September 7, 2018 • 9 mins
An interview with Eric Gradman, co-founder of Two Bit Circus in Downtown Los Angeles. It's a new high tech entertainment space with games, food, drinks, virtual reality and more.Watch my tour of Two Bit Circus on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/RichOnTech/videos/2126549900929354/Watch my TV segment on Two Bit Circus:https://ktla.com/2018/09/07/two-bit-circus-downtown-los-angeles-now-open/Two Bit Circus website:https://twobitcircus.com/Follow Rich on Social Media:Facebook: http://facebook.com/RichOnTechTwitter: http://twitter.com/richdemuroInstagram: http://instagram.com/richontech Easy ways to listen on your phone or smart speaker:"Hey Google, Play the Rich on Tech Podcast""Hey Siri, Play the Rich on Tech Podcast""Alexa, Enable the Rich on Tech Flash Briefing"
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
A new type of amusement park. What's going on. I'm
Richie Demurrow. This is rich On Tech, and I'm here
at a place called two Bit Circus. This is opening
in downtown Los Angeles. And with me is Eric Bradman.
He is one of the guys responsible for this place. Eric,
thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
My pleasure.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Nice to meet you.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Nice to meet you as well. This is amazing.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
This is kind of like it's an adult amusement park,
but I don't mean that in a bad way, Like
it's really cool. If you grow up with something like
a Chuck E cheese, this is that. Time's a thousand
tasing the latest tech.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
When we set out to build this place, we wanted
a place that would entertain us. And you know, we
have friends. I have a kid, like. We want a
place that can entertain us, our friends, our families. So
it's not just aimed at kids. It's mostly for adults.
We have a full bar, we have a full restaurant,
but we also have high tech games that can entertain
pretty much anybody.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
So you walk in, you've got bars. The lighting is
really cool. It's in this spacious kind of warehouse and
it's all been made to entertain and amuse adults and kids.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Like you said, so kids are allowed, let's start with.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
That, definitely. So before nine pm, kids are definitely allowed.
This entertainment is perfectly suitable for kids. But after nine
pm we kick the kids out and we have a
full bar and lots of other fun stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
There's food, there's a bar, there's games. There's no rides, right,
there are no rides.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
We do have some virtual reality with motion simulations in them,
so you will feel the ground shifting beneath your feet,
but we don't have any actual rides here unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
And the games that you created, there's sort of these
larger than life. They're fun, they're simple, they're easy, kind
of pick up. They're not your typical video games per se.
But there are things that you guys have actually come
up with you and your partner.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Yeah, there's a couple principles that have driven our design
process for all these games.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
First of all, all of our games are social. We
want people.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
To play together. So whether you came in a big
group of people or whether you're looking to make new friends,
these games draw people together and get them play together.
And nothing gets people playing together better than you know,
standing elbow to elbow with somebody doing the same thing.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
It creates new friendships. Our games are also very high tech.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
You know, we are inspired by old school carnival fun
games that have been you know, crowd pleasers for generations.
But we're living in a very special time and we
have the ability to transform these games with projectors and
sensors and mechatronics and robotics technology.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And we do that.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
So we're creating these games that feel familiar but at
the same time look unlike anything anyone's ever seen.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Like one of the games that I played was sort
of a twist on the typical bubble pop you or
balloon pop you would play at any amusement park, sure,
except it's a big screen. It's got these real life
balls that you throw at the screen and they pop virtually.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah, walk into any amusement park and you'll be handed
at dart and told to pop real balloons. Here, those
balloons are projected on a screen, and what you're doing
is you're picking up what are actually ballpit balls, colored
ballpits balls, and throwing these balls at that projection screen.
Sensors in the ceiling track the color ball where it hits,
and if you hit a blue balloon with a red ball,
(03:13):
you're changing the color of.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
The balloon on the screen. You're playing a match three game.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
This is a game you can play on your phone
right now, but it's completely transformed by making it, you know,
nine feet wide by twelve feet tall, and allowing you
to play it with friends.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
You've got a robot bartender. Tell me about that. We do.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Our robot bartender is named Guerremo del Porro and he
serves a mean oil martini, also some delicious municipal champagne.
And he was custom built for this place by a
very talented engineer, Dan Busby, And it's just a thing
of beauty. The control systems in there, the custom machining,
(03:49):
every part of that thing was built from scratch for
the sole purpose of getting people drunk.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
That's okay, there you go. Now this place has like
a level of mystery to it. Now we're here during
the day, the lights are on at night. I imagine the
first time people come here, they're just going to be
an amazement of kind of the larger than life properties
of the things that you've built.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
But also wondering is are there secrets in this place.
