The fireworks are done, the crowds have gone home, and your machines ran all weekend. Now comes the part most operators skip: actually reviewing what happened. The morning after a holiday is one of the best times to learn something useful about your operation — if you know what to look at.
Here’s a practical post-holiday review checklist for ArcadePay operators.
1. Pull Your Weekend Transaction Summary
Log into your ArcadePay dashboard and set the date range to cover the full holiday weekend (July 3–4 for most operators). Look at:
- Total transactions and total revenue — How does it compare to a typical weekend?
- Peak transaction windows — When was your busiest hour? 2 PM? 7 PM? This tells you when guests were most engaged and helps you staff or prepare for similar events.
- Average transaction value — Did guests spend more per play during the holiday, or just come in higher volumes? Both are useful signals.
If your numbers are up, great — but don’t just celebrate. Ask why they’re up, so you can repeat it.
2. Check for Any Failed or Stalled Sessions
High-traffic periods are when edge cases show up. After a busy weekend, it’s worth scanning for:
- Refund requests that came in during the rush and might need follow-up
- Sessions that started but didn’t complete — if a machine froze mid-play or a QR scan timed out, the customer may have walked away frustrated without saying anything
- Connectivity gaps — if a location went offline for any period, you’ll see a gap in transaction data that doesn’t match foot traffic
ArcadePay logs are your audit trail. A quick review now is easier than reconstructing what happened a week from now.
3. Review Your Machine-Level Performance
If you run multiple machines or multiple locations, the holiday weekend is a great time to see which units carried their weight and which ones underperformed.
Sort your machines by transaction count for the weekend period. A machine in a prime location that barely registered activity might have a hardware issue, a placement problem, or a signage gap. A machine that outperformed expectations might deserve a better spot or more prominent signage year-round.
This kind of machine-level visibility is one of the core advantages of going cashless — with coin-op, you’d have to wait for a collection run to know any of this.
4. Look at New vs. Returning Payers
If your dashboard shows payer behavior, check whether the holiday brought in new faces or repeat regulars. A busy holiday weekend often attracts first-time visitors — people who don’t usually come to your venue but showed up because of the event, the holiday, or a group outing.
First-time cashless users who have a smooth experience are more likely to come back. If you saw a spike in new QR payers, that’s worth noting — those guests have already cleared the “first scan” hurdle.
5. Update Your Notes for Next Year
This sounds obvious, but almost no one does it: write down what worked and what didn’t while it’s fresh.
A few sentences in a notes file or a message to yourself is all it takes:
“July 4th 2026: Location A peaked 6–9 PM Saturday. Machine 3 had a reader issue Sunday morning — fixed by noon. Location B was slower than expected — probably needed more outdoor signage directing people inside.”
When July rolls around next year and you’re prepping for the holiday weekend, you’ll have a real baseline to work from instead of trying to remember.
The Bigger Picture
Most of the value in cashless payments isn’t just the transaction itself — it’s the data you get with it. Every holiday weekend is a data-rich event. Operators who review that data systematically improve faster than those who don’t.
Take 20 minutes today to run through this checklist. It’s a small habit that compounds quickly.
Missed something last weekend? ArcadePay’s reporting tools are available anytime — the data doesn’t expire. If you have questions about reading your reports or want help interpreting a trend, reach out to the ArcadePay support team.