How much are you willing to pay for activities like this?

[Ohdoleavemealone]

Last March we were meant to launch an inflatable theme park but thank to Covid it never opened.
We intend to open during the next half term but are having trouble deciding on a pricing structure.
For background, we have decided to use a school as our premises instead of a commercial property which means we have access only to the school hall and toilets. We can only fit in 10 tables to start with due to social distancing. This means we have to carefully balance the price to make sure we our making enough money and being good value. This is proving tricky.
Would people mind giving their honest opinion on the price structure below? If you haven't been to one of these, it is a bit like a trampoline park, but a giant bouncy castle instead.
For the prices below you will get :
1 hour bounce
A table allocated to your group (can mix 2 households) in full view of the only exit.
Table service
Everyone at the table is elligible to bounce, whether for 10 minutes or an hour.
Staff are instructed to play with and entertain the kids so the parents can drink their coffee in peace.

Numbers will also be quite low making it safer thna places like flip out.
Prices :
table of 2 - £20
table of 3 - £ 25
table of 4 - £30
table of 5 - £35
Table of 6 - 40

Would you pay these prices?
For comparison, local flip out charge £13.50 per person and £1 for spectators.
I appreciate comments.

I have been to a local inflatable park and love it.

www.innoflate.co.uk/

I much prefer it to the local trampoline centre and I think the OP is getting a hard time on here.

I want to know:
What are the parking arrangements. School car parks are notoriously small and you'd piss me off right from the start if I couldn't find a space at the venue. As PP, you'd need disabled parking provision.

Our inflatable park, and trampoline centre, charge extra for special socks. I have them now but felt this was a hidden extra in the costs. What is your footwear policy?

As PP we've needed to attend a safety demonstration before being allowed on. Is this included in your 60 minute session?

With regards to parents and kids bouncing at the same time I love it! I love playing with my children in a shared activity.

If I could place my food/drink order when I arrive that would be great - but this, and signing the safety disclaimers could take time. I assume you have a GDPR policy for keeping my personal medical information.

Wishing you the best of luck with this. I can't wait for our local one to reopen.

You need a properly secured exit though - and these places get hot so someone will be tempted to open the fire door!

What happens when a large dad/mum injures a child who goes to that school, the parent complains and the school decide it's far too risky, so pull the venue? Have you lost that £10k?

I would pay £7.50 but not if there were adults allowed on.

Because I am avoiding doing anything useful with my day I have googled 450 sq m inflatables. I found a website called jumparooz which seems to offer this at £3 pp for toddler sessions and £5.50 for teenager and adult sessions.

Before I read this I was going to say something like £8 per jumper, £2 per spectator. If it’s reasonably priced to start with then I’ll buy drinks, cakes etc and spend happily in the cafe. If it’s not, I’ll tell myself it’s only an hour, take water for the children and not buy anything.

As a single mum of a 6 year old, it would be too expensive for me and I wouldn't be happy with him jumping alongside adults and older teens. That's just me though! At the local play centre we pay £9.50 per child for 2 hours and £2.50 per spectator. Pre Covid it was as long as you wanted. At 2 hours it's enough time to get something to eat at the café, at an hour I wouldn't bother eating but might get a tea/coffee. Good luck OP!

It’s a tricky one
On the one hand like a pp I really don’t like the idea of no upper age limit and adults bouncing alongside my kids

On the other hand little ones will want to be accompanied by an adult.

Would there be an under 5s area where grown ups are allowed to accompany? Then no over 14s or something on the main bit?

Or just a free for all? That would worry me I think and is where most serious accidents might happen

What you're saying then is that your plan isn't (currently) financially viable. Don't waste your time or money.

OP has already spent upwards of 10k on the venue.

is it worth, at least for this summer, trying to set up outside eg in pta/village fete type things (if they are indeed happening). You can charge more for a shorter time in those. And it would introduce you to the market and a potential customer base for when you moved inside next autumn?
Far less restrictions outside which helps. Ditch the cafe/table idea for now.

Bloody hell that school saw you coming! £10k for paint and lighting?

There's no way I'd pay £20 for my child to play on a bouncy castle for an hour. That's extortionate!!!

I think it’s the hour limit that is part of the issue , the prices would be more realistic if it was 90minutes -2 hours . Lots of businesses have struggled due to covid and I think the majority of people are happy to pay a bit more than usual .

@Floralnomad

I think it’s the hour limit that is part of the issue , the prices would be more realistic if it was 90minutes -2 hours . Lots of businesses have struggled due to covid and I think the majority of people are happy to pay a bit more than usual .

Yes. Also people will travel further for a 2 hour activity. 1 hour and your market will be limited to very local people only I think.

The further I read in this thread OP, the more confused I got. It doesn't seem to be coherently thought through at all. I'd agree with everyone saying that charging adults to bounce isn't a good idea and that you need to space out time between sessions. If nothing else, it'll take a while for parents to round up children, get shoes and coats on etc.

I'd love to see a photo of it set up in the hall. It sounds a bit dank and depressing tbh but maybe it looks amazing when set up?

OP has already spent upwards of 10k on the venue.

I took that post to be talking about the sunk cost fallacy. Don't spend more money chasing after money already lost.

I would want to pay an absolute maximum of about £10 for this.

As someone who wouldn't bounce, this means your pricing structure only really works for me if I go as the only adult accompanied by at least 3 bouncing children (or, less likely, adults).

