Are arcades viable given the cost of energy?

[Venom]

I know we need to support local businesses via these difficult times, but that does come at a premium cost to your own family. Anyone bought a round of beer and drinks with crisps for a family of four lately £20 gone.

During the epidemic I supported a local farm, the milk was not cheap (especially as came direct from farm) and was delivered twice a week. But often they would not deliver or be issues and not kept you informed.. After Covid they decided to go down to once a week delivery, no price drop , and for me that is not getting fresh milk at your doorstep, having to have 7 pints in your fridge at one time.

I honestly don't know how arcades (apart from at seaside) make that much profit I guess unless have a very heavy footprint. Nice I suppose to run your arcade, but are they really profitable, I dont know anyone a millionaire of this hobby ?

The only thing that I don't quite get is why the same rises are not hitting the same across europe/

There was some qoute we are going up 100's of % yet France they expect 8% increases. Spain was not as high as us either. It's a global market with what seems like local pricing ?

Then to flip this the other way round i read an article yesterday of all the companies benefitting out of increased prices, that was shocking ! Tried to stay away from politics but surely that could go in an off topic thread , I can add how working for a modern business is like working for a cult !

 

[antray84]

Some of France's energy is nationalised. We are a completely privatised system. It is supposed to create competition in prices but as we all know that isn't the case. France also has the ability to call on a lot more home grown Nuclear Energy. The UK is very much an oil, coal, gas kinda place. The funny (not funny at all) thing is that almost none of our energy comes from Russia. It is that the wholesale cost of oil and gas is worldwide so it goes up for everyone. Last month none of our energy came from Russia. I work for those villains in the main-stream media and the look on experts faces when they tell you what is happening doesn't fill you with hope.

As a final point, Arcades are gonna be hit but they are way down the chain of businesses you need to be worried about. Fish and Chip shops are completely screwed.

 

[Stickman]

You can work out what a machine costs to run per hour quite easily, if you convert Watts to KWh, lots of online tools, so for example 100w for 3 hours is 0.3 KWh.

If you check your supplier statement you will see the price per KWh, think mine is 27.8 pence per KWh, this will go up to 51 pence October 1st.

So by my reckoning that is 10 hours running of a 100w machine to create 1 KWh, so that’s 28p approx.

You then need to consider how many machines you have etc. I think for a hobbyist who probably only runs them 10 hours a week (which is a lot more than I do) that’s £1.12 per month per machine. So my 7 machines would be £7.84 per month, this will rise to £14.28 per month from October.

Does not seem much and maybe people can accept but when you have to tighten your belts (everything is way more expensive and still going up) you may need to make choices on where to save for and for a business that’s a big cost increase and I feel for them for sure.

Consider Arcade Club, they have aircon, fridges behind the bars, the machines all sucking electrical juice, I just hope they are able to ride this out, solar can offset some of this but it’s a big investment, I am considering DIY solar to just help, a 2.24kw system is £5k with a battery, I am thinking longer term as I bet we will not see it come back down to previous rates.

Just my thoughts and hopefully I have got my sums right.

Stickman2022-08-27 12:11:43

 

[Venom]

Wow very very interesting read, thank you.

Yes Fish and chips is becoming a luxury item.

 

[chubsta]

Stickman - thanks for the info, that is the sort of info I was hoping for when I started the thread!

 

[qjuk]

I really feel for businesses and there doesn’t appear to be any real support for them to help mitigate the huge increase in cost for energy. I can see some business having to go part time, cutting opening hours and staff costs just to try and stay afloat.

With regards the arcade premises, I guess the only things they could do is adjust opening hours or close on certain days, switch off certain machines (or close whole floors) to try and cut back on energy usage. Perhaps try a promotion to increase footfall into the premises. Putting up prices is not really an option as almost everyone is feeling the pinch.

 

[pubjoe]

I feel without something drastic a huge number of small-medium businesses will just close, and they won't drop gradually, it'll be very fast.

 

[John Bennett]

Just my thoughts and hopefully I have got my sums right.

Yeah, that's around what I calculated. As an example, AC has 300 machines and I don't think 150W would be an unreasonably pessimistic average power, considering many are huge. 300 * 0.15kW * 8h = 360kWhrs a day, so £180 at 50p a kw/hr! (and 45kW out of the mains).

The power draw on larger, newer PCB stacks (like Daytona/Ridge Racer) is frightening, I think you're over 20A on the 5V rail. so at least another 100W out the wall.

All ballpark guesstimates, but it's considerable when you scale things up.

 

[jengineer]

I'd be interested to hear what people are paying monthly or weekly for their electric and gas

I'm on a pre payment meter which means I have an electric key stick thing and a gas card and top them both up at a Pay Point shop when they run out or nearly run out, (normally every saturday)

this suits me because I can budget better, this way is mean't to be a little more expensive but from researching on the net I can't find out exactly how much more expensive or what percentage more expensive it's mean't to be?

just that everyone says 'it's more expensive'

up to now I haven't found my electric and gas to have gone up at all, I have read that it could be because I'm on a cap until October? so yeah I'm dreading October coming

I've made notes over the past few months how much it's costing me =

on my 3 bed semi with 2 kids I'm paying about £20 per week for electric (sometimes £25 but sometimes as low as £18, I haven't worked out why yet, probably more when I'm working in my workshop at home?)

and about £5 to £10 per week for gas, we don't use much gas in summer because it's just the hot water we pay for, everything else is electric

I also keep my downstairs lights on all night plus my shed has x4 lights on and outside back light and outside front light too

would also be interested to hear what the smaller barcades / arcades are paying for their electric

jengineer2022-08-27 15:39:50

 

[_Matt_]

It is very worrying for everyone and I can see things getting worse in general as there are some very sinister things going on in this country.

