Revitalized Tag
- 5 hours ago
- 3 min read
There is some clever ingenuity inside the laser tag arena I experienced at Funtrackers Family Fun Park in Hot Springs, AR. This place is an excellent example of how to revitalize an existing arena to keep things fresh! I enjoyed a game of CyberBlast where a couple of cool things caught my attention…and the expression on my mini-rubber chicken’s face pretty much mirrors my thoughts, lol!
The rubber chicken has become something of a mascot since first appearing at Tag 4 A Cause, but I found this one when I stopped for breakfast in route. ;)
I stopped in first thing in the morning and was sent over to a second building for a 1v1 game with Landon. I learned that the tag building had previously been a restaurant/pizza place on the property and was converted to laser tag arena in 2015.
Landon showed me to the vesting area where I found a row of CyberBlast packs neatly hung on their racks.
This photo is testament to Mike and his Laser Blast team implementing the magnetic phaser attachment point on the front of the packs, which clearly makes a difference to keeping this phasers safely attached (and off the ground, like I see in many places), so kudos on that small, but effective addition to the gear. I recognized this as being the newer equipment and learned they had upgraded the packs about two years ago, but had been operating with Laser Blast for quite awhile before that as well.
Ok, we’re vested up and ready to start the game!
This arena looks great, but also just a little bit different! It took me a moment to discern why. I figured it out while playing the game and traversing the single level arena.
This is a simple, but effective alternative to a base housing. It acts like a little alcove to tuck into while tagging the base.
But don’t get too comfortable there because there are a ton of little cutouts where an opponent can both see and tag through that wall from the other side. I like that a lot!
Lots of brick walls make up the main part of the maze. That isn’t particularly unusual.
However, they didn’t look like the same brick walls I’ve seen time and time again…because they weren’t. This arena has been given a personalized artistic touch, being repainted within the last three years by a talented local artist. Impressive! That meant some distinctive looking bricks and a few walls that looked like this.
I’m told the artist freehanded a lot of the painting. I wish I had taken a better photo at some of the mural work on the back wall, but I was too engaged with hearing the story behind the arena.
Landon told me he was involved with doing some of the edge repainting and I have to say, this was really cool to see.
I have talked in the past about arenas with “good bones” and how some revitalizing and refreshing can make a huge difference. This is a perfect example of that! I have seen enough of this style arena to know what it likely looked like before the repainting, which is why I could clearly tell something was a bit different when I walked in. I love to see this kind of originality and ingenuity! They’ve taken a maze that works for them and given it a breath of new life. Kudos on that!
In a world where I see very good, but very similar arenas over and over again, Funtrackers really impressed me by not only keeping up with the current gear, but keeping things fresh by revitalizing their laser tag with some awesome artistic touches. That is my biggest takeaway from this game experience. Nice job!
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Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com
Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com
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