About WOW Sport Events

To understand the why of we created WOW Sport Events, one has to go back over twenty years ago to one of the most popular event items that WOW Entertainment rented. This game rental to this day still creates excitement with customers who know the history of WOW Entertainment and continue to hire us today to provide authentic & innovative items for their events.

Joe Parnett, prior to creating WOW Entertainment, worked for amusement & casino equipment provider American Alpha Incorporated. He quickly rose to the position of Executive Vice President through the guidance of Sming Huang, the founder of American Alpha. While working at American Alphia, Mr. Parnett travelled extensively throughout the world and attended several amusement trade shows. While at these trade shows, he quickly realized that there were certain products that never made it to North America. When WOW Entertainment officially began, Mr. Parnett brought to the United States several amusement games which quickly differentiated the company from other game rental companies in the New York City metropolitan area. One of those games was the REAL PUNCHER.

REAL PUNCHER allowed participants to have their individual pictures taken and then put on a boxing glove. A padded device would then come up and participants were prompted to hit the padded device. A score would appear based on the intensity of the punch but that was only part of the experience. The other participant's face would become damaged based on the intensity of the punch. Black eyes, squished lips, bruised chins or a fat lip may appear. Each participant was allowed three punches and a total score was then displayed. However the score was not as important as how the other participant's face appeared after the three punches. That is what participants focused on. Individuals of all ages and genders absolutely loved this event game rental. One of the most popular rental periods of the year was Administrative Professional's Day for corporate events. And administrators absolutely loved this game. Administrator Professionals would make sure to get their boss to come over and play and to make sure that their photo was on the machine. It was amazing to witness how far these professionals would run up to punch the padded device. Consistently WOW Entertainment was told that this game rental was a hit at the event and had such a long lasting positive effect on company morale. At one point, WOW Entertainment owned five REAL PUNCHERS due to its success & popularity.

Unfortunately, the manufacturer of the game which was based in Asia stopped supporting the item and it became increasingly difficult to maintain the game. After a very successful five year run, REAL PUNCHER was retired within WOW Entertainment to the dismay of staff and clients. Other manufacturers in both Asia and Europe came out with other versions but it was not the same experience. As technology grew many manufacturers incorporated virtual reality to punching games and other amusement games centered around sports. While these initially garnered great attention and there were successes since the time of the REAL PUNCHER, to Mr. Parnett it was not the same experience. What had a lasting impression on him was that no matter how great the technology was, it has to be incorporated properly to the game experience. The overwhelming majority of new sporting game rentals centered around the technology and not around the experience and that experience while it sounds so simple is about the physical aspect of the game. It is as simple as hitting a punching bag with a boxing glove and feeling that in your body. Passing a real football at a real target, kicking a real football or soccer ball to a goal or target and not doing this virtually. Throwing a baseball through a strike zone or shooting a basketball. These are all physical experiences that we all feel and not matter how great technology becomes, those physical experiences can never be replicated. They just can't! With this always in his in mind, Mr. Parnett set out in creating sport game activations that provided that physical experience along with the right use of technology to enhance the overall physical engagement. WOW Sport Events has that mantra when it is creating sport related items for events no matter if those games will be for a brand activation, a corporate sponsored event, a trade show or mobile marketing tour. The sport related item has to have the proper mix of physical aspect of that specific sport, the authenticity as much as possible related to that sport, the portability of the event marketplace and mixed with the proper technology to make participants experience a "WOW". It is from this that WOW Sport Events lives by its tag line "Elevate the Game and Redefine the Sporting Experience for Events."

Our History

Our history below marks just a few of the highlights the journey we have taken with creating WOW Sport Events and events where we have the Elevated the Game and Redefined the Sporting Experience for Events