A leading international ten-pin bowling operator
Hollywood Bowl Group is the world's second largest ten-pin bowling operator and the largest operator in the UK and Canadian markets. We have more than 80 bowling centres, each equipped with an average of 24 bowling lanes, a licensed bar, a diner and an amusements zone featuring the latest games designed to keep everyone entertained.
Our long-established ten-pin bowling brand with high-quality centres co-located with mixed retail or leisure units.
72
centres*
*Includes Putt & Play centres.
The complete entertainment experience
The Group operates ten-pin bowling lanes in high-quality centres located nationwide in the UK
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1,607 Bowling lanes |
17.3m games bowled |
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72 Centres *Includes Putt & Play centres. |
70% Net promoter score |
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£24.5m Expansionary capital in FY2024 |
100 Target Hollywood Bowl centre estate size by 2035 |
Ten-pin bowling is a key constituent of the UK’s growing and diverse competitive socialising sector, offering an inclusive, fun, and affordable experience for friends, families, and work colleagues.
Hollywood Bowl is the market-leading brand in the UK, specialising in operating large, high- uality bowling centres.
Our centres are predominantly located in prime ‘out-of-town’ multi-use leisure parks alongside cinemas and casual dining sites.
In addition to bowling, we offer food, drink, and amusements, providing a complete entertainment experience that encourages longer visits and increased secondary spending.
Our popular and simplified food menu offers value and quality meals, snacks and sharer options, all served quickly. This has helped achieve a 6.0 per cent increase in diner spend per game vs prior year.
Our comprehensive drinks range also offers great value for money and we saw a 0.6 per cent increase in bar spend per game vs prior year supported by our at-lane drink ordering technology which allows customers to order from their phones.
Our best-in-class family-friendly games and amusements areas are constantly evolving with innovations and the introduction of new game formats.
A rolling machine upgrade programme allows us to continue to improve the quality of our amusement offering, with 578 new machines being introduced into the estate in FY2024. Most amusements can still be played for as little as £1, with Nayax ‘tap to play’ providing digital coin credit and cash payment options.
Overall we saw a 6.1 per cent increase in amusement spend per game vs prior year.
Our customer service is a true point of differentiation in a competitive leisure market.
We focus on four critical customer satisfaction drivers: value for money, cleanliness, team friendliness, and service speed.
Our customer experience feedback programmes provide valuable insights into our customers’ preferences by digitally capturing satisfaction levels following each visit.
We carefully monitor customer satisfaction and net promoter scores, ready to react quickly to any operational issues or customer feedback.
Team members’ bonuses are linked to these satisfaction drivers, helping enhance centre performance, revenues, and yields.
Offering ‘affordable fun’ is core to the Group’s purpose, and management is focused on keeping price levels accessible.
The relative price of a game at Hollywood Bowl has fallen since 2021 relative to inflation and National Living Wage increases, with only small annual increases applied to bowling and food and drink in recent years.
Value-for-money customer feedback scores were at record levels in FY2024, up four percentage points compared to FY2023, and Hollywood Bowl remains the lowest-priced branded bowling operator, with a family of four able to bowl for under £26.
Our ongoing investment in technology and in-house specialist marketing and development teams continues to enhance the digital customer journey from pre-booking, to in-centre experience, to post-booking communications.
We have evolved our digital brand and content, social media activity, sales activation, and CRM campaigns, all which help drive our website sales, with online bookings accounting for 61 per cent of bowling revenue. We drive yields through dynamic pricing and customer demand through targeted digital sales and marketing.
We increase engagement and dwell time in our centres with digital content, such as our popular live leaderboards, and vary in-centre content to target specific customers with relevant content and sales messaging. For example, daytime content is more family focused compared to evening content.
In H2 FY2024, we launched our new customer booking system, designed to meet the needs of our growing and diverse business.
Delivered on time and on budget, this significant investment in a modern and flexible technology platform supports the future development and growth of the Group in multiple territories (see case study opposite).
Bowling is our core product and we continue to invest in improving the customer experience at the lanes. Pins on Strings technology is now in 91 per cent of the UK estate and has helped improve the customer experience by increasing the number of games between faults, in addition to reducing our energy usage and operational costs.
In our new centres we have enhanced the bowling experience further with an upgraded music system, digital screens and impact lighting to enhance and vary the bowling atmosphere by time of day.
When refurbishing centres, we also reconfigure floor areas to maximise revenue and centre yields.
Examples of this have included combining bar, diner and reception areas to improve operational efficiency and create a better customer journey in the centre.
We also look to extend our amusement areas to allow the inclusion of more, and larger format machines.
Space reconfiguration can also sometimes provide an opportunity to extend the number of bowling lanes in a centre or to add an additional leisure offering to our range.
In FY2024, we added six duck-pin bowling lanes at London O2, and added five extra bowling lanes at Stockton, further enhancing the customer experience and encouraging longer stays and increased spending.
We launched the Puttstars mini-golf brand in FY2020 operating five centres with a diverse entertainment experience, including nine-hole mini-golf courses, bar, diner, and amusements area.
We have gathered some excellent insights from operating the five centres, which have led us to evolve the customer offer and optimise space returns.
This has been achieved through the addition of duck-pin bowling lanes in Leeds, extending amusements areas in Harrow and Rochdale, and adopting a single operating approach in York, which had Puttstars as a standalone business above a Hollywood Bowl centre.
To better reflect the extended offer, leverage the Hollywood Bowl brand association and marketing channels, and provide operational efficiencies, the remaining Puttstars centres have been rebranded as ‘Putt & Play from Hollywood Bowl’.
