COMPANY PROFILE: BACKSPIN SEATING

BACKSPIN SEATING

In this month’s edition of Golf Carting Magazine, our Company Profile features Backspin Seating of Wilkes-Barre, PA. Backspin Seating started in 2011 and was created to offer a high-end seat solution for custom golf carts. Backspin Seats are completely custom, with endless color combinations and are easy to install on any year Yamaha, Club Car and E-Z-GO electric carts.

We spent some time with John Dellamalva, one of the owners of Backspin Seating, who graciously provided us with some detailed information about his company and his products.

Company Name: BACKSPIN SEATING Company Website: www.backspinseating.com Company Headquarters: WILKES-BARRE, PENNSYLVANIA GCMAG: First of all, John, thank you for taking the time to give our readers some information about Backspin Seating. Can you tell us about your company? JOHN: Backspin Seating is a manufacturer of custom upholstered golf cart seats. Each seat we produce is unique as the customer chooses the color combinations. Our company offers thousands of different color combinations sourced from high-quality marine grade vinyl.

We currently offer four different high-quality seats at affordable prices to the marketplace.

Backspin offers a Split Back Bucket Seat, a Crossover Bench seat, a Crossover Bench Bucket seat and a matching rear seat kit. Each seat comes with different options and price points to match the customer’s needs.

The seats are made with multiple layers of comfortable,

impact-resistant foam and specialized webbing that will not break down. Our seats are built using heavy gauge steel and rugged hardware to ensure long lasting strength and durability. Backspin seats are custom built for quick and easy installation on any year Yamaha, Club Car and EZGO golf carts.

We have made the installation process as easy as possible for our customers. We were the first seating company to offer positioning belts, seat sliders, adjustable arm rests, sound barrier foam, custom embroidery options and easy lift access.

Backspin seats are made with high-quality marine grade vinyl fabric and are available in over 300 colors and multiple stitching designs to customize your unique cart. If you cannot find a color you like in our inventory, we will order it for you.

We offer fabric that is weather resistant, easy to clean and very durable. With our two and three-tone color combinations, there are thousands of combinations to choose.

Each customer is unique, and their cart should be too. Our team personally works with each customer to make sure they get the perfect seat. Our company is very flexible, we’ve had customers call and ask for options not offered on our seats and we can usually make it happen, which is something not many manufacturers are willing to do.

We strongly believe in the continuous improvement of our product, and we usually come out with a new and improved design each year, based on the feedback we receive from our customers and our growing network of dealers we have established throughout the country. Because of our innovative spirit, we have several new products that we will soon be offering that will appeal to a wide variety of golf cart enthusiasts.

Backspin is proud of the fact that our products are built in and the parts are sourced in the USA. All seats are manufactured in our 140,000 square foot building by very our experienced manufacturing team.

GCMAG: That’s a lot of really good information. It sounds like you’ve really dialed in a quality product. Who are the owners of Backspin Seating? JOHN: Thomas Dellamalva, myself -John Dellamalva, William Legg and Darlene Larkin

GCMAG: Can you give us some background on how and when Backspin Seating started? JOHN: Backspin Seating has over twenty years of seat manufacturing experience. Thomas Dellamalva, started Backspin’s parent company, Custom Seats Inc. in 2000 and it quickly grew into a leading manufacturer of seating for the healthcare and transportation industries, theaters, auditoriums, and casinos. In 2011, Backspin Seating was created to offer a highend, customizable seat for golf carts that was not being offered by any other company at the time.

GCMAG: How many employees do you have? Tell us about your team. JOHN: Backspin Seating currently has 30 employees that are able to utilize their many years of seat design experience. Our company utilizes both the latest manufacturing technology as well as a handcrafted finish to each seat that we produce. Our employees are specialists in sewing, upholstery and seat design.

GCMAG: Impressive. How do you market and promote Backspin Seating? JOHN: Backspin Seating markets our seating products in several ways. We have developed a network of golf cart dealers who offer our products to their customers. We have salespeople that reach out to golf cart dealers in order to grow our dealer network. We advertise in multiple golf cart magazines. We also maintain an online presence with our website and on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

GCMAG: It sounds like you really have it covered. What is the most important business lesson your company has learned? JOHN: The most important business lesson I've learned to provide a positive experience for each customer that we have the pleasure of serving. Positive or negative word of mouth, especially in tight-knit golf cart communities can make or break your reputation. Anyone in business knows that a company's or a person's reputation is everything. Always keep your word and protect your reputation.

GCMAG: What are the future plans for Backspin Seating? JOHN: While Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania might seem a long way from the golf cart communities of the southern and continued...

western United States, Backspin Seating continues to see strong growth each year. We are working to expand into new areas of the country. Backspin Seating also knows that product innovation is very important which is why we continually update the design of our seats. Our customers demand the best for their golf carts, and we will always be there to provide new and exciting features on our seating products. We are in the process of developing several new products that will be available for purchase in the spring of 2021.

GCMAG: Thank you again John for spending time with Golf Carting Magazine and giving us a much better understanding of your impressive company. We wish you much success!

For more information on Backspin Seating visit their website at: www.backspinseating.com. You can also give them a call at 570-891-0600.

