and wanted to bowl but didn't have their roller card on them. Why couldn't this centre's staff do that for you Chris, it takes about 1 min to open up the section and type in your details and see that you're a league bowler.

Like Paul said, 100% of "x" is better than 0% of "y"

Prices go up every year at AMF, but what does a bowler get out of it? Better lanes? Better conditions? Better aircon?

Bowling is one expensive sport to be involved in, even if you do get cheaper games rates etc

 

[Magpie17]

Why couldn't there be a family price, not just in School Holidays but always most other places where the family can visit have these, the Zoo's, Public Pools and such.
When I used to take my kids I would pay for the lane and bowl with them, as has been said the kids lose interest so then I would finish the game.
Bowling in Australia is currently a dear sport/Leisure activity unfortunatly.

 

[Gary]

Just went bowling with my daughter 2 games each they new me as a league bowler i never asked for a discount was charged $5.50 a game will be bowling more games with the kids now i know its $5.50

Thanks AMF

 

[lordofthepins]

Gary, $5.50 isn't bad to bowl for a child of a league bowler..I got 4 for $18, no problems there at all.

Its the walk in bowlers, u know Mum and Dad with the two or three kids, it gets mighty expensive...Once bitten twice shy!!

 

[Geoff300]

Hi Everyone,

Today I went to an AMF Bowling centre with my 2.5 year old daughter (for the 3rd time), hoping to get her into the "swing" (pun intended) of tenpin bowling. I wasn't going to bowl, just help her have some fun. I went up to the counter and I didn't know the person at the desk, but I stated I was an AMF league bowler , but I didn't have my league card at the time. Granted, this was an AMF centre different to the one I usually bowl league in. Nevertheless, I quickly and sadly found out that non-league prices for anyone under the age of 14 years is $13.50 per game. I'll repeat that, yes, $13.50 per game... even for a 2.5 year old that needs help bringing the ball to the foul line, loses interest in the game before the end of 12 frames and wants to play with the console and type on the buttons instead. Am I the only person that thinks this is outrageous pricing for kids under the age of 5 years?

If it wasn't yet clear to me (which it was before anyway), it is blatantly obvious now that AMF is here just for the money. I understand that they have to make money, but profitting that much at the toddlers expense... that's a bit much. What actually happened to kids under 5 years having discounts and helping kids become interested in the sport by helping their parents afford the games. If nothing else, this should at least apply until they reach a certain age that their attention span is long enough that they want to watch the ball hit the pins (which hasn't really happened yet for my 2.5 year old daughter).

Your thoughts are welcome bowlers, and AMF staff/ price makers...

Chris

Hey , don't you think it is all a bit strange

You can join a league and pay $5.50 for a game
or pay $13.50 for social play

League bowling is going backwards and
social play is going up

You can get coaching at most centres
for very little cost and learn not to throw
the ball in the gutter

I wonder what AMF centres promote ???

Go figure

 

[STEROID]

Thanks everyone for your comments related to this post...

Lordofthepins,
I agree, I could have taken my daughter to play other activities, but this was a one off and probably won't happen again because I'll either bring my league card, or won't pay the price this time. 0% of $13.50 as stated nicely by Bluey.

Stevejones,
I'm not really sure why you may not like me, but thanks for the expectations comment/ compliment. This would indicate to me that you must at least respect me because if you didn't, you wouldn't have some (however little) expectations of me. Either way, I appreciate your comments within this post and also the compliment I am taking from your post.

Phluff,
Yes, I agree that independent centres are much more family friendly, and cater more to the competitive bowler, which is why I bowl at independent centres more than AMF when I can.

Tonx,
I also agree with you... 10 minutes for $13.50 is the major issue here. I often tell people that I'd rather spend 4 hours of my time on the golf course for $30 than to spend $30 in the bowl for about 1.5 hours. It's just too expensive bowling for the amount of time you spend in the centre.

Hewer,
Thanks for the information about the owner of AMF. In any case, if AMF continues this pricing system, it seems the only bowling centres that may be around in 50 years will be the indepedent centres. Thanks also for the information about searching the database, but unfortunately, this manager didn't even think about that option. He just asked me for my $13.50.

Overall, the bottom line is that I would like to see AMF try to do something about their prices for younger bowlers, which may help the parents and also the potential development programs.

