ValoArena at Stacja Grawitacja

Gravity Station (Stajca Grawitacja) opened its first indoor adventure park in Warsaw six years ago and has added two more parks in Poland since then with another on the way. They prefer to think of themselves as more than a trampoline park and when you witness the scale of what they have achieved it’s easy to see why. In addition to the trampolines, their parks include different kinds of airbags, ropes courses, towers, and massive climbing walls (11 x 45 meters!) with over 100 routes ranging in difficulty from beginners to pros. 

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On a mission

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Founder Denis Zemund is on a mission to not only make the children of Poland more active but to also change the mindset of the Polish people, including the adults. Having been trained in the United States to build and manage indoor adventure parks and seeing firsthand the differences in attitudes, he wants Gravity Station to launch the next generation of Poles into a world without barriers or restrictions.

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To fulfill this mission, Gravity Station turned to Valo Motion to take their parks to the next level with an infusion of digital AND active gameplay. 

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A year after starting up, Gravity Station attended the International Adventure & Trampoline Park Association (IATP) Europe show and discovered Valo Motion and decided it was what they needed to bring their parks into the digital age. Now each of their three locations has two ValoJumps, which transform regular trampolines or air tracks into award-winning attractions that turn players into superheroes, and a ValoClimb, which combines motion tracking and projected graphics to turn an ordinary physical climbing wall into a real-life video game.

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Gravity Station also added ValoArena, the world’s first mixed reality playground for up to 6 players, to their Warsaw park. This unattended play arena that combines high-quality video games and physical movement has become such a hit, they can hardly wait to add it to their other parks because they believe, 

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"It's the Rolls Royce of our industry." – Denis Zemund

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Gravity Station’s motto is “Wake up your inner child,” but Denis wants to take that even further. As he continues to describe the impact of Valo Motion’s products in their parks, his tone becomes more positive and he excitedly says, “With the ValoMotion products, the kids are starting to do that. I tell them to play with your body and legs, head, everything. Yeah, come on! Feel free!”

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Charge more and bring in more guests 

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All three of their locations started with ValoJump and ValoClimb and they did not hesitate to raise prices when those attractions were introduced. When asked about who might be concerned about raising prices, Denis motioned as if his head was exploding and said, “Come on. Give your guests something unique and fun and you need to raise prices.”

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"If you add Valo Motion products, you can increase the prices." – Denis Zemund

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Gravity Station raised their 2-hour tickets by 20% and their 1-hour tickets by 14% and saw immediate results. When asked if traffic decreased after the price increases, Denis shakes his head vigorously and says, “No, no, no, no. Absolutely not. It’s going the other way. We got more and more and more. After the grand opening of ValoJump, eight weekends in a row we got 15% to 23% more customers.”

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ValoArena - The waiting is the hardest part

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Already pleased with the success of ValoJump and ValoClimb, Gravity Station invested in a competitor’s product, Hologate’s VR arena, to add to their virtual games footprint. As the ink was drying on that deal, Valo Motion announced the release of ValoArena, which does not require the use of headsets and Denis almost lost his mind, “Valo Motion is bringing out ValoArena. I want this. I want this already, and I don't know how I can convince my partners.”

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He waited for close to a year before they could add ValoArena to their indoor adventure parks. Denis and his partners visited the showroom of ELI Play, Valo Motion’s partner in the Netherlands to finally experience ValoArena firsthand. Denis says, “I want to see that, feel that. I saw the videos. Now I need to feel it.”

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“Boom! My mind was blown.” As they continued to play the games in the ValoArena he remembers his excitement rising, “Oh my gosh. I want this. I want this immediately. Everybody was happy. Everybody on my team agreed - ValoArena is an amazing product.”  

“We can't escape from Virtual Reality and we need to focus on the future,” says Denis, and now with two types of immersive arenas side-by-side in the same space, he has been an eyewitness as the competition has played out. “VR with the glasses (HMDs) is giving us one solution and Valo Motion’s ValoArena is giving us another future and it's an amazing solution and I'm absolutely a huge fan of that. When it comes to our capital expenditure, we've spent similar money on both solutions, and Valo Motion is winning for me.”

