The walk-in lounge
Guests pay for 30 or 60 minutes, drive and leave. Location matters more than anything else, and the counter is the bottleneck on a busy night.
How to Start a Sim Racing Business
Guide · Sim racing centers
How to start a sim racing business: the venue half.
Most people who open a sim racing center are racers first. They know what a good rig feels like and which sims matter. What catches them out is everything around the rig: the booking that double-sold a Saturday, the birthday party that turned up with eleven kids and four signed waivers, the corporate group that wanted a proper race and got six people driving alone.
4kinds of sim racing business, and which one you are
6–12rigs for a group race that feels like a race
2–3session lengths to open with, not eleven
$723a month to run four rigs on VenueChief, published
Sim racing business model
Decide what you are selling before you buy a rig.
“Sim racing” covers at least four different businesses. Rig count, floor plan and price all follow from which one you are. Most centers that last end up as a mix of the first three, but open as one.
The race night venue
Groups book a slot and race each other: practice, qualifying, a race and a podium. Corporate events and birthday parties live here.
The league and coaching venue
Regulars come back every week to improve their lap times, race in a league and pay for coaching. Their lifetime value is far higher than a walk-in’s.
The mobile sim racing business
Rigs in a trailer for events and trade shows. Travel, setup time and insurance replace rent, so price by the day, not by the session.
Rigs and floor plan
How many simulators, and where to put them.
A racing simulator business is a capacity business. Every rig-hour you do not sell is gone for good.
- Count in race groups, not rigsSix to eight rigs is where a group race starts to feel like a race. Twelve lets two groups run at once, or one big corporate grid race together.Decide first
- Put the rigs where people can watchSpectators sell the next booking. A screen with the live leaderboard does more marketing than anything you print.Floor plan
- Plan power and network before the leaseMotion rigs draw real power, and every rig needs a reliable wired connection. Budget the electrician before you sign, not after.Before signing
- Leave room for the briefingA five-minute safety and controls briefing for a group of eight needs somewhere to stand that is not between two rigs.Floor plan
What to charge
There is no right price. There is a right structure.
Decide these four before you open. Raising prices later is harder than starting with a peak rate.
1
Two or three session lengths
A 30-minute and a 60-minute session cover most walk-ins. Eleven options means eleven explanations at the counter.
2
A group race package
A fixed format at a per-driver price with a minimum number of drivers. This is what corporate groups and parties buy.
3
Peak and off-peak
Friday night and Saturday are worth more than Tuesday afternoon. Price them that way from the first day.
4
Gift cards, then memberships
Gift cards on sale the day the website goes live, because they bring in cash before you open. Memberships and prepaid packs in month two, once you know who your regulars are.
Staffing a sim racing center
The rigs do not run themselves.
Someone has to check guests in, explain the controls, start the session on each rig, pick the car and track, help the driver who stalled on the grid and reset the rig for the next group. In our experience a busy night needs one person on the floor for every six to eight rigs, plus whoever is on the counter.
This is where software decides your payroll. If staff can launch the same session on eight rigs
from one screen, set the car, track and assists once, and see every driver’s lap times live, one person can
run a group race. If they have to walk to each PC, they cannot.
Sim racing software
What you need on day one, and what can wait.
Buy everything up front and you end up with software nobody was trained on.
Day one
- A website that takes bookings, with live availability for each rig (a request form is not online booking)
- Digital waivers signed before arrival, including a parent signing for a junior driver
- Check-in that copes with eleven people arriving at once, ideally with a kiosk
- Race control: launch sessions on many rigs at once, with live timing and results
- Payment at the counter and online, and gift cards
- Basic reporting, so you know what a good day looks like
Month two, three, or next season
- Leagues and championships
- Leaderboards and driver scores across visits
- Lap analysis and coaching
- Memberships and prepaid packs
- A shared inbox and a phone system
- Marketing to the guest list you have started building
Kiosks
The decision that changes your staffing.
A kiosk is a touch screen at the door where a guest checks in, signs, picks a session and pays. It is the biggest single lever you have on how many people you need at the counter, so decide it before you sign the lease, not after the first Saturday queue.
Here is what a self-serve kiosk does in VenueChief. The guest finds a booking by code, email or phone number, or starts as a walk-in. The waiver is signed on screen, and for a minor the kiosk asks for a guardian before it accepts it. The guest chooses a length, the rigs, the game, the track and the car, confirms and pays on a card reader attached to that kiosk. A game is offered only if it is installed on every rig the guest picked, so the failure happens before they pay and not on the grid. Then the rigs switch to loading and the screen says where to sit.
What that removes from the counter: the queue of walk-ins, the waiver chase, and taking payment for every session. What it does not remove: someone on the floor. A missing guardian, a game the chosen rigs cannot run and a card that declines still need a person, and so does anyone driving a motion rig. Do not plan to run racing with nobody on site.
