I’ve only ever been cosmic bowling myself a handful of times. It has always been AMAZING!! it’s like a party when the black lights came on, some lanes got the magic red pin. If you knocked the red pin down during a strike you won money. Usually under $5, and while that may not sound exciting, your name and lane were called out loud on the speakers and the spot light was put on you. It’s something everyone should experience at least once in their life.
What is Cosmic Bowling?
Now you are probably wondering to yourself as soon as you heard the term “Cosmic Bowling.” Sounds pretty extraterrestrial, right? like bowling in the depths of space where the Milky Way Galaxy is your lane, and the stars are your bowling balls.
As amazing as that sounds, cosmic bowling is something much different than that. You see, Cosmic Bowling is basically your good old-fashioned bowling, but all dressed up nicely. You got your bowling ball, you got your pins and your lanes, but what’s different in cosmic bowling is neon. It was as if the glitter and glam of disco had a child with the fun and exhilarating sport of the music, lights and different colored pins. Where you find yourself having fun in a room with the lights out everywhere completely except for where the action is going on. Lights focused on the pins showing you your exact target for tonight as you play the game with a couple of your best friends on a Saturday night.
Music blasting through the entire alley adding to the ambiance and vibe of your bowling experience for the night, taking you all the way back to the ’80s, a time filled with nothing but neon lights and dance. Everything around you filled to the brim with glow in the dark technology, your bowling ball rolling down the lane is glowing in the dark, the pins you need to hit are glowing in the dark, the entire lane is glowing in the dark, and if you’re lucky, then even your clothes would be glowing in the dark too.
This neon glow-in-the-dark technology gives the game of bowling a facelift for all enthusiasts and even helps attract new players towards it as the visuals and experience behind cosmic bowling is a sight to behold and experience first hand as cosmic bowling is truly a unique experience for people to try out and see.
Cosmic bowling is mostly booked late at night in bowling allies capturing the perfect essence needed to make a regular bowling game feel like you are attending a party during your college days with great music and everyone dancing and playing along with it.
Professional League Bowlers are also often seen participating in cosmic bowling as they claim that it helps them with their game and concentration. The neon lights everywhere with the music blasting away on top provides a perfect environment for them to practice their skills under pressure and distraction, giving them the ability to play the game of bowling in any situation.
Do all bowling allies have cosmic bowling?
Even though the idea of cosmic bowling seems like a very lucrative venture, unfortunately, not all bowling allies have cosmic bowling in them. Installing cosmic bowling equipment usually requires restructuring the entire bowling alley that includes the bowling lanes, the machinery, the roof’s lightings, display screens, and much more, thus making it sometimes impossible for bowling alley owners to install the necessary features for cosmic bowling down the line as it would just be extra overhead which they may or may not be able to cover up when opening their bowling alley back up.
But there are many other bowling allies that you can easily find that offer late-night bookings for cosmic bowling for you to enjoy by looking at the local bowling alleys around you and seeing if they have cosmic bowling time slots listed.
If you want to know more about bowling alleys near your place, you can Google “bowling alleys near me” to find out everything you need to know about bowling alleys in any state that you live in.
Most bowling alleys such as the ones in Wisconsin offer cosmic bowling with interactive elements added to it with lane-changing visuals and special effects as you throw your bowling ball on top of it, bringing a virtual reality aspect to the coveted game of bowling and ultimately catering to college students wanting to find the perfect place to hang out and chill on a budget by offering a modernized version of bowling to the newer generation.
Other bowling alleys rely on makeshift arrangements to get the job done while on a tight budget to provide a cosmic bowling experience. All they would need is to install UV lights on top of the lanes and apply glow-in-the-dark paint coatings on wherever they would see fit, usually the lane boarding and bowling balls making them glow in the dark and shine. Some light fog machines set up alongside each lane, and the classic discotheque music playing alongside your game shall get you the perfect cosmic bowling alley without breaking a whole fortune over it and catering your patrons of bowling with an enjoyable time of neon-infused bowling in the dark.
The history behind cosmic bowling
Some trends come and go with the passage of time, while some trends mark their stay permanently. With the case of cosmic bowling, everyone thought that it might be a fad that came temporarily with its shiny new strobing lights and fog machine and shall quickly fade away over time.
But cosmic bowling dug its standing deep to the ground in the July of 1997, the month when the news covered cosmic bowling, and it became all the rage amongst the youth turning the expectations of the bowling alley owner’s from it having a short lifespan specifically aimed for family fun in a dimly lit room to it truly taking off to the skies and beyond.
Though since 1997, much has changed in the world of Bowling, the name ‘Cosmic Bowling’ still is living strong to this day bringing forth a strong audience for some late-night bowling and enjoyment for all.
Look at Bowlmor, Headquartered in New York City, is one of the largest bowling ball alley chains in the world, and its manager Alec Ingulsrud has to say that Cosmic Bowling or ‘Extreme Bowling’ what they like to refer to it as is as popular as it ever was before.
According to Ingulsrud, Cosmic Bowling late at night on the weekends is left open till 1 AM providing an out-of-this-world experience for families and teenagers alike wanting to have a time well spent together.
But the question remains on where did this trend of Cosmic Bowling all start? Well, it can be traced back all the way to Antioch in 1995 as an experiment done by Brunswick and its respective centers in the country. In the pilot run, they took the world of bowling by a storm and changed the weekend nights. Lasers bouncing off everywhere in the dark bowling alley with ‘50s pop music blasting through the establishment and giant screens everywhere over your head playing psychedelic imagery at lightning-fast speeds while you stare at the bowlers dancing along with fluorescent bowling balls in their hand enjoying every second spent.
Before cosmic bowling, Friday nights at any bowling alley used to be if someone died there with nobody in plain sight, but after its grand introduction, everyone wanted a piece of it and experienced it, reviving the fun behind bowling once more towards the youth and veterans alike.
Thus, history was made, Cosmic Bowling was here to stay, and to this day, it still is with us. The world of bowling grows and grows as time passes along with it, as innovation can be brought anywhere a person, so desires to. When bowling alley owners saw the youth straying away from the game of bowling, they just added modern technology to attract them back. You know what? They say how necessity is the mother of invention.
