How Delirium Axe Throwing Found Its Miami Niche

Bismarck Amaya and Jerry Jimenez, founders of Delirium Axe Throwing, have successfully carved out a unique space in the entertainment industry by tapping into the growing demand for interactive, high-energy activities. Inspired by their shared passion for bringing people together through exhilarating experiences, they identified the market opportunity for an axe throwing venue that delivers both fun and safety.

In this interview, Bismarck and Jerry share their journey from concept to execution, revealing insights on facility design, booking management, and safety protocols.

SBS – What inspired you to start Delirium Axe Throwing, and how did you identify the market opportunity for it?

Jerry – When we initially thought of creating our own business, we planned to open an escape room. We have gone as far as to research and understand the escape room industry. At some point during the process, we went axe throwing for the first time with friends and family and realized we had a great time. 

That got us thinking about opening an escape room business and an axe venue together. It seemed very exciting and fun, and we realized we needed something similar in our area. Although there are other axe throwing and escape room businesses in Miami, most of them are significantly farther away. To an extent, they are in areas primarily focused on tourists. We wanted to open something closer to universities and to regular people living in ours and neighboring cities.

Through the process of trying to get permits and other necessities to open our doors, we had to sacrifice the escape room portion of our business, and we made a pivot to being a 100% axe throwing business.

Bismarck – Like Jerry said, many of our competitors are either too east or too south, and when we were looking for our venues, we didn’t look for too many options. We found one walking distance of Florida International University, and we thought that it was a great opportunity because students will always be coming and going, and it’d be great to have an entertainment option so close. That’s actually one of the things that a lot of our customers say, too — there’s not a lot to do within the area where we’re located. Yes, you have a mall, and not too far, there is a bowling alley. But that’s not much. The community was looking for something new and different.

SBS – What’s the process of selecting the games like?

Bismarck – Our venue has two main options, which are traditional and digital axe throwing. In both cases, the customers throw the axe at the target, always trying to get a bullseye or the highest score. The main difference with our digital axe throwing lanes is that there’s a projector system within that lane displaying the images onto the wood. It allows people to pick one up to 10 games to play. There are some classics, like Tic Tac Toe and Lineup-4, but we have other games like Zombie Assassin and Duck Hunter. When playing any game, players need to click where their axe landed to keep a tally of their score, whereas, in the regular lane, there is a dry-erase board, and keeping a tally is much more manual.

Our bread and butter is axe throwing, but we recently came up with a new game thanks to Jerry, and I’ll let him talk about that.

Jerry – A couple of weeks ago, we went live with an add-on called Plate Rage. We provide the customers with white plates and markers during their axe throwing reservation, so they decorate the plate with whatever is upsetting them or making them angry, and they later smash that plate against the wall. For them, that’s a great way to de-stress, and for us, that’s a fairly simple way to add revenue to each reservation within the same timeframe they had to begin with.

Even though we initially thought it was a weird idea and not many would like to do it, it became pretty popular. Many people in Miami are angry, for whatever reason, and want to take out their rage.

Bismarck – When Jerry suggested this, I thought — Who would want to break plates? Nobody! But, honestly, once you do it, it feels great. Even when people throw the axes, it’s such a good feeling once you hit that bullseye. Sometimes, when you’re angry, you feel like breaking things at home, but you don’t want to do it because you still need them. That’s where Plate Rage comes in. It is all about de-stressing and letting go of that anger.

SBS – How did you approach the process of designing your facility?

Bismarck – That was really interesting. When it came to the design, I think Jerry and I picked a cool color story. I work in marketing. That’s my day job. For me, colors and branding are really important. Many axe throwing places look and feel very similar — there is a lot of wood, which sometimes feels very plain. We wanted to spice things up and give our space a little bit more decor. We implemented our color palette wherever we could. Granted, our axe throwing lanes are all black, but we added accent shades of pink or purple, which are within our logo, throughout the venue. One of the compliments we often get is that this place looks very Miami. It’s trendy and cool.

Jerry – We did a lot of research, looking at the pictures of different venues throughout the United States, so we knew what we didn’t want ours to look like. We have a neon pink sign, and our colors are pink and purple, which is probably the complete opposite of what you expect to see at an axe throwing venue. Axe throwing tends to be a very male-dominated activity, and we wanted to catch the attention of couples, girls, and other demographics that otherwise wouldn’t necessarily feel comfortable at a typical axe throwing space.

SBS – How do you handle booking and scheduling?

Jerry – We utilize a booking software called TripWorks. Our customers can book online ahead of time or show up at our venue, and we can book for them. We use this platform to collect payments for reservations, and it also gives us access to a daily schedule. We also have staff that handles reservations and scheduling as needed.