EVERYONE LOVES A PARADE

GOLF CART PARADES OFFER A FUN OPPORTUNITY FOR COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Parades of all types have long been a tradition for celebrations and community involvement, whether its for a holiday, local festival or other outdoor gathering, and golf cart parades have become some of the most popular ways for friends and neighbors to gather to show off their festive cart decorations.

Across the country, people look forward to dressing up their carts to show their patriotism on the 4th of July, light them up for festive Christmas celebrations or create “cart costumes” for expressing themselves on Halloween. There are also many local events like food festivals, historic celebrations, and neighborhood community events where the golf cart parade is the talk of the town.

Some communities are known for the sheer size of the participants in their golf cart parades, like The Villages, a retirement community located just north of Orlando, Florida. In fact, this grand celebration holds the Guinness Book of World Records acknowledgement as the largest cart parade in the country. With golf carts being the preferred method of transportation there, it comes as no surprise that the record for participating parade carts stands at 3,321, and the elaborate cart decorations are a crowd pleaser every year.

On Top of The World, another large retirement community just outside of Ocala, Florida, has been organizing their popular Mardi Gras Parade in February for many years, with about 300-400 carts dressed up in colorful beads and baubles winding their way throughout the community.

The town of Manhattan Beach, California, holds a lively Halloween Golf Cart Parade annually where participants are awarded prizes for Best Cart Decoration and Best Participant Costume. The parade includes around 60 golf carts and goes through the whole town for everyone to see. Local restaurants offer prime outdoor seating to allow diners and spectators ideal views of the festivities.

Year ‘Round Sunshine Perfect for Cart Parades

Florida just may be the epicenter of golf cart parades, with many cart-friendly retirement communities and towns that hold several local celebrations each year.

Cities like Winter Garden, Ozona, Apollo Beach, Dunedin and even tiny Captiva Island hold cart parades for Easter, the 4th of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Halloween and Christmas every year, bringing their communities together for a fun time and to raise money for many local charities.

Captiva is a small island paradise located just off Lee County on the Gulf Coast near Fort Myers. The locals here are known to walk to the beat of a different drummer, and their enthusiasm and creativity in dressing out their carts are no exception. A little crazy and highly popular, this tradition is in its 15th year and takes place the first weekend in December. The most recent Captiva Cart Parade featured a local television news anchor as the official emcee and judge of the cart decorations, and proceeds benefit the Sanibel-Captiva

Chamber of Commerce and other local charity organizations.

This event even caught the eye of The Travel Channel a few years ago who sent a crew to film a segment on unique holiday festivities around the country. The segment’s producer pointed out that they were looking for “not your typical celebration”, and the quirky personalities and elaborate carts participating in Captiva’s parade surely did not disappoint.

While The Villages holds the record for largest number of carts in their Christmas Cart Parade, hundreds of smaller 55+ communities in Florida and around the country hold their own events for residents. Del Tura is a golf community located in North Fort Myers, Florida, and their annual Christmas Cart Parade is one of their most popular celebrations.

The parade route winds through the entire neighborhood, and there are cash prizes for best cart decorations and lighting. There are usually around 40 to 50 carts in the parade, and residents don’t hold back when to comes to creativity and having a good time. Debbie Moran has been a Del Tura resident for 7 years, and loves joining her friends and neighbors to watch the parade as they kick off the Christmas festivities.

“Everyone really gets into the decoration of their carts,” said Moran. “It’s amazing to see how much time and effort people put into their lights and other cart decorations, and it’s a great way to get into the Christmas spirit.”

Buckingham is a rural community in eastern Lee County, Florida, just outside of Fort Myers. 26 years ago, two friends, Doug Clark and Larry Bogard, were lamenting about the need for a little more Christmas cheer around the area and decided to dress up their old Cushman 3-wheeled cart and drive around calling out greetings to their neighbors. When both gentlemen passed away just 2 years later, new neighbors Kim Belcher and her husband, along with her brother-in-law and his wife, decided to help keep the tradition going.

“We realized if this fun event was going to continue, we needed to step up and preserve the heritage,” Kim says. In 2021, the Buckingham Christmas Parade had around 200 vehicles, about half of which were golf carts, ATV’s and UTV’s, all decked out with elaborate lights and folks in Christmas outfits. The route stretches approximately 4 miles throughout Buckingham, and even has its own Facebook Page to keep everyone informed about the event. Kim says, “The looks on the kids’ faces as people cruise by and toss Christmas candies just makes the whole event a big hit, and so worth the effort.” The event has been going on so long that neighbors plan their own holiday parties for the same Saturday evening right before Christmas and enjoy the outdoors in the country while watching the procession of carts, swamp buggies and even trucks towing Christmas-themed floats.

Of course, it doesn’t take an actual holiday to come up with a reason to hold a golf cart parade. The island community of Grand Isle, Louisiana, holds their annual Christmas in July Cart Parade as a community fundraiser, and donates to several local charities and buys bicycles for kids who cannot afford them. Now in its 9th year, the Christmas in July cart parade came about when a few friends were sitting around their campground and noticed everyone there had a golf cart. What began with just 8 carts is now big enough to require a police escort, and organizers and participants love coming together for a worthwhile event that helps so many in the community.

Whether large or small, and whether you are participating or gathering the family to enjoy it from the sidelines, there is little question that a parade is the ultimate celebration. When golf carts and UTVs are part of the fun, more people get to be a part of the experience.