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Valo Motion’s quality and support

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Denis isn’t just an owner/operator, he also gets his hands dirty and knows what works and what doesn’t and he couldn’t be more pleased with Valo Motion.

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“ValoArena is a ridiculously good product. Absolutely amazing quality of engineering and finishing,” he says. “I love how it's built. I love that I can install ValoArena by myself. These hands build the parks. So with the products that we purchase and install, I check every detail, the engineering, everything.”

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Once ValoArena was installed and people were playing non-stop, that’s when the quality started to shine for Denis. “For me, as an owner and as an operator, ValoArena is a dream product because when you get it, you don't need to think about it because it just works.” In the rare cases when something does come up that requires support, Denis says, “I have a great relationship with Valo Motion. They are always in touch on WhatsApp with me. They're very helpful but it's really, really unusual when something is going wrong.”

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"For me, as an owner and as an operator, ValoArena is absolutely a dream product because when you get it, you don't need to think about it because it just works." – Denis Zemund

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Ease of use, simplicity, no overhead

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One of the great advantages of ValoArena, and all of Valo Motion’s products, is their ease of use. “ValoArena is idiot-proof,” says Denis. “Kids love that.”

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With no helmets, headsets, or any other peripherals to set up (or replace when they break down), players can jump in and get started right away. This not only saves on staffing costs but also increases the number of games that can be played resulting in less time waiting. This is particularly important on busy days because the excitement level is already sky-high.

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“When we have customers in the park, somebody is always playing in ValoArena.” ValoArena’s variety of games, including Groundfall and Runway Zero, also keep players coming back for more and the pace of play is particularly important to keep the line moving, “ValoArena is cool because you got quick games, you got one-minute, two-minute, three-minute games,” says Denis, “People love that. It's simple.”

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ValoArena operators can adjust game lengths to best suit their businesses and adapt to busy periods and wait times. When lines do form, the ability to see the action taking place from outside the ValoArena only makes the players more excited. “Kids see people playing inside ValoArena and they say, ‘I want to go in, I want to go in already.’ It’s even worse during the weekend, they’re fighting over who will play.”

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ValoArena’s games take in up to 6 players at a time which not only moves more players through the line, it also creates a communal experience that cannot be matched with solo activities.

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"I see a line of guests all the time for the ValoArena. All the time." – Denis Zemund

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Sneaking in the exercise

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While the primary goal of Valo Motions products is to entertain players and keep them coming back for some competitive fun, a tremendous side benefit is that they can be used as a form of exercise. Since we caught up with Denis on his way to a workout, he was particularly impressed with how ValoArena gets the blood flowing and the heart racing.

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“You could sell ValoArena games like aerobics exercise,” he says, noting that he tracked his performance on ValoArena. “I played in ValoArena for 40 minutes and I used 600 calories and my heart was beating, it was like, Boom!”

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In addition to public play times booked in one to two-hour blocks, Gravity Station provides physical education space for local schools with buses of students rolling in during the mornings and they also offer classes in acrobatic training. 

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Professional acrobatic performers have used their parks to highlight their talents by putting on showcases that sometimes turn into friendly improvisational competitions where the athletes try to top one another with their best moves. 

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Digital is the future of amusement

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As Denis explains it, “Nobody can escape it. Everything is going digital. If we don't adapt we will be at the end of the story. We will disappear.”

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For Gravity Station, Valo Motion provides everything they are looking for in a digital-age partner to complement the more traditional offerings at their indoor adventure parks. The quality and ease of use of Valo Motion’s products allow them to raise their prices and still bring in more customers and as Denis says, “From waking up in the morning, to going to sleep at night, there are close to zero troubles. Close to zero.”

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“I'm a huge fan of ValoMotion products,” says Denis. “I absolutely love their products. The usage and revenue numbers are always going up. Always. On ValoArena, guests start to share videos of their experiences. They just love it.”

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Here’s hoping that Denis sees his vision realized with the people of Poland becoming braver and more self-confident with a little help from Gravity Station and Valo Motion.