In order for Special Effects lighting to have the greatest possible visual impact in a bowling center, one additional ingredient is needed: FOG! Without the fog, the lights just aren't as effective.

The reason you invest in special effects lighting in the first place is to attract new customers. In order to attract new customers, you need a presentation that's exciting - that one customer will experience and then tell five or six friends about. Adding fog to special effects lighting is like adding frosting to a cake: The cake may be good without the frosting, but with the frosting it's great.

• There are no problems with smoking laws-the product produced is fog, not smoke.
• The products are non-carcinogenic-they're usable in states even with very strict environmental regulations.
• Electronic scoring devices are not impacted, nor are scanners or pinsetting machines.
• The lanes are not affected, so scoring conditions remain consistent.

There's a certain amount of fear in the marketplace. But by dealing with a company which focuses on the bowling industry - a company like TOWER - there's really nothing to worry about. We used field testing to solve any possible problems, and now we're able to offer products and packages which are user-friendly and guaranteed to please customers.

Pumping fog into a typical bowling center environment creates two challenges:

1) Upwards of 80% of a bowling center's special effects lighting is placed between the foul line and the pinsetting machines because that's where the typical customer's attention is primarily focused. However, the typical bowling center ventilation system is situated from the bowlers' area back toward the concourse. Thus, a great deal of fog can end up "hanging" over the lanes, cutting down on the visual impact of the presentation.

The solution: Adjust the location of the fog units as necessary, in response to the air flow within the center, to assure proper disbursement of the fog. A center's heating, air conditioning and ceiling fans all impact the air flow, so it may involve some trial and error with the placement of the fog units until optimum disbursement is achieved.

2) Because some fog will come in contact with the lanes even in the best ventilated bowling centers, it's possible for some residue to be left on the lanes. This can create maintenance and scoring problems.

The solution: Use specially formulated fog from TOWER which is residue-free.

It definitely pays to deal with a company which has bowling industry experience. We've spent countless hours in bowling centers learning about their special needs, concerns and challenges, and we've designed our various products and packages to meet those needs.

All smoke machine manufacturers have their own brands and won't honor their warranties unless the client uses their fog fluid. There also are generic brands on the market which are said to be usable in all machines and typically are lower in price.

Which product should you use? The answer to this question requires some technical explanation.

Fog fluid is pumped, under pressure, into a heated chamber where it is vaporized and then expelled into the atmosphere through a nozzle which helps give it velocity to project outward.

For this whole process to work, the chamber temperature must be hot enough to vaporize the fluid. While this initially is not a problem, it's difficult to keep the chamber hot for an extended period of time because cooling takes place as the unheated fluid is pumped in.

Eventually, the chamber loses its ability to vaporize and becomes an atomizer-similar to a perfume spray bottle-expelling what is referred to as "wet smoke." If the pumping action continues, the machine eventually will spit out a stream of raw fluid... creating quite a mess.

To prevent this from happening, fog machines use a thermostat to measure the temperature of the chamber and cut off the pump at the point where "wet smoke" would occur. For machines which are run for long periods of time-such as in bowling center promotions-recycling time is a fact of life.

What about the actual composition of the fog fluids?

Most fluids consist of one or more liquid chemicals, diluted with water. Two keys:

1) The chemicals must be non- toxic.

2) The water must be mineral- free.

When fluid was first introduced, all kinds of different chemicals were used, some of which were viewed as very questionable. Today, a specific group of nontoxic compounds is the standard. About the only time you run into a problem is if someone unaware of the dangers tries to make their own fluid using the wrong products.

As far as the water is concerned, if it has a high mineral content, the machine eventually will block up and stop working. All of the various chemicals have different vaporization points. So does water, and when water is added to these chemicals, still more vaporization points are created. This is not a problem as long as the chamber remains hot. But if the temperature cutoff switch is set for the manufacturer's fluid, and the actual fluid used by the center has a higher vaporization point, the result likely will be "wet smoke." Furthermore, depending on the particular fluid, the chamber could become gummed up, and if it's not cleaned out prior to total blockage, a costly repair could result.

An even more common and potentially more serious problem concerns the water. Some people believe they can save money by diluting fluid with tap water. This is an absolute no-no! Tap water has a relatively high concentration of minerals, and if these minerals are pumped into the chamber, they burn rather than vaporize and attach themselves to the chamber walls.

If you've ever seen the inside of a long-used steam iron or a humidifier - full of scales and crustations - you'll understand exactly what's going on. Mineral levels in water normally are measured in parts per million, and if a center has water with less than 10 ppm, no problems should arise. But tap water typically is a very different story.

Tap water has been measured with as much as 400 ppm, and that's a definite problem for smoke machines. Most of the fog fluids available have been tested and readings of about .1 ppm have generally been found.

There's still another reason centers should not dilute fog fluid: Dilution reduces the density of the smoke. So which fluid is the best fluid?

If you're not into performing major compatibility testing on your own, use either the fluid made by the manufacturer of your machine or a compatible one made specifically for your device. You'll have a lot less trouble-guaranteed!

The Blizzard III fog machine by NESS (pictured above), features six controls which enable a center to determine the amount of mist produced and the intervals at which it's pumped. This makes it easier for employees to present a more professional show - one that customers will want to see again and again.