About Dwell Time

What is Dwell Time?

Dwell Time is a data journal about vending locations in recreation and attraction venues: rinks, gyms, escape rooms, mini golf, amusement parks, campgrounds and sports complexes. We publish venue-by-venue numbers, the methods behind them and the decisions they point to.

The name is the thesis. Foot traffic gets a venue onto an operator’s list, but how long people stay, the dwell time, decides whether a machine sells. Every story is built on the figures that predict that: visitors a year, visit length, who waits, and what share the venue takes.

• Attractions & Data: Attractions & Data covers vending machine locations at the venues people visit for the experience, from mini golf and escape rooms to haunted houses and amusement parks. It also holds the studies behind them: the ranking of the best vending machine locations, foot-traffic thresholds, revenue share by venue type and where to put a machine inside a building. Every figure carries its source, its date and its sample size.
• Sports & Recreation: Sports & Recreation covers vending machines for sports facilities: the rinks, gyms, indoor soccer fields, pickleball courts, swim schools and rec centers where people wait while someone else plays. Each Venue File sets out who visits, how long they stay, who signs the agreement and what share the venue expects.
• State Data: State Data takes the locator question apart with numbers: how many signed placements each state actually has in the open marketplace record, which venue categories they sit in, what share of sales the venue takes, and how the reported visitor counts compare. Where a state has no record at all, the guide says so instead of filling the gap. One guide per state, plus the overview.

We write for vending operators choosing between venue offers, for venue owners and managers who want to know what a machine should be worth to them, and for reporters and analysts who need a sourced number. We do not cover office and breakroom routes, machine reviews, or hospital contracts. Government contracts come in only where a public agency runs the recreation venue, such as a city rec center, park, rink or driving range; our YMCA and rec center file walks through how those bids work.

Where do our numbers come from?

Two kinds of sources. Listings on PinPoint Vending’s marketplace give us venue-reported visitor counts, venue shares and terms for 87 open listings as of October 5, 2026; we label those counts as venue-reported because nobody audits them. Everything else comes from published sources we link where we use them: government data, standards bodies, trade associations, operators’ published schedules and manufacturers’ specification sheets.

The complete snapshot we work from is published as The Dwell Time vending location dataset, so readers can check our figures against the rows. Every data story prints its method, date and sample size, usually in a closing section called “How did we get these numbers?”. When a figure is our estimate, we say so and show the arithmetic. The rules are in our editorial standards.

Who writes and edits Dwell Time?

Editor: Max Zulsky

Articles are written and checked by two desks. Each desk page lists its beat, how it reports and everything it has published.

• Dwell Time Data Desk: Rankings of the best vending machine locations and of sports facilities, with studies on foot traffic, revenue share and placement.
• Dwell Time Field Desk: The Venue File series, one venue type per article, with a standard data box and the case for and against placing a machine there.

AI tools assist our research and drafting, and the editor checks every number against its source before an article is published. Our photos are AI-generated depictions of typical scenes and are labeled as such.

How do I reach the editors?

Through the form on our contact page, for corrections, tips and questions about an article. How we handle corrections is described there and in our editorial standards.