One of the most powerful benefits offered by the International Laser Tag Association is that of a Facility Review.

An ILTA Representative secretly shops the facility as a guest. They look at the site from a first time visitors point of view. The check out the cleanliness, the friendliness, and the operation.

The Reviewer goes through all the motions including sitting through the brief, vesting, playing the game, getting the scorecards, purchasing a soft drink or concession, playing the video games, checking out the bathrooms and more. Once completed, the ILTA representative introduces himself and presents a business card. If the facility is a member, the owner or the manager will receive a verbal report. If the facility is not a member, the operator does NOT receive the report.

In an effort to display a review, here are two that took place:

[ilta] More Reviews
Date: 
Tue, 19 May 1998 00:56:15 -0500
From: 
Erik Guthrie 


ALL:

I don't know if these are helpful or not but here are some 
other center reviews that the ILTA recently conducted:

Laserforce Sacramento - Boo! Hiss!  This facility is 2000 miles 
away and is one of my favorites.  The place is themed in a 
medivial  castle style atmosphere and huge.  The lobby is handpainted 
(the fools!)  and is very friendly.  The counter is close to the door 
so as to allow  instant guest recognition and acknowledgement.  Most 
of the staff does  not know what I look like and I am always greeted 
with a "Hello!" or "Hi!".

The arena plays like a Laser Quest arena (I hope you understand 
that phrase) and is two story.  The towers were repainted (an ILTA
recommendation) and the guest seem to understand how to tag the bases
better.  The marshalls are friendly and helpful in the arena.  The
briefing room was being repainted and looked fairly cool.  I did
question the big swirl on the Exit Door (I told the owners that it
looked like a toilet flushing type of swirl).  The hallway to the
vesting room is non-descript.  The vesting room is very easy to
understand your team color and to grab your packs.  The rubber floor
helps minimize damage from dropped phasers.

The negatives to the facility is that it is starting to show wear.  
I spent a great deal of my time analyzing guest flow and how to 
increase capture rates.  In all fairness, this facility has been 
an ILTA Trained Site and and ILTA Critiqued Site so we have a long 
relationship with the owners.

Ultrazone Philedelphia - another ILTA Member Center.  I spent 
the day with the owner Bob Wood (who is a member of this listserv).  
Bob does great business and I did not believe that I would 
find anything strongly in the negative manner.  I was glad to 
see that I was right.  Bob's place is large (about 9000 sq. ft.) 
and his arena plays great.  The highest playable point in the arena 
is 31 ft. high.  The arcade games were current and the "latest".  
Sales literature was on display and posters were utilized effectively 
to help educate the first time visitor.  The briefing room was very 
intense with an entire wall that was behind a black great and had 
black light illuminating from behind the marshall.  The arena map was 
on a clear acrylic hanging on this back wall and accented in a red 
light.   The strength of this visual presentation also detracts.  
The GameMaster's  face is hard to see which I feel hinders their 
effectiveness.  Humans  convey through facial gestures and this 
important form of communication  is being denied to the guest.  
Further, the GameMasters refer to rules  on the walls that are hard 
to see and understand.  Pinspotting the  rules and the GameMasters 
would help improve the guests interaction  in the briefing room.  
The first brief that I sat through bordered on  the pathetic.  
The young man made no attempt at balancing teams; the brief lacked 
coherency; the young man failed to project his presence 
to the guests and failed to clearly enunciate his vocalization of 
the  brief. The next GameMaster did a far better job.  The only 
other truly  negative moment IMO was when Bob was interacting with 
a guest at an  amusement device (playing Blitz!!!) and I saw an 
employee eating at  the front counter. 

That was a review on a non-member facility. But we hope you see the detail and factors that we look for in conducting a review. What do our members say about Site Reviews?:

Date: 
Tue, 19 May 1998 09:35:25 -0400
From: 
Bob Wood [Ultrazone Philedelphia]

Erik,

Thanks for sparing us the embarrassment of posting all 
the details of your visit to our store. 

To those of you who have never had the benefit of Erik's 
experience and wisdom via a site review, I highly recommend 
making arrangements to do so as soon as possible. You won't 
be disappointed. I only wish he could have stayed longer.

Date: 
Tue, 19 May 1998 22:24:45 EDT
From: 
QAFFILIATE [4 Q-Zar's in Ohio and 1 in Pittsburgh]


>Thanks for sparing us the embarrassment of posting all 
the details of your visit to our store. 

Bob,

You have good company.  I am always humbled by his visits 
and follow-up immediately.  

Yes, Erik, we terminated the marshal that you were underwelmed 
with, and brought in an audio specialist to fix the sound system. 
They swear the fog was working.  Just not enough to your liking.  
Maybe it's one of our secrets to low expenses.  :o)

Jay Gutmann
Q-Affiliates (Q-Zar)

Date: 
Wed, 20 May 1998 08:28:00 -0400
From:
Bob Wood [Ultrazone Philedelphia] 

Thanks for the positive comments Jay. I would agree with 
the humbled aspect. We've already made changes due to 
recommendations from Erik. Funny thing, I already knew most 
of what Erik told us but in the whirlwind of day to day 
operations it becomes easy to overlook some of
the details. It was great to have Erik to put it all into 
perspective
for me. 

Bob Wood