Level Up Entertainment is home to many fun attractions from an arcade to a ropes course. Opening in the Columbia Mall, Level Up is something owner Nic Parks wishes will bring people to the mall with their friends and family.

“I just thought it would be a good opportunity to do something great,” Parks said. “Something with a lot of activity and something that I hope will bring the traffic back to Columbia Mall.”

Currently, Parks plans to set up a twelve lane bowling alley, a laser tag arena, arcade, a ropes course and a Nerf gun battle arena. However, this was no short term project. To prepare and bring inspiration, he visited other centers to figure out what he wished to do with his business.

“It’s pretty typical to family entertainment centers,” Parks said. “I’ve done a lot of research and visited many of them. I took pictures, looked at what their color scheme was, what games they had, how big this room was, how big that area was. It gave families multiple things to do and was laid out in a way that was open.”

Parks wants Level Up to be a place of fun and entertainment for people of all ages to enjoy. All he wants is a place where families can come and enjoy their day together. College students will enjoy the nostalgic feeling of the arcade games and have fun cheering their friends on with the ropes course.

“The fun part for me is … the energy around being in the amusement business and people with smiles everywhere,” Parks said. “I just think it’s a very fun business to be in. It provides something that Columbia needs.”

Mark Montgomery has worked with Parks for a long time at The Pinball Company, an arcade and pinball machine company. Montgomery enjoys working with Parks because of the variety of tasks he gets to do.

“I like my job the most because I do a little bit of everything,” Montgomery said. “I get to work on games, build stuff, I get to do kind of everything.”

Many different people have flocked to Level Up to have a fun day. Columbian resident Darcie Putnam had brought her son and his friends out to sample the new entertainment center at the Columbia Mall. She was happy that they had a lot of fun playing games and running around on the course.

“It looks like an appeal to a wide variety of ages,” Putnam said. “Our kids are just coming to check the ropes course part of it, but they’ve also played some of the arcade games.”

Parks plans to expand on the attractions available at Level Up as well. He plans to put in a giant Lite-Brite system, tube slides coming from the party rooms upstairs and a trampoline near H&M.

_Edited by Janae McKenzie | jmckenzie@themaneater.com_