Bowling alley software.Lanes, parties and the pizza on one booking.
Venuboost sells and runs the day at a bowling centre. Guests book a lane online by the game or by the hour, the counter sells walk ins and drinks on the same till, and the lanes, the party rooms and the kitchen all work from one timetable. It does not replace your scoring system. It replaces the booking diary, the spreadsheet and the phone calls around it.
Bowling centre management software
A lane is set up once, and every screen reads it.
Bowling centres lose Friday nights to double bookings: the phone took a party of twelve for seven, the website sold the same lanes at ten past, and the front desk finds out when both groups are at the shoe counter. That happens when the phone, the website and the till each keep their own idea of what is free.
In Venuboost each lane, or each set of lanes you sell together, is a space on the board with a few settings. The online booking page, the counter and the calendar all count against those same numbers, and the wording follows bowling: games, bowlers and lanes.
Bowlers per lane
Six is the starting number. Change it to suit your lanes, and every booking, online or at the counter, counts against it.
Game or block length
How long a booking holds the lane. Sell a game with its own length, or a block of time for the group to use as they like.
Start interval
How often a lane can start a new booking. On the hour, on the half hour, or whatever spacing your front desk works to.
Turnaround
Minutes kept clear between bookings for the lane to be reset and the next group to get their shoes on.
Bowling lane booking system
Lane hire, parties and the food that comes with them.
Lane hire
An hour on a lane, or ninety minutes, at the price you set.
Lane hire is sold as time. You choose the block lengths you offer, in whole or half hours, and how the money is worked out: a price for each block, a rate per hour, or a price per bowler. A hire can hold the lane for that group alone, or share an open space with other bookings until the places run out. Guests see only the start times that fit, and pay in full or leave a deposit.
- Blocks of one hour, ninety minutes, two hours or whatever you sell
- Priced per block, per hour or per bowler
- Deposits as a percentage, a flat amount or an amount per bowler
- Standing group rates for schools and clubs, with the name recorded
Parties
A bowling party with the room, the food and the clean up held.
A party package can include bowling, food and a party room. The room is held for the part of the visit it is used for, clean up time is kept clear after it, and two rooms can be joined for a big group. A group bigger than one lane holds can be split into groups that take turns, with breaks between their games kept inside the limits you set. Party food sits on the booking with an order sheet for the kitchen.
- Party rooms held only while they are in use
- Two rooms joined into one for a big group
- Party food on the booking, with a kitchen order sheet
- Cafe orders sent to the kitchen screen
Leagues and regular groups
A Tuesday night league is booked once for the season.
Leagues, school terms and social clubs come back to the same lanes at the same time. A regular booking holds that pattern, weekly, fortnightly, the same weekday each month or on dates you pick, for up to fifty two rounds. Every round it makes is an ordinary booking, so the counter, payments and the calendar treat it like any other, and the lanes it holds are counted before anyone else is sold onto them.
Venuboost holds the lanes for a league. It does not keep the league's scores, averages or handicaps. Those stay with your scoring or league system.
Combos
Bowling, laser tag and dinner in one booking.
If your centre runs more than lanes, a combo chains up to six activities into one booking with one price, each on its own space with a gap after it for walking or changing shoes. Set it to a flexible order and, when the lanes are full at the time the group asked for, the booking engine tries the activities in another order before it gives up on that start. Lock a part in place, such as food last, and it stays put. More on running several activities together on the activities page.
At the counter, walk ins are sold into a lane in the same sale as their drinks, chips and shoe hire. Card payments go through a terminal paired to the till and land in your own merchant account. On a night when a lane is down, a manager can lower its capacity for the day with their PIN, and it never drops below the places already sold.
What it does not do
The lanes themselves stay with your scoring system.
Venuboost does not connect to pinsetters, lane machines or scoring systems. It does not switch lanes on, show scores or hand out shoe sizes. It also does not choose a lane number for each booking: a lane experience sells against the space it is set up on, so a centre with twenty lanes decides during setup whether each lane is its own space or a set of lanes is sold together. We will work through that with you before anything goes live.
The bowling module costs nothing on top of your plan, and neither do extra lanes. Plans are monthly with no lock in contract and a free first month, and the details are on the pricing page.
More on Venuboost for bowling centres
Questions
What bowling centres ask us first.
What is bowling alley software?
It is the system a bowling centre sells lanes and parties through: online bookings with real availability, payment at the counter, party rooms and food, and one timetable everyone works from. Venuboost does that part. It does not run the lanes themselves, so your pinsetters and scoring system stay as they are.
Does Venuboost connect to our bowling scoring system?
No. Venuboost does not connect to scoring systems, lane machines or pinsetters, and it does not turn lanes on or off. It handles the booking, the payment, the party and the timetable, and your scoring system keeps doing its job on the lane.
Can guests book a bowling lane online by the hour?
Yes. A lane can be sold as hire in blocks of whole or half hours, such as one hour or ninety minutes, priced per block, per hour or per bowler. Guests only see start times the lane can actually take, and they can pay in full or leave a deposit.
Does Venuboost assign a lane number to each booking?
Not by itself. Each lane, or a set of lanes, is a space on the board with its own capacity, and a lane experience sells against the space it is set up on. Venuboost does not pick the next free lane for an online booking, so centres with many lanes decide how to group them during setup.
Can we run bowling birthday parties with food and a party room?
Yes. A party package can include bowling, food and a party room, with the room held only for the part of the visit it is used for and clean up time kept clear afterwards. Party food sits on the booking with an order sheet for the kitchen.
Can Venuboost handle bowling leagues?
It can hold a league's lane bookings. A weekly, fortnightly or monthly regular booking is set up once and each round becomes a normal booking. It does not keep league scores, averages or handicaps, which stay in your scoring or league system.
Bring us your busiest Friday night and we will build it on the screen.
Your lanes, your party packages and your prices, set up in front of you. You will see how the lanes fill and where the gaps are before we talk about what it costs.