This is a pain. I have to arrange, collect, transport, herd and otherwise entertain not just my own child but at least 2 of her friends. For an activity lasting an hour. This puts it very much into one-off special event territory. I might take them once a year and see it as an expensive hassle (which would also put me off buying food and drink while I was there).

On the other hand, if you charged £5 or £6 just for bouncers, it's a relatively easy and inexpensive thing to do to entertain DD for a bit. We would probably go multiple times in a year, as we do with the climbing wall, skating and so on that all just charge a reasonable price for each actual participant and make extra money through spectators buying coffee and chips because it doesn't all just feel so expensive.

The further I read in this thread OP, the more confused I got. It doesn't seem to be coherently thought through at all.

It's not. OP has refused to answer relevant questions, given different information for some parts and downright impossible information for others.

'Toddler only' sections are always v disappointing and little kids invariably just want to go on the bigger kid stuff.

If there was a strictly under 5s session I'd be up for bringing my two down, under 8s = no thank you

Not an activity I’d feel comfortable with due to all ages being on at the same time. I say that as my 7DD ended up in A&E after a very similar activity and being accidentally landed on by a larger child (10 yr old). She then spend weeks on crutches..,
I can see the appeal in maybe age related sessions for younger children.

Parking.

If it is in a school hall then you need decent parking, of which a percentage needs to be blue badge parking (NOT blue badge and parent and child combined). Dont assume that you won't need any bb spaces because your activity is a physical one. You only need to look at AIBU to find out that parking around schools is a huge problem.

Quite frankly, the set up you have described sounds..... grim. There is no way I would want to pay that much to sit in a school hall while my kids are bouncing around on a giant bouncy castle. Especially if I would have been charged for admission and I have no intention whatsoever of going near the thing. Adults/toddlers/big kids all together just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Outdoors at a fete would probably be a different thing though.

@Pancakeorcrepe 450sq metres isn’t that big, it’s room for 500-600 people to sit in a lecture layout, realistically that’s the number of kids a lot of schools have.

OP, I wouldn’t pay more than £7.50 for the kids, I certainly wouldn’t want to pay for me.

Where you go to £10-£15 I start to compare it to ‘a full day out’ rather than ‘an activity that gives me a break from the kids while my partner takes them/or visa versa’.

A full day out, theme park or zoo I pay a lot more for, but it’s a family day out with DP and the kids not just a one off activity.

I would benchmark your pricing locally against other attractions and then look again at your features and benefits - what can you or do you offer that they don’t? For example, free parking for me is a plus, anywhere that doesn’t offer free parking and then charges admission goes down in my estimation because it becomes a mission.

I’d also think more about how the market has changed. Yes you’re restricting numbers, it’s covid- safe etc - that’s not a benefit I’d pay for, that’s now the cost of doing business.

In truth I’d be much happier if the activity was outside, because we’ve all been cooped up like chickens and some fresh air, green landscape and a nice view would feel more idyllic than the inside of my children’s school hall.

So what can you offer me right now that I need or that my kids need or want and that I would pay for?

Frankly, the idea of overpaying for an inside activity where I get to listen to other people’s kids scream isn’t fun. If I could use it as a place to meet a friend while our kids play, have a catch up and a nice lunch while knowing my kids would be entertained and (basically leave me alone) I would pay for that.

I forgot about the smell and the sweat, making things wet.
Indoors will stink, I hope you have ventilation.

I think your are getting a hard time as there's plenty of activities that other parents pay for that i won't!
If your staff supervised and interacted with my lively 3 year old I would probably pay as long as you didn't charge me for the 8 moth old. But it would be would only be an activity that I would pay for every 6-8 weeks.
If you came on tour to rural areas I think you could book up quite quickly as we are many miles away from trampoline parks and soft play.
Could you have a bigger cafe area for after bounce food and drinks in another area in addition to the existing cafe area? Then it will become a two hour trip out, essentially half a day by the time you have got there and back.
Could you think of some other add on to take place outside or away from the inflatable that extends the trip out so people feel its better value?

I wouldn’t pay £40 (which I would need because I have 5 DC) for my children to bounce on a bouncy castle in a school hall for an hour.

I wouldn’t bounce so I wouldn’t expect to pay for me. When my older 3 go to the local trampoline park it’s about £30 for an hour but it’s a huge fancy trampoline park, not a bouncy castle in a school hall.

We live near a place called inflatabounce www.inflatabounce.net , It's amazing but I consider it a pricey day out. It's run in an old farm warehouse I think so it's really large, I don't think my kids have ever really had to queue to get on any of the inflatables. I can't remember how many inflatables were up last time we went maybe 10 in the main arena.

It's £10 per child, £3 for adults and £1 for 6-18 months and you get a 3 hour time slot. They have a specific under 5 area with a very large obstacle course type thing with 2 slides so little tots don't get squashed. I've never seen an adult on any of the stuff unless they were helping a young child. 3 hours was perfect for us as we had a little break in the middle and grabbed some food from the cafe.

I wouldn't pay £30 for 3 of us if you don't offer a similar amount of bouncy castles as they do, I hate having to pay full price for an adult as I don't want to join in I want to sit in the 'peace' and drink tea

£10 max per a child providing I was sure it was safe. For the amount your charging per a table as you’re charging parents too I would rather pay for a whole day out somewhere

I know your bouncy castle is big but say you had 3 families who wanted to go, they could hire their choice of bouncy castle or inflatable for their garden and split the cost cheaper than a table for an hour