I'm all about video games, so of course my mind wanders in that direction, but has anyone tried party games at work? having customers stop by to play Rock Band casually or any sort of tournament with prizes?
Great idea! Don't forget, many 5-10 year olds pack their DS everywhere with them. Make sure you offer something for that platform/agegroup (and their parents) as well
A coworker and I went to the Evolution 2009 competition in Las Vegas over the summer (not expecting to talk business). A lot of players competing came from Southern California, including players that live down the street from our dealership. Since it's kind of hard to sell a gamer a car at a gaming tournament in Vegas, we offered a $1000 coupon towards any of our cars or trucks to anyone who can beat us in three sets of Street Fighter IV. Out of the ten or so people that whooped our asses, two of them actually came into the dealership. One couldn't finance a cheeseburger, but we rolled the other customer out on a car that made us some profit.
So we basically succeeded in 10% of our total prospects, however that wasn't a dealer event. I would set up tournaments and competitions for games that better suit your target audience.. like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, etc. The fighting game/action game audience differs per consumer, and it may be difficult to find a select group of consumers that would actually compete AND become a customer.
Also, I've been thinking of building a MAME Arcade Cabinet, and loading a ton of arcade roms into the cabinet to place in our showroom while customers wait, or when their kids are bored, etc. However, id kind of be there all the time.