Dart tag arena brings the art of war to Layton
Sagen Nelson charges the opposing team during a game of dart tag at Dartside in Layton on Saturday, May 30, 2015. Visitors can battle with foam dart and disc guns in an indoor dart arena that opened last year.
Brynlee Oyler shoots a foam disc across the room during a game of dart tag at the Dartside Indoor Dart Tag Arena in Layton on Saturday, May 30, 2015.
Players compete in a game of dart tag at the Dartside Indoor Dart Tag Arena in Layton on Saturday, May 30, 2015. During the game, participants divide into two teams and battle with foam disc guns.
Chase Buhler hides behind a foam wall during a game of dart tag at the Dartside Indoor Dart Tag Arena in Layton on Saturday, May 30, 2015.
LAYTON — Playing at war has been around since the first group of neighborhood kids pointed their forefingers at one another, thumbs extended, and shouted, “Bang!”
And oh, how that basic game of combat has evolved over the years. Laser tag. Paintball. Airsoft.
And now? Dart tag.
One of the latest and greatest places to play war in Northern Utah is at Dartside, an indoor dart tag arena at 606 N. Marshall Way, Suite 101, in west Layton. Five days a week, the young and young-at-heart are drawn there to hide behind obstacles and fire foam projectiles at one another from Nerf-brand guns.
“It fits Utah perfectly,” said Jeremy Nehring, co-owner of Dartside, which opened in September. “It’s family oriented, and fun for everybody.”
Nehring is partners in the dart tag arena with his younger brother and their parents — although he’s quick to point out that his 6-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son are the real power behind the business.
“I ultimately say my owners are my kids,” he said.
The family discovered the sport at a similar arena near Boise, Idaho.
“We played at a place like this out-of-state and loved it,” he said. “And so when we came up with the idea of opening Dartside, we thought, ‘Why not Utah?’ If this is going to be a good idea anywhere, it’s Utah.”
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Andrew Johnston cleans the dart guns and safety glasses at the Dartside Indoor Dart Tag Arena in Layton on Saturday, May 30, 2015.
Dartside consists of a lobby area (with room for two birthday parties at a time); a gear-up area where players are issued guns, eyewear and colored vests; and a nearly 3,000-square-foot arena, with barriers and bunkers from which to carry out the soft-foam assaults.
The basic game is a team-elimination affair — two squads of up to 25 players each try to eliminate one another by hitting opponents with darts. The honor system is used, along with a referee, to determine who’s been hit. When players are hit, they put their hands in the air and go to a “bunker” to wait for the end of the round.
Friends Hannah Backus, 16, and Jessica Carr, 15, were at Dartside on a recent Thursday afternoon, celebrating the end of the school year. They were supposed to be meeting classmates from their LDS seminary at Layton High School.
“We set a goal to read 100 conference talks, and we decided if we did it by Memorial Day we’d do something fun,” Jessica said. “Our seminary president said she came here on a day date and it was great.”
Neither girl had ever played at a dart tag arena.
“I’ve played Nerf wars with my siblings, but never this,” Hannah said.
Sarah Bywater, of Kaysville, brought her son and a group of his friends to play on the last day of school.
“It’s sort of an end-of-the-year/birthday group,” she explained.
For one member of the group, 10-year-old Luke Hancock, of Layton, it was his third time at Dartside.
“It’s really fun. There’s a lot of different things you can do here,” he said.
Luke says playing dart tag easily beats Airsoft, those guns that shoot tiny plastic BBs.
“It’s definitely more fun than Airsoft,” he said. “And Airsoft hurts more when it hits you.”
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Jaxson Christensen pokes out of a foam bunker during a game of dart tag at the Dartside Indoor Dart Tag Arena in Layton on Saturday, May 30, 2015.
Hunter Birdsall, 10, of Layton, says it was his second trip to Dartside.
“It’s great,” he said. “You get to run around and shoot people, and I like stuff like that.”
While 11-year-old Alec Bywater, of Brigham City, had never been to Dartside, he could barely contain his excitement to be trying the sport. Just how fun does he expect it to be, on a scale of one-to-ten?
“Probably a ten,” Alec said.
Matt Taggart, of Layton, brought his two sons to play.
“We didn’t even know this was here,” Taggart said. “We played it in Boise over Thanksgiving and had a great time.”
Taggart admits his sons are “kind of Nerf freaks,” so it’s nice to have a dart tag arena in town. Taggart’s brother-in-law, Jay Dee Gunnell, of Layton, also brought his son. The group had already decided it was going to be the dads against the sons, and the sons were feeling fairly confident.
But not so fast, Gunnell says.
“It only takes one shot,” he reminded the boys.
Hours for Dartside are 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays, 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturdays, and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays. Blacklight play is offered on Friday and Saturday nights. Most rounds last between three and five minutes, so players can get in a dozen or more rounds in an hour of dart tag. Prices vary from $8 to $12 per hour.
The admission price includes the choice of a couple of basic models of Nerf guns, or you can upgrade to larger models that hold more ammo for an additional charge. However, Nehring says in the heat of battle the model of the gun makes less difference than you’d think.
“If you’re out there and you’ve got ammo, it’s a good gun,” he said. “If you’re out of ammo, it’s not a good gun.”
Although Dartside uses the foam Nerf darts when hosting outdoor parties off-site, Nehring said in the Layton arena they now use the disc ammo that resembles small foam-covered Frisbees.
“The darts just don’t hold up like the discs,” Nehring said. “We were throwing away 15 to 20 darts a day.”
Dartside joins a small number of dart tag arenas that have been popping up throughout the West — including The Tag Zone, in Des Moines, Wash.; Dart Ops, in San Bruno, Calif.; Planet Xone, in San Francisco; and Dart Warz, with locations in Centennial, Colo., Colorado Springs, Colo., and Meridian, Idaho.
Employees from The Tag Zone and Dart Ops say they’ve been in operation for the last three or four years, and that their arenas keep fairly busy.
“It’s pretty popular here,” said an employee of Dart Ops, which is located inside a shopping mall. “There are times when we’re so busy that we have to turn customers away.”
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Solo Faumui reloads his dart gun during a game of dart tag at the Dartside Indoor Dart Tag Arena in Layton on Saturday, May 30, 2015.
Here in Utah, Nehring says business is good, and most of that business comes from word-of-mouth.
“We get a lot of word-of-mouth,” he said. “When people get in here and play, they’re sold on it.”
Dartside’s owners are hoping to double their current arena space, and they’re exploring adding additional locations — possibly in the Sandy/Draper area. Nehrings says they’ve seen players come from as far away as Lehi and Tooele, and he’s convinced dart tag will continue to attract new players.
“It continues to grow, because we have the best salespeople,” Nehring said. “You’re basically sending out a bunch of salespeople every time a group comes out of the arena. We give them a return coupon, and they usually come back with new players.”
The core group of players are of elementary and junior high school age, but Nehring says they also get groups of young adults, and even parents out on a date night.
“We say it’s family fun for ages 5 to 99,” Nehring said, although he confesses the oldest player they’ve had in the arena thus far was probably in his 60s.
But Nehring still chuckles about the day an older man walked up to the front counter at Dartside and said, “I need four of the biggest guns you’ve got. We gotta take out a couple of kids!”
Contact Mark Saal at 801-625-4272, or msaal@standard.net. Follow him on Twitter at @Saalman. Like him on Facebook at facebook.com/SEMarkSaal.