This place is chock full of secrets.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
You know, when people arrive here, there's too much for
you to do in one night, and we believe that
that's going to get people coming back again and again.
When you come back again, you'll discover something that you
didn't see last time. But more than that, we've filled
this place with intentional mysteries, with rabbit holes that we
continue to dig, a meta story, a backstory that underlies
(04:37):
this whole place, characters who you might encounter while you're
playing games, and you'll slowly come to the realization that,
oh my gosh, there's something going on here, there's something
behind the scenes. You'll want to know more, and we
hope that will keep people coming back again and again.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
So one thing I really liked about coming here is
that there's not like a typical admission fee, Like, you
don't pay a fee to come here. You come in,
you pay as you go, and you play the games.
You have a drink. There's also food.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yep, what what kind of food should we expect? Oh?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
So the food is amazing. I can say that because
I have nothing to do with preparing it. It is
so delicious. We call it farm to Circus. There's there's
locally sourced, there's gluten free, there's also you know, all
those all those options that people are really looking for.
We're accommodating all of those. And it's good stuff. I
have never had meatballs that weren't made with meat that
tasted that good. But we also have delicious hand pies
(05:28):
and and proper carnival food, shrimp corn dogs, shrimp corn dogs.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
That's insane. I love.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
That is insane, Okay, And tell me about some of
the things that people should see when they come here.
I saw, you know, just walking around, you're kind of
just your your brain is drawn to the visual elements
of this place.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
There are different zones here in Tubid Circus. We have
the Carnival Midway with games we've already talked about. We
also have what is probably analogous to a classic arcade,
but is also full of games that we created, some
very high ten alternatives. One we call Skidoo, a giant
arcade game nine feet in length, thousands and thousands of pixels,
really powerful computer inside playing a variety of different games
(06:10):
developed by us and by some of our partners. We
have a VR section with all manner of different VR
experiences from four person shoot them ups to what's called
Beat Saber, which is a very popular arcade VR title.
Now to Battle Zone, which you can play in these
motion platforms. Sit in a chair that's rocking, put on
a VR headset, and battle it out with your friends
(06:31):
in a tank battle. We have a walk around May's
VR experience. There's a ton of different VR stuff. We
also have an interactive game show theater. This is called
Club zero one. It's a one hundred seat theater. You
walk in, you sit at your table, and there is
a touchscreen at every single table. And whether it's trivia
night or a wine tasting show, you're gonna be You're
(06:53):
gonna be entertained by a host up on stage who's
running the event, but you're also part of the show.
Everyone is participating during the entire show. So you may
be answering trivia questions, you may be filling out little
surveys about what you taste in the wine, you may
be solving puzzles. But it keeps people engaged, keeps people laughing.
For you know, anywhere from thirty minutes to an.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Hour long show.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
And where we're sitting right now, this is just kind
of a typical lounge area upstairs, so you can come
to play, you can come to hang out with friends.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yeah, we have a special lounge upstairs, special bar menu
up here, some fancy stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
It's a membership model. So oh, you can be a member.
You can be a member, absolutely okay. And you can
be a member or you can be a member.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
It's interesting because your partner and all this Brent yep,
Brent bush Now bush Now so obviously the son of
Atari founder Nolan bush Now yep.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
So did you know him as a kid. When did
you meet? No, Brent and I met ten years ago.
You met ten years ago right here in downtown Los Angeles.
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
We were among the co founding members of what we
call a drinking club with an art problem. And we
would get together with our friends every week in downtown
at a bar and talk about all the crazy things
we were building.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
We had normal jobs.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I was a roboticist working on government contracts building crazy
robots for the military, and he was building an interactive restaurant.
And we were just looking for other creative outlets for
our technoledge, and we just started collaborating on fun stuff together.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Where do you see this all going two bit Circus
starting in La downtown or do you see it in
five ten years?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Oh gosh, Well, we're very excited about this location. There
will be more. We're excited to expand this concept. We
know that there's a huge appetite for things like this
in the world. In five to ten years, I planned
to be doing exactly what I'm doing right now, which
is creating crazy experience with people, testing them, finding the
ones that work, and just building them bigger and bigger
and bigger and showing people a good time.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
That's what I love to do, all right.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Eric DMan from two Bit Circus, thanks so much for
joining me. If you want to see pictures or video
from inside two Bit Circus, just go to my website
richon tech dot tv or look for links in the
show notes and.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Definitely check out two bit Circus. It is opening, uh well, by.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
The time you listen to this, it will be open,
so enjoy and maybe I'll see there.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Thanks for listening on rich Snamiro. I'll talk to you
real soon.
