Hollywood Bowl cheers record sales following wet summer

Hollywood Bowl Group scored record revenue last financial year as poor summer weather drove families to seek affordable indoor entertainment.

Britain’s largest ten-pin bowling operator, which also owns Puttstars minigolf outlets, revealed turnover increased by 16.2 per cent to £215.1million in the year ending September.

The Hertfordshire-based firm’s UK sites achieved a particularly strong performance in July, one of the wettest in British history, and a record £20.2million in sales during August.

Impressive result: Ten-pin bowling operator Hollywood Bowl scored record revenue last year as poor summer weather drove families to seek affordable indoor entertainment

Hollywood Bowl also attained its highest ever first-half revenues thanks to the group buying and opening new sites, and introducing a ‘snacks and sharers’ lane to boost food purchases.

For the full-year period, consumers spent on average 9.9 per cent extra on food per game as prices on popular menu items remained at pre-pandemic levels.

Trading was further boosted by customers playing more games and increasing their spending on amusement machines at the company’s UK venues.

This helped Hollywood Bowl’s annual turnover expand by 4.5 per cent on a like-for-like basis, as did a robust performance by the firm’s Canadian business.

‘Our value-for-money customer proposition has attracted more visits over the year from new and returning customers who are choosing to spend more time in our centres,’ the group said.

However, its pre-tax profits dipped by 3.4 per cent to £45.1million due partly to the UK Government ending a temporarily reduced VAT rate for the British hospitality sector.

At the same time, profitability in its Canadian division was impacted by lower margins at the Striker bowling equipment and installations business, and the larger share of food and drink sales at its bowling centres.

Hollywood Bowl plans to open one new centre in Canada during the current financial year with a goal of adding ten venues in the country over the coming five years.

In the UK, the group intends to launch three locations and refurbish another seven sites this year.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: ‘Bowling remains an affordable treat which gives people a release from the cares of everyday life, and the performance of the nascent Canadian operation will only provide further encouragement for the company to pursue its expansion plans.’

Hollywood Bowl Group shares were 2.5 per cent up at 289.5p on early Monday afternoon and have risen by approximately a fifth since the year began.

The company’s annual results arrive less than a fortnight after its closest rival Ten Entertainment agreed to a £287million takeover by American private equity house Trive Capital Partners.

Ten’s bosses urged shareholders to back the acquisition, saying the firm was ‘not immune to the highly unstable national and international political outlook together with a volatile economic backdrop.’

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk