Competitive socialising group Red Engine secures £60m facility
The announcement follows the recent news that Red Engine-owned venues achieved sales of £67m last year, while Red Engine and partner venue sales combined exceeded £100m.
The total Red Engine and partners’ estate currently stands at 25 venues – 17 owner-operated, and 8 partner-owned by State of Play Hospitality (Flight Club in North America) and Night Owl (Flight Club in Australia).
This portfolio is set to increase to 33 in 2024, as Red Engine and its partners are poised to open a further eight sites this year alone – four owned and four partner-owned.
Red Engine will open Electric Shuffle Manchester and New York and Flight Club Liverpool and Oxford, while the franchise partners opening pipeline for 2024 consists of Flight Club Philadelphia, Washington, Sydney and Melbourne.
Red Engine’s gaming bar concepts, Flight Club Darts and Electric Shuffle, launched in 2015 and 2019 respectively.
Flight Club – one of the first players in the competitive socialising space – first launched in London’s Shoreditch. The concept has reimagined darts for the 21st century, transforming the traditional two-player game of darts into a range of high-energy, fast-paced, multi-player games.
Following the success of Flight Club, the Red Engine team launched Electric Shuffle – another adaptation of a classic game for modern times – this time focusing on shuffleboard.
Both are housed within “beautifully designed” bar settings, delivering an “impressive” food and drink offering.
“For the last nine years, everything we have done has been with our customers in mind. Our in-house game developers, our interior and design teams, our venue teams of chefs, bartenders and everything in between, have strived to give people the best experience possible,” says Red Engine CEO Ross Shepley-Smith.
“It’s because of this that we’ve built such a loyal customer following, and it’s these customers that have made it possible to grow as we have done. Our mission has always been to make groups of friends everywhere ridiculously happy, and we couldn’t be more excited to continue that journey with this new facility.”
