Guests can experience monstrous attractions at state-of-the-art, indoor, climate-controlled facilities completely under the luminescent glow of black lights. Each location features an 18-hole glow-in-the-dark mini golf course, video, and redemption arcade games, three-dimensional animatronic props, an in-house radio station, party rooms for hosting birthday parties and other special events, as well as laser-tag, laser-maze, and bowling in some of the newer, larger facilities.

In April 2022, Founders Christina and Patrick Vitagliano were approached by giant conglomerates about selling the Monster Mini Golf brand but decided to sell to their top five franchisees in January 2023 instead. Monster Mini Golf has grown organically over the past 17+ years and its new owners have plans to aggressively accelerate growth in the coming years. The company currently boasts over 30 locations spanning the United States and Canada.

Being one of the fastest-growing family entertainment franchises in the industry, Monster Mini Golf needed a way to provide central reporting to HQ and cohesion among its franchisees.

Chris King, President of Monster Entertainment, explains, “The challenge with moving to Semnox is that we offer our franchise owners some flexibility within their market, which is different from other Semnox multi-unit partners. Together we had to create a hybrid scenario to develop all needs effectively.”

Monster Entertainment needed central reporting, but their locations all ran on different POS systems with varying promotions, special packages, and loyalty programs at each location making it difficult to track analytics across the company.

“As a system, our operators were using several POS Systems as well as various 3rd party applications to operate their centers. This was a barrier to effective management and analysis of our business, as we had no unification or top-level transparency,” said King.

In addition, some venues were still using token-based arcade games, while others used magnetic swipe cards for gameplay. With gross sales up 30 to 40 percent from pre-pandemic years and continuing to excel in 2023, Monster Mini Golf lacked the synchronized hardware and software needed at its locations for the accelerated expansion the company was on.

Not only did they gain cohesion between locations with customizable offerings at each venue, but they also received arcade management software, self-service kiosks, and fully integrated online reservations and e-commerce at all locations creating a more seamless experience for guests. Other installments featured include RFID-based debit card systems and RFID Lumin readers for “tap-to-play” functionality.

“Training is straightforward, the system is user-friendly, and RFID cards enhance the guest experience by limiting frustration during play,” explained King. “Of the venues we did move over, there was a 25-30 percent immediate jump in revenue, including arcade play, as well as the ability to create and sell attraction combinations.”

Most of the Monster Mini Golf locations have already made the shift to Semnox, with the exception of a handful of locations still in the transitioning stages. By the Fall of 2024, Monster Entertainment plans to have all 30-plus locations and future locations powered by Semnox Solutions.