Theming extends to other Emporium attractions, like the bumper cabs painted to resemble Checker cabs and driven amidst a cartoon backdrop of New York’s skyline and a soundtrack of squealing tires, honking horns, yelling motorists, and shouting newspaper vendors. The LaserTron laser tag arena, called New York, New York Laser Patrol, resembles a 1940s Gotham street scene, with lamp-posts, garbage cans, and bullet-ridden storefronts. Manholes and the outline of a dead body appear on the floor, while overhead come the sounds of screaming citizens, screeching tires, and running feet. A shooting gallery conveys a Coney Island beach scene, with a couple lounging, seagulls, and shops. "We believe the devil’s in the details," says Michael Getlan.

Coney Island Emporium also has 200 coin-op games, mostly the latest generation of video games including test products from a variety of manufacturers. Because the games are themselves anachronisms in a Coney Island setting that ends in the 1940s, the Emporium made no attempt to tweak them thematically. It also left alone the eight-seat Daytona USA deluxe simulators by Sega.

Theming up a Character

Though such extensive conceptualization is inherent in the locale, the Getlan family does not feel that theming like that at Coney Island Emporium is restricted by its location. "It was designed to be a product that could go in other places," Michael Getlan says. "We’re looking at several possibilities to put a Coney Island Emporium outside Las Vegas."

Likewise, theming based on topical subjects could work at other FECs beyond the standard fare of castles, pirates, and space travel and their equally typical representations through, respectively, battlement facades, treasure-map signage, and spaceship center-piece. Melvin Getlan notes that all cities and many smaller communities had amusement parks with similar emotional ties as Coney Island had for generations of New Yorkers. With a little research at the local library, help from historical societies, and creativity, an FEC can become a new incarnation of that old amusement attraction or local hotspot. "Nostalgia can’t hurt you to do something like that," Melvin Getlan says. And it could help give a facility more than a unique identity. "It would tie into the local area, and older folks would have the nostalgia of bringing their grandchildren or children to something they went to." A locality’s historical significance can also be mined for topical theming, such as flight in Dayton, Ohio, home to the Wright Brothers, or cruising in Modesto, Calif., setting for American Graffiti.

"You wouldn’t be able to do everything," Melvin Getlan says. "Most FECs don’t have midway games, and it’s easier to theme midway games than arcade pieces. But you can do something in the whole facility, not just the game itself. I think theming is very important, ti give something its own character, as opposed to bare walls. It will stay in people’s memories."

Coney Island Emporium, of course, has the resources and, more importantly, the market requirement to theme on both the massive and minute scales. Customers generally don’t consider the Emporium a destination in itself, though New York-New York is; and Coney Island gives those tourists entree to the rest of the hotel/casino and access to the roller coaster. "People come to Vegas without a destination in mind," says Emporium General Manager Stern. "They just come through and go, ‘Oooh!’ and stop where they stop. There’s people who come here that don’t intend to come."

With such a transient audience, business practice differs at Coney Island Emporium than would be the norm at most FECs. Most Emporium games require coins, which is closer to Coney Island tradition than debit cards, but more appropriate for a transit crowd than tokens would be. Games also tend to cost more. "We have more things at a dollar than you would have at a neighborhood FEC," Stern says. "At a neighborhood FEC you want (customers) to come a million times. Here, you’ve got a short time to get them, so it’s OK to look for a little bit more. You want to make the most out of one visit."

That includes getting guests to become so immersed in the Coney Island experience they want to stay as long as the Emporium stays open. Despite the transient nature of the clientele, customer service remains tantamount to the center’s operating ideology, which includes a higher redemption ratio ("28 percent minimum average payout," says Michael Getlan) and prizes ranging from one-ticket trinkets to gifts from high-end, high-tech Sharper Image Catalog. In fact, the Emporium’s association with the hotel/casino puts more pressure on the cast to treat customers right, Michael Getlan says, because their parents are probably among the high rollers in Central Park.

Still, the first impression is, literally, the lasting impression in Las Vegas because it is the one that gets people to stay awhile. "You have to wow them much more in a tourist resort area the first time in the door," says Stern, who has worked full time with Amusement Consultants since 1983 and includes games manager at Hershey Park, Penn., and operating FECs in Massachusetts and Connecticut on his resume. "in most FECs, you want to make them more comfortable. Here it’s not so much comfort, you want them to go, ‘Wow! This is vacation time, I want to spend time here, I want to spend money here."

And if, after the sights, sounds, and smells of Coney Island entices them through the door, they turn a little nostalgic, that just adds to the Coney Island Emporium ambiance.