Big arcades are going to be hit hard. Maybe retro arcades need to get a few crane machines in there as my wife and daughter would easy spend £40 trying to win a bloody teddy if I took them.

I'm getting a bit worried about how much my dehumidifier in my games room is going to cost to run this winter!

_Matt_2022-08-27 16:30:47

 

[ArcadeClarkey]

Was literally thinking about this exact issue the other day. It's going to really hit retro arcades hard. The energy prices are going through the roof - people in general also having less to spend.

What's everyone's thoughts on the used market scene? Do you think people will start to trade less?

 

[tb lilley]

Welcome to my world. We're not on the grid for gas - so rely on an oil burner. 2 years ago heating oil was 26p a litre. Today, it's a quid. When the Ukraine war kicked off it went as high as £2. And it's climbing again now.

 

[griffo83x]

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griffo83x2022-08-27 18:17:11

 

[Vorbis]

Heating oil at 26p was the exception not the rule. I was paying 44p 12 years ago and its been over 70p more than once in the years since, not sure of the 10 year average but I'd put it at 50-60p, so the current 94p is high yes, but I prefer the fact that market fluctuations are passed on quickly unlike gas

 

[kingtreelo]

I'd be interested to hear what people are paying monthly or weekly for their electric and gas

I'm on a pre payment meter which means I have an electric key stick thing and a gas card and top them both up at a Pay Point shop when they run out or nearly run out, (normally every saturday)

this suits me because I can budget better, this way is mean't to be a little more expensive but from researching on the net I can't find out exactly how much more expensive or what percentage more expensive it's mean't to be?

just that everyone says 'it's more expensive'

up to now I haven't found my electric and gas to have gone up at all, I have read that it could be because I'm on a cap until October? so yeah I'm dreading October coming

I've made notes over the past few months how much it's costing me =

on my 3 bed semi with 2 kids I'm paying about £20 per week for electric (sometimes £25 but sometimes as low as £18, I haven't worked out why yet, probably more when I'm working in my workshop at home?)

and about £5 to £10 per week for gas, we don't use much gas in summer because it's just the hot water we pay for, everything else is electric

I also keep my downstairs lights on all night plus my shed has x4 lights on and outside back light and outside front light too

would also be interested to hear what the smaller barcades / arcades are paying for their electric

i'm in a 3 bed house with 5 people and as many dogs(not that they affect the gas/elec).

we are currently paying around £450 a month...and that is due to go up. We arent on a meter and i suspect we will end up being owed a fair bit back at some point as the price increased from arouns £200 to £450 around March, if you work out our usage...we will use around 3k a year....its just all a f**king scam...these companies dont think you know how to work out a bill(one company tried to give us a quote for £200 a month and estimated our usage down by around 80%...go figure when they had the readings).

Its just a tory divised legalised scam, and there doesnt seem to be a way out of out right now

 

[Venom]

450 a month, yes they can be a nightmare raising DD, so hope you get a lot back !. I think mine is around £200 p/m for DD . Wow never paid anything near that ? Mine will increase in winter as we use the tumble dry and heating is gas combi. I do have a gas cooker , so assume I must save a lot compared to an electric one. My main expense in a family of four is our electric shower. I am thinking of changing it to run odd our new boiler instead.

This is this months bill but was away for a week. o more like maybe £100 a month on Electric and £25 a month on gas in Summer.

Winter sees as big increase obviously, But i pay monthly DD to take that into account.

I have a 4 bed detached with gas central heating , radiators and a decent Bosch combi.

Electric and Gas for this month below.

Electricity Standing charge 31 days at 49.16p per day £15.24 Energy use charge 282.66 kWh at 27.05p £76.46

Standing charge 31 days at 25.92p per day	£8.04
Energy use charge 245.00 kWh at 7.12p	£17.44

Venom2022-08-27 19:14:48

 

[joe34]

a lot of folks i know seem to be moving across to use wood/log burners now for heating, mind u it only keeps one room warm but they just tend to stay in/around that room mostly for the colder months

 

[joe34]

ps. and i personally highly recommend using a hot water bottle in winter time, and/or a heated blanket. all good cheap* ways to stay warm

*currently....

 

[kingtreelo]

a lot of folks i know seem to be moving across to use wood/log burners now for heating, mind u it only keeps one room warm but they just tend to stay in/around that room mostly for the colder months

i think they have tried to impose sanctions on some of those burners as well

im thinking we can all(just the people in my home..i will charge you to come round and cuddle one of my dogs) just cuddle up to a dog each and share the heat

 

[Venom]

I do have a coal fire in the lounge but its for Special occasions !!

I spend more on the chimney sweep than it's use !