Effective partnerships between property landlords and their retail tenants are crucial for fostering vibrant, successful commercial spaces. In this exclusive Q&A feature, published in the latest issue of SCN, we invited six retail partners to share their personal experiences and career highlights and provide insights into their business – the current challenges, opportunities, trends, growth strategy and more… Here we feature Zak Gelfand, Head of Property at Funlab.

Funlab is the world’s premiere creator of competitive socialising experiences, with eight brands (Archie Brothers Cirque Electriq, B. Lucky & Sons, Holey Moley Golf Club, Juke’s Karaoke, La Di Darts, Red Herring Escape Rooms, Strike Bowling and Hijinx Hotel) operating in more than 52 venues across Australia, New Zealand and the US. Funlab was recently acquired by global private equity firm TPG Capital, which has partnered with Funlab to help achieve its growth ambitions.

What is your current role and main responsibilities?

There are several elements to my role as Head of Property, including property strategy, renewals: variations, extensions, and operational needs.

Property strategy involves reviewing and identifying the locations for our new sites, together with negotiating the leases. The second element, renewals; variations and extensions, does sit within the strategy, however, we are reviewing our existing fleet for opportunities to take on additional space where it is available to add further activities. The third element, operational needs, relates to assisting our trading locations where there might be some operational issues that relate directly to a property matter, such as additional signage, new opportunities and any required maintenance.

Tell us about your career journey and how you got started in retail property?

After a former life working in media and events (including the odd music festival!), I got my start in retail property with AMP working in Casual Mall Leasing (CML) at Knox, then went across to Westfield. After working across Westfield’s portfolio, I had the opportunity to join CFSGAM/Vicinity Centres and was there for 11 years.

Do you have any career highlights or memorable moments you can share?

I was very fortunate to work with some great people at Vicinity, working on Northland, Emporium and most notably The Glen Shopping Centre development.

I joined the Funlab team as a Motherfunner in July 2021 and in true Funlab fashion, my interview required a costume on arrival. Bringing back my music festival past, I donned a mullet wig, AC/DC shirt, sunnies and tattoo sleeve – bringing a little rock n roll into the property world! Meeting the Funlab team who were also in costume helped really introduce me to the business and get an immediate idea of how fun sits at their heart of our DNA, where we work hard but still manage to have fun!

What do you love about retail?

Retail is a dynamic business, always changing and responding to both customer changing needs and other macro elements that impact how much wallet spend is left and where people wish to spend it.

Working with Funlab, there’s also the added dimension of creating amazing experiences for people within our venues, that not only distract people from their ordinary lives, but also help create magical experiences and memories that last a lifetime!

Tell us about the culture at Funlab and why its a great place to work?

The team at Funlab are empowered to be leaders, while at the same time not losing sight of whom they are as people. Working at Funlab enables us to live and breathe the brand’s core values of being our own honest and unscripted selves, having a positive mindset, and going above and beyond together while developing our Motherfunners (what we call our team members) via DING (Development + Investment + Nurturing = Growth).

Recently, we were awarded the No. 2 Best Big/Very Big Places to Work by The Australian in their inaugural Best Places to Work 2024 awards! This was a fantastic recognition of the culture we have built at Funlab and reflects the amazing work of all 2,500 Motherfunners we have working across our business.

What does Funlab’s development pipeline and growth strategy look like?

Funlab currently operates in three countries – four in the US, four in New Zealand and 44 Australian locations. Our current focus within Australia and NZ is on several larger projects per year in flagship locations, with larger scale and multi-venue sites. We are always reviewing our existing operations with a view to increase the size of our footprint on high-performing locations, adding additional brands or activities.

In my time as Head of Property, we have increased our footprint from about 50,000m2 to more than 100,000m2 in ‘fun’ under management.

In relation to the US, we launched our business in Denver in August 2023 and have now opened three further locations in Austin, Houston and San Francisco, all under the Holey Moley brand. We have a further three projects with leases signed and in development that will take our count to seven US venues by April, 2025.

What are the key elements of a successful retail business?

Relentless and constant attention to detail. You need to understand your customers and guests, and be willing to take on and action feedback as well as respond to changing circumstances that affect the market and your guests.

This is an area where Funlab is super successful, as we’re able to continually innovate and deliver new and interesting experiences, as well as improvements and changes to the guest journey within our venues.

What are some of the trends you are seeing in the industry?

We’re continuing to see the rise and rise of the importance of social media to create awareness of our products and act as the primary method of discovery. The role of TikTok and bite-sized well-produced organic video content continues to increase, with this platform crucially important in getting our products out to the key 18-34 demographic in our venues.

In addition, we’re seeing the rise of more diverse purchasing behaviours from the latest demographics, with no and low-alcohol products growing as a fast emerging segment. To support this, we did a fantastic promotion with Lyre’s non-alcoholic spirits in July, to deliver high-quality cocktails that have all the taste, but none of the hangovers!

What are some new innovations being introduced at Funlab?

We’re currently working on a large amount of innovation in our venues, to provide additional auxiliary activities that work within an existing brand, but provide further opportunities for optimisation and increased utilisation. One example is our recent launch of Flash Dash in our Archie Brothers Alexandria venue, a 2-6 player interactive concept that uses pressure sensitive light-up panels for a variety of innovative game types.

How important is sustainability and ESG in your company’s strategy?

At Funlab, we strive to both reduce our impact on the environment around us, as well as ensure we’re delivering sustainable growth that supports our local communities and networks. This relates to not only our day-to-day operations in venue, but our also strategies around our supplier and venue decision-making, working with our key partners and landlords.

To support this, we have both a Sustainability Committee in our business, as well as a fully developed ESG policy that ensures we have a strategic and practical lens to our efforts. One large initiative that we’ve launched is our recent strategy to reduce our impact through a business-wide review of our water and waste policies, to conserve water wherever possible in our venue operations. In addition, we’ve launched a partnership with our wine provider Hidden Sea to create a mini-golf hole in our venues that shows the journey of waste in the ocean. As a company that both reduces and also collects ocean waste, it was a great way of connecting our great suppliers with the customer and providing more information as to what we and they do to make the world a better place!

What do you think makes a successful retailer/shopping centre?

With the projects I work on with Funlab, there is usually significant lead times and investment from both parties, to deliver a high level execution and concept. As a result, clear and open book communication is essential between both parties and being honest and transparent about the shared goals and vision for the development and project.

What advice would you give to a property executive on the landlord-side looking to make the move to retail?

While I’d absolutely encourage anyone looking to move from the landlord to retail side, I will say that there are still some fundamental differences!

Being based on the retail side, it’s incredibly important to maximise every possible opportunity and location, as the performance of each property decision can have a large impact on both the short-term and long-term plans for the company. This not only can harm our property pipeline, but also our staff recruitment and retention, brand positioning and guest experience. This means we need to dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’ when strategising, pitching and securing sites and always try to get the best outcome possible!

Additionally, working within a retail business, I feel a real sense of shared vision and purpose across our teams and functions. We not only celebrate our wins together, but can also come together across the business to solve our issues and ensure that we’re going above and beyond to maximise our opportunities and openings.

This profile featuring Zak Gelfand forms part of a special feature published in the latest issue of SCN magazine.