Chris

 

[cindyd]

Hi all it is a sad fact that if we can't get more juniors into this sport of ours we will be in big trouble in years to come. The only way to do this is to have them come into the centre to start with and talk to them and let them know what the sport offers. It is an expensive sport if you take it to the higher levels i should know i have 2 that are active in representative bowling.
I hired a new manager to help sort this out and as he said i can;t recruit if there is nobody in the centre bowling after school ,weekends, so we set about changing this our game price varies we have a few options,
1 game 5.95,2 games 11.50 3 games 16.50.
Family Deals based on 2 adults 2 children 1 game each $21.00 and 4.50 for any extra child or 2 games $41.00 and 9.00 each extra child. It can also be with Grandma Grandpa etc.
We where doing great weekend social trade but still not a lot of recruiting so we also started Silly Sundays $3.00 games all day but only morning busy and very quite night so we went back to normal Sundays till 3pm and $3.00 games till close wow what a big difference it made.
6 new juniors bowling and a couple of adults starting.
The moral is more people in the centre more recruiting more income in the cafe and Mum and Dad go home feeling they have had value for there money.We would all like to make a great big fat profit but in this day and age it is not going to happen.
Cindy Donnelly
Garden City Lanes.

 

[androooo]

There will be no way my son will be a bowler....

Unless he grows up to be lefthanded and can roll a tennis ball with no revs. Seems like that works for most lefties...

Golf all the way.

 

[willey]

Well done Cindy, keep up the good work, as an EX 36 year Bowling Centre Employee, I seen the price gouging AMF was doing over the years, one of the reasons I got out, I could see the Future and it wasn't pretty.

willey

 

[mongoliantreesloth]

Trouble with AMF is that income comes first. From their POV it's all about the money as it's a business and businesses are in the business of making money. Simple. Customer service is a piss-poor second at best.

 

[bluey]

Trouble with AMF is that income comes first. From their POV it's all about the money as it's a business and businesses are in the business of making money. Simple. Customer service is a piss-poor second at best.

There is more than one way to make money, the McDonalds way.. small profit on each item but sell millions of them, (seems to work for them) or the AMF way, profit heaps on each game but don't sell that many. Hmmmmmm?

 

[$$Pricey$$]

There is more than one way to make money, the McDonalds way.. small profit on each item but sell millions of them, (seems to work for them) or the AMF way, profit heaps on each game but don't sell that many. Hmmmmmm?

if only they would do the mcdonalds way.....

i would be doing a lot more practising thats for sure!

 

[Roysa]

simply not enough interest in australia...

im suprised more of them have not shut down to be honest.

Its a shame.

I remember not long ago walking into a centre in sydney at 11am on a Monday... there was 3 people bowling on 1 lane, they finished... then it was me and only me for the next 75 mins not a single person came in.

Reminded me of the old days at another sydney bowl when the old man had to lock up before going home... was dead quiet.

All the time on that day there was 2 counter staff, 2 or maybe 3 in the cafe and i presume a mechanic down the back. Makes it hard to profit when you have to pay 7 people when the money i spent only covered 1 hour of 1 person whislt i was there.

There is a lot being said in this thread that people probably dont know much about. Me included so il leave the debating of facts up to those who do... im just an observer and that was my ghost town experience.

 

[Tiger]

League bowling is going backwards and
social play is going up

I don't think it is here Geoff.
Anecdotally (I don't have exact figures) but I'd estimate that league numbers here are as low as they've ever been.
I've been watching the numbers drop steadily over the past 15 years and from what I've noticed it's the lowest I've personally seen it and it's continuing to drop, I know people in the league that I bowl in that'll be pulling up stumps at the end of the season. Even I've had enough to be honest.
Further to that, over the past 9 months or so I've also seen a trend where social bowler numbers are dropping pretty sharply as well. Again, too expensive.
That is a pretty worrying trend because without those there's no hope of any sort of future recruitment.
There's very few children playing anymore (and I can't say I'm surprised), I bowled in a centre Junior/Adult tournament in 1989 at Moonah that had 187 registered teams just in that tournament alone!
There were other events like that that had more than 200 teams.

You walk into the place now, it's dead.
One of the big things that got me hooked on to bowling many moons ago was walking into Moonah, seeing the huge number of bowlers in the place, huge numbers of spectators watching (and that's just leagues) social bowling was reasonably priced (not too cheap, not too expensive) and the result was you had waiting lists every single night.
If I was a kid again and walked in there tomorrow, I would probably never bowl, I'd simply turn around and walk out.
No atmosphere, not to mention too bloody dear.
The place was like a club in many ways, achievements up on the walls, standing sheets for all to see, families involved in the sport across many generations, they were even going to build a social club/restaurant for the STTBA beside Lane 24 back in the mid-80's, it was awesome.
It had an established culture of its own. It had buckets of atmosphere.