A new type of amusement park. What's going on. I'm
Richie Demurrow. This is rich On Tech, and I'm here
at a place called two Bit Circus. This is opening
in downtown Los Angeles. And with me is Eric Bradman.
He is one of the guys responsible for this place. Eric,
thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
My pleasure.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Nice to meet you.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Nice to meet you as well. This is amazing.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
This is kind of like it's an adult amusement park,
but I don't mean that in a bad way, Like
it's really cool. If you grow up with something like
a Chuck E cheese, this is that. Time's a thousand
tasing the latest tech.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
When we set out to build this place, we wanted
a place that would entertain us. And you know, we
have friends. I have a kid, like. We want a
place that can entertain us, our friends, our families. So
it's not just aimed at kids. It's mostly for adults.
We have a full bar, we have a full restaurant,
but we also have high tech games that can entertain
pretty much anybody.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
So you walk in, you've got bars. The lighting is
really cool. It's in this spacious kind of warehouse and
it's all been made to entertain and amuse adults and kids.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Like you said, so kids are allowed, let's start with.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
That, definitely. So before nine pm, kids are definitely allowed.
This entertainment is perfectly suitable for kids. But after nine
pm we kick the kids out and we have a
full bar and lots of other fun stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
There's food, there's a bar, there's games. There's no rides, right,
there are no rides.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
We do have some virtual reality with motion simulations in them,
so you will feel the ground shifting beneath your feet,
but we don't have any actual rides here unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
And the games that you created, there's sort of these
larger than life. They're fun, they're simple, they're easy, kind
of pick up. They're not your typical video games per se.
But there are things that you guys have actually come
up with you and your partner.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Yeah, there's a couple principles that have driven our design
process for all these games.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
First of all, all of our games are social. We
want people.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
To play together. So whether you came in a big
group of people or whether you're looking to make new friends,
these games draw people together and get them play together.
And nothing gets people playing together better than you know,
standing elbow to elbow with somebody doing the same thing.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
It creates new friendships. Our games are also very high tech.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
You know, we are inspired by old school carnival fun
games that have been you know, crowd pleasers for generations.
But we're living in a very special time and we
have the ability to transform these games with projectors and
sensors and mechatronics and robotics technology.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And we do that.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
So we're creating these games that feel familiar but at
the same time look unlike anything anyone's ever seen.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Like one of the games that I played was sort
of a twist on the typical bubble pop you or
balloon pop you would play at any amusement park, sure,
except it's a big screen. It's got these real life
balls that you throw at the screen and they pop virtually.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah, walk into any amusement park and you'll be handed
at dart and told to pop real balloons. Here, those
balloons are projected on a screen, and what you're doing
is you're picking up what are actually ballpit balls, colored
ballpits balls, and throwing these balls at that projection screen.
Sensors in the ceiling track the color ball where it hits,
and if you hit a blue balloon with a red ball,
(03:13):
you're changing the color of.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
The balloon on the screen. You're playing a match three game.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
This is a game you can play on your phone
right now, but it's completely transformed by making it, you know,
nine feet wide by twelve feet tall, and allowing you
to play it with friends.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
You've got a robot bartender. Tell me about that. We do.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Our robot bartender is named Guerremo del Porro and he
serves a mean oil martini, also some delicious municipal champagne.
And he was custom built for this place by a
very talented engineer, Dan Busby, And it's just a thing
of beauty. The control systems in there, the custom machining,
(03:49):
every part of that thing was built from scratch for
the sole purpose of getting people drunk.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
That's okay, there you go. Now this place has like
a level of mystery to it. Now we're here during
the day, the lights are on at night. I imagine the
first time people come here, they're just going to be
an amazement of kind of the larger than life properties
of the things that you've built.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
But also wondering is are there secrets in this place.
This place is chock full of secrets.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
You know, when people arrive here, there's too much for
you to do in one night, and we believe that
that's going to get people coming back again and again.
