Dudsbury Golf Club Hotel and Spa has announced its permanent closure, opened in 2006 the hotel is set within 160 acres of spectacular Dorset countryside.

Last October the resort announced it was closing in March 2024 for refurbishment, earlier this week it then announced the golf club, hotel, spa, catering, and events business will all close permanently.

An email sent to members announced: “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of the hotel, spa, catering, and events business at Dudsbury Golf Club.

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Big Fang Collective has appointed Chris Morgan as the new CEO to lead the group on its path to expansion, with six new sites opening over the next two years, including Nottingham targeted for early 2024.

Morgan joins as CEO to help drive new experiential concepts planned for rollout in 2024. Previously he held the role of Managing Director at Big Fang Collective until 2022. He brings business development experience having worked across leisure, retail, healthcare and hospitality sectors, and most recently as a property and project consultant.

The group has set targets of securing a presence in every major UK city by 2025.

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Chef Tommy Banks and Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) are thrilled to announce a brand new food and drink event at Lord’s Cricket Ground this summer.

The Home of Food by Tommy Banks will run across the weekend of 9 and 10 September at the iconic location in St John’s Wood. It will be the first summer Lord’s, also known as the Home of Cricket, will open the Ground for a non-sport related event, in a bid to open up the venue to more people.

Yorkshire-based Tommy who runs restaurants The Black Swan at Oldstead.

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Cardiff City FC has introduced self-ordering technology at its stadium, launched in collaboration with catering partner, Levy UK + Ireland, the sports and entertainment division of Compass Group UK & Ireland.

The stadium, which has a capacity of over 33,000, will see kiosks added to traditional bar service. Visitors can now order refreshments from 13 till counter points and 19 self-order units, which increases the number of order positions by more than 50%. Orders can then be picked up from three collection points.

The technological improvements will speed up match day service times in the Grange End Family Stand and Upper Concourse South.

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VisitEngland’s Easter Trip Tracker survey, published today, shows that 6.5 million Brits are definitely planning an overnight holiday trip in the UK for the Easter weekend, bringing an estimated £1.8 billion boost to the economy. A further 3.4 million people were undecided about whether to take an overnight holiday trip in the UK during the Easter weekend. The top reason was waiting to see if there were any special deals or offers, followed by waiting to see if they could afford it then waiting to see what the weather is like. VisitEngland Chief Executive Patricia Yates said, “While it is good to see many of us are planning a holiday at home, it is clear from our research and feedback from destinations across England that concerns about the cost of living are having an impact.

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Big Fang Collective's Golf Fang has opened its sixth UK site and its first in Wales after investing £1.5m into the new venue based on Mary Ann Street.

Golf Fang Cardiff is an 18-hole golf course in an environment surrounded by bespoke art, combining crazy golf with theatre, cocktails, street food and DJs. The venue has teamed up with their signature graffiti artists to create a ‘sprayground’ where golf courses are built into unique set designs such as shop fronts, rave rooms, TV sets and much more.

The new site.

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The UK’s first choice indoor family activity brand, Oxygen has announced the acquisition of regional trampoline operator, Jump Evolution. Building further presence within Greater London, the deal takes Oxygen’s portfolio to ten parks across the UK.

Jump Evolution, based in Romford in Essex and covering 27,500 sq ft, is a well-established operation that will become the fourth largest site by revenue in Oxygen’s portfolio.

It is also the second acquisition by Oxygen in the last six months.

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The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) has selected retail, restaurant and leisure real estate agency, P-Three, to lead on the leasing of the key restaurant and catering anchors on London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, including 15,800 sq ft (GIA) of restaurant space at East Bank.

Opening later this year, East Bank is a brand-new riverside development set to rival existing cultural and education centres in London such as The South Bank, South Kensington and King's Cross.

Designed to be a place of innovation and creativity.

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Lane7, the boutique bowling concept, is to open an impressively large venue within Hammerson's Bullring Estate in Birmingham.

The 28,000 sq ft space on Link Street, which connects Bullring and Grand Central, will be Lane7 Group’s biggest investment to date and serve as its flagship.

Lane7 will use the size of the Bullring Estate location to introduce its widest range of games yet, and, in a first for the brand, a rooftop terrace bar with views across Birmingham city centre. Lane7 is set to open in summer 2023.

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Entertainment venue operator, Big Fang Collective has announced the appointment of its new CEO, Natasha Waterfield. She joins after an eight-year stint across two roles at The New World Trading company, as HR Director them Chief Operating Officer.

Natasha became HR Director at The New World Trading Company in 2015. This led to her leading and building the HR department from herself to a 9-strong team and sitting as part of the senior leadership team as the business grew from 5 to 26 sites. Natasha led, innovated and developed both the team and the company to 10th (2017), 7th (2018) and 5th (2019) in the Sunday Times Top 100 Best Companies.

