HANOI,
VEITNAM:
“Papa, can you rent me a warehouse?”
“Ummm, why son?”
“I’d like to build a laser tag center.”
This was the actual conversation between Stanley and his
son, Taiga, on the way
from the airport to their new home in Hanoi, Vietnam last
August (2011). Stanley's family had visited only a couple
months prior to the big move and his kids left with the
distinct impression that Hanoi lacked the excitement
they craved.
Stanley sat in the car thinking over his son’s request and
realized that it was a pretty good idea.
With 15% of the
local population being teenagers with expendable cash,
it didn’t take long to round up investors for a new
concept in Vietnam.
A year later, his business partners and Stanley opened
Hanoi’s first full on laser tag arena, café and private
party zone called “X-Factory”.
In June they rented a small
warehouse. They adopted a chemical plant and laboratory
motif and then went crazy with the design and service
concept.
The indoor laser tag arena features a 7 meter chemical tanker truck
dropping through our café ceiling and an insane glowing
motorcyclist ripping out of a post-apocalyptic mural in
the arena.
Space is tight in the arena at 16 meters by
20 meters, so the team designed a two layer arena and scaled
down the total player numbers to a maximum of 16.
To make
certain it worked, the X-Factory team tested the concept and
their new
Battlefield Sports Scorpions with a group of U.S.
Marines stationed with the Embassy — Marine tested!
Core to their business model is a desire to set the bar on
game play, customer service, equipment and facilities so
high that X-Factory becomes the benchmark for extreme
sports in Vietnam.
"We could have gone with cheaper
Chinese equipment but the Battlefield Sports units give
us the shock and awe factor that matches our business
model," said Stanley.
"We needed robust world class equipment and refused to
settle for second best," he said.
STAR was the perfect choice because the hit-feedback
also speaks Vietnamese.
They have had 19,000 visits just this month to their Vietnamese
Facebook site.
Their English site opens in November.
www.x-factory.vn
Stanley says: "Our slogan is: “X-Factory, Say NO to
Boredom!”