SBS – How do you ensure safety at your venue?

Bismarck – In regards to safety, we always start all of our sessions with the safety rules. We teach customers three things: safety rules, how to throw the axe, and how the games work.

Our first safety rule is that you can’t throw the axe at anyone or anything else, only at the board. We also have a rule on how to retrieve the axe. Sometimes, the axe can really be jammed in the board, and when people try to take it out, they can hit themselves or even fall back and get hurt. I’ve seen this happen at other venues. Our third safety rule concerns handing axes to the next player. You should never put the blade first towards the other person. The handle should be pointing towards them. Or, you can put the axe on the racks within each lane. When it comes to Plate Rage, we also have players wear face shields so that they don’t get hurt by any of the flying shards.

Jerry – From the moment we started planning the venue, we took every little detail into consideration, such as the layout of the lanes. Many venues have two lanes together so two people can throw their axes at the same time. We purposely decided to have single lanes with walls and a chain link fence on the side to be able to see if someone else was throwing or retrieving their axe. 

We also made sure that our tables are facing the lanes and that people who are sitting there don’t have their backs towards the person throwing an axe. That way, they’ll be able to see if an axe, for whatever reason, flies back. 

Bismarck – What’s interesting is that a lot of the axe venues usually have a bar selling alcohol. People wonder how you can be allowed to drink alcohol and throw axes, but that’s usually the norm.

Obviously, if someone is too drunk, we can always deny them the service, but that hasn’t happened yet. I think people like having fun with their friends or loved ones, having a beer or two, and just enjoying the game.

SBS – What marketing strategies have proved to be the best for you guys to attract customers? Has anything changed in that regard from the beginning?

Bismarck – It’s been hard. We’ve been open for a year and tried many different things. We tried Google and paid social media advertising, but our main focus is social media, like Instagram and Facebook. Jerry has been very busy on TikTok. One of the things that we’ve tried recently is influencer marketing. Influencers have a higher following, so our goal is to benefit from that and get the word out there. The only thing we haven’t done so much of is physical mailers.

SBS – What about local SEO?

Bismarck – Not so much, to be honest with you. However, we’re always posting. We try to do some blog content, and adding content to the website improves our SEO ranking. We have a lot of customer reviews, which also helps our SEO ranking on the Google Business pages. Many customers come to us because they see we have a lot of great reviews. Some even drive from afar to our location.

We also partnered with a company called Crafts and Drafts Miami. They go around to different venues, like breweries, and are doing a craft — for example, candle making — and they set it as a bundle package so that the customer gets to do this craft and an hour of axe throwing.

Sometimes, we also do karaoke at our venue and offer other little things to entice people to come, and that has also helped us reach people who may not be our usual customers.

Jerry – For us, the biggest surprise has been the impact of influencer marketing and social media. I don’t think either of us expected the turnaround from that. We thought we would have to pay a lot for Google and social media advertising to reach certain customers, but we were shocked to find out how many people would show up after just one influencer video. 

SBS – Was it cost worth it?

Jerry – Honestly, I think we made that money back in one or two days. The beauty of influencer marketing is that, despite the fact that all of those customers may not necessarily come at once, the influencers are going to continue growing their following, and their followers are going to find our video on their social media at some point. It’s kind of a neverending return on investment.

As you start paying more of these influencers to make more videos, you’ll reach different demographics because some of these influencers focus primarily on a Latino market, some on African American individuals, some on European travelers, etc.

SBS – How do you maintain the cleanliness of your venue?

Jerry – Two things we try to focus on to be different from our competitors are the cleanliness and the customer service. Bismarck and I work almost every day (we’re there for busier shifts), and we make sure that tables are cleaned and axes are sanitized before and after our guests show up. Since this is a very dusty and “wood-chippy” profession, we sweep up all the dust and the wood chips after each reservation. A lot of our competitors will just let the wood chips pile up, and I don’t think that looks good. When our customers start their game, their lane is nice and clean, and it looks like it hasn’t been touched. Bathrooms are also cleaned periodically, and everything is up to par. I’m a very, very big proponent of ensuring your place is clean because all it takes is one review saying that your business is dirty, and no one will want to come. 

SBS – What advice would you give someone who wants to start this business?

Jerry – One of the things I was forced to learn very early on is to adapt to everything coming your way. No matter how much we plan, how much we research, or how much we learn about the industry itself, it is going to come with a lot of struggles, and a lot of changes will need to be made. If you get held back by those issues or changes, you’ll never move forward. If you let it keep you down, you’re just setting yourself up for failure. You have to be willing to learn, continue to learn, and accept changes — even if they’re out of your control — because they are the first of many to come.