March 22, 2024

By AJ Heckenlaible, for SiouxFalls.Business

An Omni Virtual Reality Arena has replaced ax-throwing as Thunder Road’s newest addition to the indoor entertainment center.

Similar to other virtual reality systems, players wear a VR headset and use controllers to interact with the virtual world. The Omni takes the immersive element of VR one step further and includes a 360-degree treadmill that matches the pace of movements in the game.

“We put a harness on you so you can’t fall over, and then you walk around a virtual world with a special slip that goes over top of your shoe and some little sensors that track every step you take in the real world and translates that into the virtual world,” general manager Ryan Friez said.

With a minimum height requirement of 54 inches, the Omni is tailored toward an older demographic.

According to Friez, VR was the next step for Thunder Road’s indoor entertainment center.

“We’ve looked at VR for a while, but … there’s other people in Sioux Falls who’ve done VR, and so we were like we’re not really going to do VR until we can bring it to the next level. And I think that’s really what Omni did,” Friez said.

“We’ve prided ourselves on bringing some real cool, new innovations to Sioux Falls, and this is kind of one of the next ones we thought we could bring.”

With the Omni system supporting up to four players at a time, players can participate in monthly and weekly Omni VR contests.

“Top prize for the monthly contest is like $2,000 for a team,” Friez said.

Within 10 days of installing the Omni VR Arena late last year, Thunder Road saw teams winning a competition and earning eighth and 10th place in national competitions.

“They were pretty impressed that we picked it up in South Dakota that quickly,” Friez said.

Some visitors to Thunder Road have been hesitant to try the new VR system, but overall public reception has been warm, he added.

“It’s lit up kind of green, and it looks kind of different. Usually people are like, ‘Let me watch somebody play,’ but after they’ve seen that, then they’re like ‘OK, now I’m going to play,’” Friez said.

After spending years looking into VR systems, investing in the Omni Arena is a big step for Thunder Road, he said.

“We’re hopeful that it’ll be well supported by the community and, we thought, like I said, it’s a unique piece, but it’s not something that we took lightly adding to the park.”