Nowdays you're a pain in the arse and you're in the way because you want to have a bowl.

I understand that they've got overheads but it also seems that they'd rather have one or two lanes going charging full price rather than ten or twenty going at a reduced price.
That's not the centre or its hardworking staff's fault, their hands are tied.
I also have to question what city the game rate is set at because our wages here are quite a bit lower than the rest of Australia and that is problematic in itself.

I make no apologies for the rant, as someone who's been involved in the sport for a pretty long time and really loved it I look at it all now, it's just disappoints me.

 

[lordofthepins]

After around 30 posts, what a lot of thoughts and varying views around on this subject. I wonder if there are any AMF big wigs perhaps casting a casual eye on this thread.. I can get a bit down on them at times, but I sincerely want them to have a full house and make money. Good on them, but I just wonder what their agenda here is or rationale for their pricing..

I'll do my bit and pay eack week for 3 sessions/leagues, I even told my eldest who was thinking about having a bowling party at Strike Bowling, that we should go AMF, cause they ARE a REAL bowling centre. True tale!!!

The consensus seems to be pretty consistant, in that AMF over charge the walk in customer, big time!!

Hey Tiger, its sad hearing you speak like this, really.. Sounds like Moonah must have been a fantastic place to hang out in and bowl in..

Would it even be worth emailing AMF's customer service dept, to understand what their objectives are in pricing.. Basically receive some form of response. Is it worth it really?? Our sport isn't even acknowledged as a "sport" by most, with no "mainstream" media attention. Even in SEN Sports Radio, several weeks ago, a caller rang in to make a comment about Belmo, it was just laughed at and dismissed.. I remember when I began bowling 2000, I saw the Coca Cola Series, Cara, Belmo was on.. I remember the dumb shi* commentator, after Cara spared the first frame, then hit 7 strikes in a row, he gets real excited "can this be her 300 game"... Priceless!! Frawley who was co-commentating had to correct him on this.Can u imagine the old Bruce McAvennie, he would have at least bothered to be pro on this.. GGRRRR. Thank god C31 is there for the bowling show, lets hope Rudd lets them go digital.

I'm just rambling here, as I don't have the answers , but know that its a sad state of affairs... I have played a lot of sports, but for some reason bowling really gets my blood boiling over various issues..I do become passionate, single minded, and easily aggrevated over it....

So if you had a crystal ball, would u be encouraging your kids into ten pin bowling as a sport??? Will junior leagues be around in 10-15 years??

I'm going to bed, I have made myself a little sad..

 

[Jase]

After around 30 posts, what a lot of thoughts and varying views around on this subject. I wonder if there are any AMF big wigs perhaps casting a casual eye on this thread..

Not yet but was on 3 weeks ago reading again...

TotalBowling

 

[jimcross]

A few years ago, I knew someone who had an AMF " Operations Manual", or some name like that, from the 1960s.
It had a very interesting section on how Centre Management and staff were to go about recruiting new bowlers, including how to recruit new league bowlers from social bowlers, etc.

You can't just transfer things like that to to-day (40 / 50 years later ) because society and people are different. BUT, it demonstrates the DIFFERENCE IN POLICY, and something similar, designed for to-day, would still work.

I'll see if I can find this old manual - highly unlikely - but maybe someone else can, there are probably dozens of them around.

 

[Magpie17]

Maybe a solution is to register your children in a little league, then you get the practice price!
Only a band aid I know but it's a start.
Thinking further on this, why do league bowlers get cheaper Practice games?
If it's because the bowler contibutes regulary to the centre then why not have a loyalty card program where off the street regulars could get a card and after say 10 or 15 games they get 3 free games! This would be like saying if you spend $135/$202 then we will reward you with free games to the value of $40.50 (this is using a game price off $13.50) Would this help fill the Lanes?

 

[hewer]

Chris' children shouldn't need to be registered in a league, if he himself is a league bowler, he is allowed to get 4 guests that attend the bowl with him at league rates.

I'm assuming that his 2yo isn't going to the bowl alone

 

[Magpie17]

Chris' children shouldn't need to be registered in a league, if he himself is a league bowler, he is allowed to get 4 guests that attend the bowl with him at league rates.

I'm assuming that his 2yo isn't going to the bowl alone

I wasn't really talking about Chris's children, I was making a general contribution to the thread I thought!