Whilst bowling centres are the Group’s first choice when entering new locations due to their heightened returns, the customer appetite for other activities remains strong.
We have consequently introduced mini-golf as a fourth offer in our Hollywood Bowl centres in Leeds and Stockton, as well as including in our new centre in Colchester, to extend the venue appeal and increase customer dwell time.
Our fast-growing Canadian family entertainment brand with high-quality centres located in standalone locations, or co-located with mixed retail or leisure units.
13
centres
Canada’s Premier Chain of Family Entertainment Centres
Combining state-of-the-art 10 pin bowling, high-quality casual dining, arcades, laser tag, and other entertainment options to make your visit a one-of-a-kind experience
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359 Bowling lanes |
#1 Splitsville is now the largest branded ten-pin bowling operator in Canada |
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13 Large-format centres in highly populated locations |
5.9% Increase in LFL Splitsville revenue |
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4 New centres added in FY2024 |
30 Target Splitsville centre estate size by 2035 |
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Hollywood Bowl Group took its first steps into international markets with the acquisition of the Splitsville business in May 2022.
Extensive customer research confirmed that the Canadian market is ready for an upgraded, branded, family-friendly leisure proposition similar to Hollywood Bowl’s UK model.
Since its acquisition, Splitsville has grown significantly from originally operating five centres to now comprising 13 large family entertainment centres spread across the country.
In a short period of time, it is now established as the ten-pin bowling market leader in Canada, with the estate now including centres in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Each centre features ten-pin bowling lanes, a large bar and diner, and an amusements area, with some also offering laser tag and indoor mini-golf.
FY2024 has been an exciting growth year, including several existing centre acquisitions being made, and our first newly built centre being opened in Waterloo.
The Splitsville brand framework has been further evolved and all acquired centres (excluding Stoked - see case study) have now been rebranded to Splitsville.
Our centre refurbishment programme has continued, with Kingston and Glamorgan completed in FY2024 and five centres scheduled for completion in FY2025.
These renovations incorporate many features already established in the UK such as VIP lanes, bowling lane lighting, and enhanced bar and reception environments.
Since the FY2023 refurbishment (and market relaunch under the Splitsville brand), of our large-scale centre in Richmond Hill, it has exceeded revenue and profitability expectations.
Importantly, Richmond Hill has also provided some excellent operational and customer feedback insights which have been taken into account in subsequent centre refurbishments.
The Group has a robust new centre development and existing centre acquisition pipeline across the Canadian market.
The opportunity for market consolidation is clear with almost 200 single-owned or multi-site Group-owned ten-pin bowling centres across Canada.
The opportunity for new builds in prime footfall leisure and retail locations is also significant. Overall we aim to expand the Splitsville estate to 30 centres by 2035.
At the start of FY2025, we are on site with two new builds and negotiating several other new build sites.
We maintain strict expansion criteria, with all acquisitions and developments needing to adhere to the same return on investment hurdle rate.
As we have gained a more detailed understanding of the Canadian operation, it has become clear that there are opportunities to improve operational processes and help enhance the customer experience through the introduction of many of the ways of working from our UK business.
In FY2024 we started a significant programme to look to leverage the experience and operational practices from the UK to help drive a more consistent and structured approach.
Many operational practices from the UK business have now been introduced to Splitsville, with the programme set to continue into FY2025.
Key initiatives that were implemented in FY2024 were;
- the launch of a management development programme for centre
managers and assistant managers in training; - a behavioural wheel and pin badge rewards programme;
- performance management training for all centre managers and
heads of departments; - monthly 1:1’s for all team members and feedback sessions with
senior management; - a new and improved benefits programme;
- a new careers website and employer brand;
- an annual centre manager and support centre conference;
- a new customer feedback programme which has helped identify
the key drivers of customer satisfaction; and - new centre and refurbishment project management framework.
Alongside the introduction of some UK ways of working, we have extended our UK Hemel-based departments to provide support for Canada, which in turn is helping us generate synergies and implement best practice across the Group.
These include finance, recruitment, digital marketing, data and business intelligence, IT support and development, as well as using the Customer Contact centre to take customer calls for the Canadian centres.
Where appropriate, we have moved to standard IT systems across areas like finance, reporting, customer data and marketing which will help to create a consistent approach across the Group.
The next phase will see our new customer booking system being rolled out in Canada in FY2025 and further sustainability initiatives being introduced.
Alongside the introduction of new talent development programmes, we have also invested in the Canadian team.
We have established the structural foundations to support a fast-growing business over the coming years, including forming a new senior leadership team and upskilling centre managers to drive sales and service superiority.
Notably, several key roles have been filled by senior UK team members, including a new VP of Splitsville, centre managers, an HR Business Partner, and two Regional Managers.
We are starting to trial some product innovation in selected centres in the Splitsville operation to see if the UK approach has relevance to Canadian customers.
This includes testing the removal of compulsory bowling shoes (wear your own shoes), game formats, dynamic pricing, new group party packages and a simplified food menu.
Our Striker Bowling Solutions (SBS) operation continues to support the wider Canadian bowling industry as a primary supplier and installer of bowling equipment across the country.
SBS is an important asset to the Group in Canada as it supports Splitsville’s installation and equipment requirements when we are refurbishing existing centres and opening new centres.
Additionally, its established national network provides us with access to a large section of Canadian operators in the regional markets, giving SBS an unmatched insight into wider industry trends and developments.
Our locations
85
centres
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Splitsville:13
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Central support office:2
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Hollywood Bowl:72
