Aiming for More Excitement

Champ Throw Brings Their Brand Of Gamified Axe Throwing to Market

Axe throwing is quickly going beyond the usual plywood model and Champ Throw aims to be at the forefront of innovation.

The company got its start in the axe throwing world in 2018 with their Extreme Axe Throwing ranges in Florida. There, they began to develop interactive axe throwing, which became a hit and is now on the retail market as of September 2021.

“We got really, really popular through social media through our own venues,” said Jennifer Nesselhaus, Champ Throw’s business development manager.

Prior to axe throwing, company president Alexander Maslinkovsky opened three escape rooms in Hollywood, Fla., with fellow co-founder Vladimir Maslinkovsky.

“When we first started building escape rooms in South Florida, we wanted to create a different experience than the simple lock and lever rooms most locations in the U.S. were providing,” Vladimir said. “When thinking about axe throwing, we wanted to bring this same kind of emotion and excitement to the game, and it seemed boring to throw an axe at an ordinary target with circles simply painted on the board.”

So they built out Champ Throw, an interactive, projection-based system that gamifies axe throwing. FECs are now the company’s number one client.

The system is akin to an arcade machine or kiosk in size, and also has a mobile companion app. “It’s very interactive with the mobile application we have built in,” Nesselhaus said. Players can create a custom profile in the Champ Throw world and compete against other throwers in a variety of games, she said.

The platform currently features nine games with a tenth coming soon. The most popular are Monster Crush, which is like a mix of Bejeweled and Tetris, as well as Duck Hunter and Throw Royale, best for big groups. Each of the games features a range of difficulty levels with the moving projected targets.

Maslinkovsky said the technology that allows the system to detect the axe on the projected target, along with their autoscoring model, is patented as of 2020.

Since releasing the product outside their own walls and into the retail space last year, Champ Throw says they have snagged several large FECs in the U.S. and Canada, as well as in the U.K. where they have an exclusive partnership with The Axe Throwing Supply Company.

A few of their biggest installations are at The HUB Stadium in Novi; Speeders in Edmonton, Canada, and another in Edinburgh, Scotland; and various axe throwing franchises such as Urban Axe Throwing in Lafayette, La. Interest has come from as far as Australia, they note.

Champ Throw execs say a plus for operators of the system is that there’s limited need of an attendant. Usually there’s one employee there to go over safety rules and a system overview at the outset of the game, who then remain available if necessary.

The lanes are usually deployed in doubles with a minimum of two lanes. One location has 32 of the kiosk-like machines and axe-throwing projectors. More games are expected to hit the platform later this year, they say.

“When you buy ranges from us, the machine and axes are assembled within a day or two and you have a full attraction running,” Maslinkovsky added.

Champ Throw will make their exhibition debut at IAAPA in booth #4083, featuring their turnkey solution. Learn more at www.champthrow.com.