Inside BOX Piccadilly: The London Launch That’s Redefining Sports Gaming

An interview with Joey Bartram, Customer Success Manager.

On arrival to train the team at ARC Inspirations’ brand-new BOX Piccadilly, my first impression was that it was an unbelievable location for a venue. You could not be more in the heart of the West End, and right away I saw that using our games would be an ideal way to cap off a night at the theatre, after dinner or in Chinatown, or to build some energy before a BNO in Soho. 

BOX and The SGG go way back. Having enjoyed hosting the games training sessions with the BOX teams in Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield and Nottingham, it was time to see how the first crew down south would take to FLYBY Darts and SHUFL Tech. Over the next couple of hours, two huge groups of their bar team packed into the games area – a nice balcony space overlooking the open-plan venue.

Looking from that balcony it dawned on me that, immediately, this would be the best venue to watch sports that I’d seen in central London. It’s historically a really tricky area to watch a game, but with its open-plan setup circled by screens that are bright and bold without being intrusive at all, the BOX has nailed the concept.

That concept has been a big success further north, and breaking London is a well-earned milestone for the BOX family.

Unlike their more richly-accented, gravy-enamoured cousins, the London team hadn’t played SHUFL or FLYBY before. As much as I love seeing the definite rise in popularity of the concepts, the blank slate is always my favourite place to start teaching the Good of the games. It was so enjoyable to see those who had never thrown a dart before being the most hyped by it once they understood the FLYBY system. Likewise those who, like many, couldn’t control a SHUFL puck on their first attempt, were scoring big points at the end of their hour. It’s a buzz.

BOX Piccadilly’s well-humoured, lively, competitive but respectful team showed me two things more than anything: how easy our tech makes the games to pick up and get hooked right away, and that BOX Piccadilly, with the charisma of the venue and the group running it, will right away be one of central London’s leading venues. An absolute pleasure of a day. The games are in good hands.

We were later lucky enough to participate in the full festivities and were impressed (but not surprised) to spot athletes and celebrities partying at the venue during their opening.