When you come back again, you'll discover something that you
didn't see last time. But more than that, we've filled
this place with intentional mysteries, with rabbit holes that we
continue to dig, a meta story, a backstory that underlies
(04:37):
this whole place, characters who you might encounter while you're
playing games, and you'll slowly come to the realization that,
oh my gosh, there's something going on here, there's something
behind the scenes. You'll want to know more, and we
hope that will keep people coming back again and again.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
So one thing I really liked about coming here is
that there's not like a typical admission fee, Like, you
don't pay a fee to come here. You come in,
you pay as you go, and you play the games.
You have a drink. There's also food.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yep, what what kind of food should we expect? Oh?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
So the food is amazing. I can say that because
I have nothing to do with preparing it. It is
so delicious. We call it farm to Circus. There's there's
locally sourced, there's gluten free, there's also you know, all
those all those options that people are really looking for.
We're accommodating all of those. And it's good stuff. I
have never had meatballs that weren't made with meat that
tasted that good. But we also have delicious hand pies
(05:28):
and and proper carnival food, shrimp corn dogs, shrimp corn dogs.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
That's insane. I love.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
That is insane, Okay, And tell me about some of
the things that people should see when they come here.
I saw, you know, just walking around, you're kind of
just your your brain is drawn to the visual elements
of this place.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
There are different zones here in Tubid Circus. We have
the Carnival Midway with games we've already talked about. We
also have what is probably analogous to a classic arcade,
but is also full of games that we created, some
very high ten alternatives. One we call Skidoo, a giant
arcade game nine feet in length, thousands and thousands of pixels,
really powerful computer inside playing a variety of different games
(06:10):
developed by us and by some of our partners. We
have a VR section with all manner of different VR
experiences from four person shoot them ups to what's called
Beat Saber, which is a very popular arcade VR title.
Now to Battle Zone, which you can play in these
motion platforms. Sit in a chair that's rocking, put on
a VR headset, and battle it out with your friends
(06:31):
in a tank battle. We have a walk around May's
VR experience. There's a ton of different VR stuff. We
also have an interactive game show theater. This is called
Club zero one. It's a one hundred seat theater. You
walk in, you sit at your table, and there is
a touchscreen at every single table. And whether it's trivia
night or a wine tasting show, you're gonna be You're
(06:53):
gonna be entertained by a host up on stage who's
running the event, but you're also part of the show.
Everyone is participating during the entire show. So you may
be answering trivia questions, you may be filling out little
surveys about what you taste in the wine, you may
be solving puzzles. But it keeps people engaged, keeps people laughing.
For you know, anywhere from thirty minutes to an.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Hour long show.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
And where we're sitting right now, this is just kind
of a typical lounge area upstairs, so you can come
to play, you can come to hang out with friends.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yeah, we have a special lounge upstairs, special bar menu
up here, some fancy stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
It's a membership model. So oh, you can be a member.
You can be a member, absolutely okay. And you can
be a member or you can be a member.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
It's interesting because your partner and all this Brent yep,
Brent bush Now bush Now so obviously the son of
Atari founder Nolan bush Now yep.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
So did you know him as a kid. When did
you meet? No, Brent and I met ten years ago.
You met ten years ago right here in downtown Los Angeles.
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
We were among the co founding members of what we
call a drinking club with an art problem. And we
would get together with our friends every week in downtown
at a bar and talk about all the crazy things
we were building.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
We had normal jobs.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I was a roboticist working on government contracts building crazy
robots for the military, and he was building an interactive restaurant.
And we were just looking for other creative outlets for
our technoledge, and we just started collaborating on fun stuff together.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Where do you see this all going two bit Circus
starting in La downtown or do you see it in
five ten years?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Oh gosh, Well, we're very excited about this location. There
will be more. We're excited to expand this concept. We
know that there's a huge appetite for things like this
in the world. In five to ten years, I planned
to be doing exactly what I'm doing right now, which
is creating crazy experience with people, testing them, finding the
ones that work, and just building them bigger and bigger
and bigger and showing people a good time.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
That's what I love to do, all right.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Eric DMan from two Bit Circus, thanks so much for
joining me. If you want to see pictures or video
from inside two Bit Circus, just go to my website
richon tech dot tv or look for links in the
show notes and.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Definitely check out two bit Circus. It is opening, uh well, by.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
The time you listen to this, it will be open,
so enjoy and maybe I'll see there.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Thanks for listening on rich Snamiro. I'll talk to you
real soon.
Host
Rich DeMuro
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