Firstly I put a ticketing machine and the customers tend to congregate mostly around the ticket machine. I've tried putting it closer to the bowling lanes as a hint but no luck. I've got the customer controller to increase the limit but still few bowl. The hotdog stand and the vending machines are popular. The pool table to a lesser degree. They are more treating it as a retail store. With the customer selector set to entertainment business they still aren't keen on bowling much or anything fun and social.

Also I made the lanes area sunken with a dummy wall. The foyer is a single storey high on foundations while the lanes area has double height ceilings. Where the two rooms meet the ceiling floor tiles are sloped obviously. It's not right though as there is diamond shaped holes in each tile. This is not only aesthetically unusual but it's letting in the elements. I've tried relaying the tiles but same problem.

No kids ever come. I have the customer selector to allow children.

The bowling lanes are very dark and they don't even brighten up when in use like the ice skating rink. This is more an aesthetic problem but I made it to look like a real bowling alley and the dark lanes kinda destroys that effect.

I'm sure you are aware that customers also congregate around the ticket machine when they are contemplating buying a ticket...

Some sims have trouble routing over ground that has been subjected to CFE. Has anybody been complaining about pathing errors?

Food always has a higher draw than Fun, unless the object has a much higher "advertisement level" or the sim isn't hungry. Bowling alleys on a different level (which these probably do qualify as) have a diminished advertising level from normal. (One reason I had bowling alleys stored in the attic of one lot.)

If the Customer selector is not allowing children when it should, it's not working properly in your game. Perhaps it might be causing some of the issues? What happens when it is gone? You might also want to try the whole Game Problem FAQ if you are having too much trouble with your customers.

Are you sure you got the slope measured properly when you set up your level difference between the foyer and the lanes? And did you add the ceiling before or after you warped the walls? I never use CFE because it's a pain, and because one of my favorite sims was one of the ones who had trouble with it, but I seem to recall that once you have warped a wall, adding a ceiling tile to it will not work properly.
Also, do you have windows? The game rather insists that any room without a window is dark, especially if it's "underground". You can alleviate that with a lot of lights and light/bright coloring on the floors and walls. Some of the more decorative wall lights, like the neon flamingo, would work at the ends of the bowling lanes, and I'm sure you can find something that would work over the beginning of each one. Switch to night view, and make sure the circles of light overlap as much as possible.

As to the lighting issue... I found that lights must be below the top of a CFE wall to throw light on the room. From your description, it sounds like you need lights which are below the top of the foundation. Try some of the outdoor ground-level lights.

The customers selector probably isn't working. I'll have to find out what's conflicting with it. The customers step back from the ticket machine after paying and idle for a few moments. Then they might chat with one another or wander off to do something. It's like they think it's a retail business but can't find the products. They are not complaining about route troubles although my prioprietor once complained about the snow coming through the roof.

If I have my proprietor sim go bowling to entice customers over one or two will join in (I have it set at 20 customers mind you). Otherwise they really aren't that interested in bowling. The term 'advertising level' is new to me. It sucks that they went to the trouble of making a bowling alley (which is rather complex compared to most other leisure activities) but didn't make the sims want to do it. You make a ten lane bowling alley and only one gets used. I imagined a crowded bowling alley with balls and pins colliding every few seconds.

Putting the ticket machine on the same level with the bowling alleys made them slightly more likely to bowl, but design wise it is senseless having them congregate and crowd the bowling alley rather than the nice open service area I created for them.

I have a games area like they used to have when I was growing up. With pinball, pool table and arcade games. They only use the pool table.

They also don't stay very long even though I set it at ridiculously cheap. At average price I was making like 20k a day which was ridiculous.

The sloped ceiling bit was intentional. I could lower the ceiling so it is all level and I wouldn't have this problem but that's not what I had in mind. I did manage to get it working with the undo trick but on reload the problem returned. I therefore think it must be possible. I might try lowering the roof and raise it up again with the cfe trick. That sounds like it could work.

Yes you are right Mootilda. With the ice skating rink (on a different lot) I placed a string of fairy light and some paper lamps over the rink, but none of the lights seemed to do anything. I thought the same thing was happening here. The garden lights do work. The flat lights are nice but they don't light up the ground - they shine up. The raised garden lamps in miscellaneous work perfectly but are not practical in a bowling alley however so I could try make an invisible recolor. Do you think that's the way to go?

Sorry I took a while to respond. Maxon mentioned beach lots and I realised I could have one in my main hood so I got distracted in designing, landscaping and decorating my beach.

Sometimes, I use the moveobjects on cheat to move the lights inside of objects (like the bowling lane itself?). This gives you the appropriate lighting without the odd looking light fixtures. Otherwise, an invisible recolor should work.

Sloped walls are never weather proof and the in-game ceilings just don't work well with slopes. I'm not sure there's any solution to this problem.

I lowered the ceiling and raised it with a half wall instead which eliminated the slope without compromising my design overly. The lighting was actually a cc light causing the darkness. It looks nice now and the flat garden lamps work well. I place one at either end of the divider between the lanes and it doesn't look out of place.

The patrons seem much happier now, perhaps due to the ceiling issues. They now quite enjoy bowling. I had 15 customers autonomously move down to the alleys and either play or spectate at the same time. They don't continually use the same one that is closest either now. They pick one at random and they have more than one game going at once so it's exciting. Then when they are done the hotdog stand is full at times. It's working well and I couldn't love it more. Definitely the most enjoyable business I've tried so far.

There are also medals in the bowling collection. The gold is for a 300 point game which I bet is not easy. I didn't know you could play a full game against other people. I had one of my families to go and play together. The daughter did quite well even though she could barely carry the ball lol. I don't like how bowling builds body skill

The customer selector is still a problem. It's working but the only way i've found to get children to come is to disallow everyone else much to my loyal customers disgust (there were people lining up to complain about the new ruling lol). Yeah so I don't know what to do about that.