BattleKart, an experience that combines a physical driving experience with dynamic AR projection mapping, is celebrating its success at the Integrated Systems Europe 2024 awards. The firm, together with its partner Panasonic, has won the AV Project of the Year category.
The ISE 2024 AV Project of the Year award recognises years of research and development for the innovative entertainment franchise.
Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2024 took place from 30 January to 2 February in Barcelona. This was the 20th anniversary of the event, which showcases the audiovisual, systems integration, lighting, live events and IT industries.
Karting, AR & gaming
BattleKart is a unique and thrilling experience that blends video gaming, augmented reality, and electric go-karting. A catalogue of games offers a range of different tracks which are projected onto the floor. While racing through the game area in their electric go-karts, players can interact with each other, bonuses, and the AR environment. The experience is original, enjoyable, and inventive.
The karts can interact with the projected surroundings and other karts due to patented localization technology and server-side game management. Additionally, each player uses their bonuses through buttons on their steering wheel and receives a variety of helpful information in real-time on a screen mounted to the kart’s chassis.
BattleKart is a life-size video game console that provides an immersive experience for up to 12 players per track, regardless of prior expertise with racing or video games. The advanced, discreet technology ensures an optimal experience.
International growth
While still a student, Sébastien Millecam had the idea to mix the thrill and speed of laser tag with karting. The result is the popular BattleKart franchise. Since 2015, BattleKart has attracted over one million players and continues to expand. It currently has over 30 locations across Belgium, Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands, and Saudi Arabia, with further installations planned, which will extend its reach to Switzerland, the UK, Dubai, and Australia.
Millecam, founder and CEO of BattleKart Entertainment, explains: “Our concept is virtually plug and play and requires very little technical expertise to install – especially with the support we provide.
“Only one employee is required to manage the activity on 1 or even 2 tracks. The high level of automation and the interconnection of systems (reservation, admin, scoring, etc.) increases efficiency and reduces human intervention: registration, creation of games, calling of players, boarding, game progress, display of scores, replay, etc.”
Before franchising, BattleKart focused on developing a stable technical solution (including software and hardware) that could adapt to any situation.
“Now, our 30 franchisees can testify that our technological solution is reliable, and the concept itself and its business model can be quickly profitable: most of our current franchisees have already planned to open a second location,” says Millecam.
“Some of them have already opened three or four, and do not intend to stop on their way. For us, this sounds like a confirmation. Now that we have reached this turning point, with our team, our goal is now to really accelerate our franchise network expansion, worldwide. My dream is to offer the opportunity to experience the thrill I felt when I first played BattleKart to the maximum of people!”