- The honest staffing view (our opinion, not a measured result). Without a kiosk, the person at the counter does check-in, waivers and payments, and a second person runs the floor. With one, a single person can cover the floor and handle the exceptions on a quiet weekday, and you add the second person for Friday and Saturday night. Count your busiest hour, not your average one.
- Start with one at the door. Add a second only when you see a queue form. You configure each kiosk under Screens: the full flow, a single-simulator mode for one attached rig, or check-in only.
- What it costs. Kiosks are part of the Platform plan, so there is no separate software line for them. You pay for the screen and a card reader for each one. A kiosk sells what your packs allow: sim sessions need Sim Racing Ops, and food and drink need Food and Beverage. It does not sell bookable resources such as bays or party rooms, so those are booked online or at the desk.
Food and drink
If you sell food and drink too.
Many sim racing lounges are half bar. The rigs bring people in, and the drinks and snacks pay the rent on the busy nights. That changes three decisions: the floor plan, the staffing and the books.
- One system or two. A separate register means a separate login, report and reconciliation on Monday. VenueChief's food and beverage tools run in the same platform: tabs by name or table, suggested or custom tips, a check split evenly two to five ways, a PIN sign-in for each server, and payment by card reader, gift card or cash where your payment policy allows. Food and drink land in the same daily close as the bookings, split by sale type.
- Parties that include food. A party package can carry a food credit. The booking holds it, and the register spends it down by confirmation code, so a group's race and its pizza are one booking and one bill.
- Kiosk food ordering. Guests can order at the kiosk, give a name and pay for pickup. That takes small orders off the bar when one person is covering both the bar and the floor.
- Staffing. A bar needs its own person at busy times, in addition to the floor. In our view, a kiosk plus kiosk food ordering is what lets a small crew run a lounge that serves both.
- Layout (opinion). Put the bar where the person behind it can see the rigs, and keep drinks off the rig desks. Ask your insurer about both before you build.
- Alcohol. Your license, your insurer and your local rules decide who you can serve and when. VenueChief does not check ID for alcohol service, so build that step into how your staff work.
The limits, so you can price them in: this is the bar and counter of a venue whose main business is the activity, not a restaurant system. There is no receipt or kitchen printing, no cash drawer, no recipe or ingredient costing and no food purchasing today. QR ordering at the table and happy hour pricing are not available at the register. Food and beverage is an add-on to the Platform plan at $259 a month, tables included. A twelve-rig lounge with a kitchen or bar is $1,270 a month, against $1,011 without it.
Keeping first-timers coming back
Give them a lap time worth beating.
Many first-time guests never come back. The venues that grow give them a reason to: a lap time on a leaderboard, a driver score that improves as they do, a league table, a lap analyzer that shows exactly where they lost two tenths at the hairpin. All of that only works if every lap is recorded against the guest’s name, which is a decision you make at setup, not later.
The paperwork that delays openings
Start these early.
Card processing
A merchant account goes through underwriting, and a new business with no trading history gets extra questions. Apply as soon as the business exists.
Insurance
Public liability at the very least. Ask your broker about motion simulators and about minors driving.
Your waiver
Have a lawyer in your state review it, including who may sign for a minor.
Occupancy and electrical
Confirm both with your landlord and the local authority before anyone starts building.
What the software costs. Our rate card is public, which is still unusual in this industry.
A new sim racing center with four rigs is $723 a month on VenueChief, and twelve rigs is $1,011. Both include
online booking, waivers, race control and the point of sale. Annual prepay is 12 percent less, and we would
rather start your billing near opening day than while the building is a shell. See every line.
Straight answers
Questions people ask before opening a sim racing center.
Can you make money with a sim racing business?
Some venues do, and some close. The ones we see doing well sell group races, parties and corporate events rather than relying on walk-ins, and give regulars a reason to come back. Be wary of any guide, including this one, that promises a profit figure without knowing your rent and your town.
How many simulators do I need to start?
Enough for a group race in the format you want to sell. For most venues that is six to twelve.
Which sims should a sim racing center run?
The ones your guests have heard of and that your software can control from one screen. VenueChief launches and manages rFactor 2 and Le Mans Ultimate sessions across many rigs, and supports Assetto Corsa with a narrower set of controls.
Do I need staff on site?
For racing, yes. Software can remove the queue at the counter and let one person run a group, but someone has to be on the floor while guests are driving.
What about a mobile sim racing business?
Booking, waivers and payment work the same way. The difference is setup time, transport and insurance, so price events by the day.
When should I talk to a software company?
Six months before you open, when you are making the decisions in this guide. We will walk through them with your floor plan whether or not you buy anything.
Bring your floor plan. We’ll set up the venue.
Send us your layout and your opening date, even if it is a year away. We will set your rigs up in VenueChief to match and go through these decisions with your own numbers.
Written by Bernard Villers Jr. VenueChief and SimXperience share ownership; this guide does not recommend a rig brand. Updated October 2026.
From the newsroom
The sim racing pieces, one capability at a time.
Related pages
Depth on the decisions above.