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A tourism campaign led by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to encourage visitors back to the capital has helped bring in £289m additional spending to London, new figures show today. The Mayor expanded his Let’s Do London campaign – already the biggest domestic tourism campaign the capital has ever seen – earlier this year to reach international audiences and encourage even more people to enjoy everything London has to offer following the impact of the pandemic on our hospitality, culture, leisure and retail sectors. The Mayor’s campaign has been a huge success, delivering a return on investment of £28 for every £1 spent, bringing in an additional £289m spending to London. It is also estimated that the campaign will bring an additional 600.

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Visitor attractions are “slicing, dicing and ditching” children’s menus as they battle with rising ingredient costs and staff shortages, a new Soil Association campaign has revealed. The food and farming charity has ranked 16 of the UK’s leading attractions in a new league table after an army of “secret diner” parents helped to assess the quality of food on offer. The investigation found children’s menus are suffering as venues and caterers face huge pressures following Covid-19 closures and ongoing staffing and supply chain disruption linked to Brexit and the Ukraine war. Parents reported a lack of options with children’s menus removed entirely or smaller than before the pandemic. Children aren’t offered hot meals at almost half of venues and several only offered 'nutritionally inadequate' packed lunches lacking fruit or veg.

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ISE, a new competitive socialising company, has secured a unit at the redeveloped King William House (KWH) in Hull for its first ever site.

ISE is a technology driven sporting and entertainment academy facility, providing a unique experience that combines both sports coaching and socialising. The multi-use leisure facility will offer world class coaching of cricket, darts and golf alongside a more social experience traditionally seen in the competitive socialising market.

The site will also house a bar and restaurant.

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Hollywood Bowl, the UK's largest ten-pin bowling operator, has announced its Interim Results for the six-month period ended 31 March 2022 (H1 FY2022), which shows Food revenue up 8.4% and Drinks LFL revenue up 22.9%.

Operational highlights
Strong pent-up demand driving profit and free cash flow
o LFL revenue growth of 26.8% (versus H1 FY2019), with total revenues of £91.3m
o Group adjusted EBITDA increased 46.8% when compared to H1 FY2019.

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The Font, the indoor climbing gym brand that combines world-class bouldering, functional fitness, and social spaces, has secured a second site via leading leisure and property agency, Shelley Sandzer.

This new site forms part of the brand’s ambitious expansion plans to open further sites across the capital.

The Font’s second site, The Font Borough, will be located near London Bridge and will occupy a 6,726 sq ft unit comprising of state-of-the-art climbing walls and a functional fitness gym running a range of classes to improve strength.

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Ghetto Golf Birmingham, the Digbeth-based crazy golf venue, has undergine a revamp and a new branding.

Following an investment of £500k into The Big Fang Collective’s sites, the Birmingham v refurbishment introduces a range of brand new courses and artwork inside the venue. The sites in Liverpool and Newcastle have also rebranded as Golf Fang on the same day.

The Liverpool-based entertainment venue operator, founded by Kip Piper and Daniel Bolger, was founded in 2016 and opened their first Ghetto Golf in Liverpool inside of the 25.

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Specialist business property adviser, Christie & Co has today launched its Leisure: 2022 Mid-Year Review, which reflects on activity, trends and challenges that shaped the UK leisure sector in the first half of 2022, and provides an outlook for the rest of the year. The review indicates that there has been a shift in public sentiment towards leisure activities with consumers valuing recreational and leisure experiences more than ever, likely due to the pandemic and various lockdowns endured over the past two years. Coupled with more stable trading conditions for the first time in two years during H1 2022, there were clear signs of recovery across the leisure market, particularly for experiential.

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We couldn't be more proud of England winning 2-1 against Germany last night at the EURO Finals! Chloe Kelly's goal in the 110th minute at Wembley Stadium gave England its first major international title since the 1966 men's World Cup.

Wembley was filled to a record-winning capacity of 87,192 - the highest attended match at either a men's or women's European Championship.

Nearly 100,000 children have been part of that record-breaking attendance while 47% of all fans in the stadiums have been female.

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The UK's leading adventure & trampoline park operator, Flip Out has reported that since adding Dr Oetker's Chicago Town Pizza To Go to its hot food offering at its Bristol site, sales have soared.

Since the partnership began back in May 2021, Flip Out Bristol has seen a staggering 68% increase in sales, a rise of 24% since replacing its previous offering.

Flip Out began stocking Chicago Town’s Pizza to Go (PTG) to find new ways to cater to its wide range of audience and their tastes. The food-to-go service offers pizzas by the slice which can be cooked.

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The 2022 Travellers’ Choice Best of the Best Awards for the Top Overall Experiences have been revealed. They are based on the quality and quantity of traveller reviews and ratings posted on Tripadvisor over a 12-month period, from 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2021. These are best activities across the UK, according to travellers who have experienced them and loved every minute. 1. High-Speed Thames River RIB Cruise in London “A Wonderful Experience for all the family to enjoy.” 2. City & Beatles Tour - BLUE ROUTE, Liverpool “Beatles & City tour on open top bus” 3. The Chocolatarium Chocolate Tour Experience in Edinburgh “Fun, informative, interactive tour.” 4. Cab tours belfast famous black taxi tours.

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