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 can't get passed the fact it will be in a school hall

What happens if the school wants to have a function, school play, PTA fundraiser etc when you normally use the hall

I guess you’re feeling overwhelmed by all this feedback and advice, @Ohdoleavemealone, but it’s absolutely invaluable if you can get past the feeling of being criticised. I really feel for you trying to make this work in the pandemic, it must be so stressful, but you could pay a fortune for this kind of market research.

Somewhere near us used to have huge hall with lots of big bouncy castles, cafe, £4 per child stay as long as you like. They did birthday parties etc. Always busy. Was great. The owners decided to turn it into an inflatanation thing you are talking about. Slides, climbing walls etc. £10 each. Adults only paid if wanted to bounce. 2 hours. Still cafe etc and it was a flop. They ended up shutting. It was nice for a one off treat but the cheaper price tag brought regular customers who used the cafe lots.

We have one near us (they also use a local schools massive sports hall and it's set up for school holidays, and weekends). It opened shortly before covid and was popular for birthday parties, etc.

Their early morning sessions were for toddlers only and that was a bit cheaper.

I think they charged £7 or £8 per child for 2 hours, adults were free unless they wanted to bounce. It was normally quite busy, especially on rainy weekends. They had a cafe selling slushies, hotdogs, etc. When we went the dc had a refuelling break after about 45 minutes. If you only let people bounce for an hour, then the cafe probably won't get too much use (who wants to pay for an activity and then miss half of it waiting for food plus eating time?).

Would you be able to focus on advertising heavily for birthday parties for the time being? That way you could have 2 or 3 large groups (30 odd people per party?) in every 90 minutes, rather than targeting families who want an hour or two out of the house. Lots of little groups who need to socially distance won't make you as much profit as a couple of larger groups/parties

I can’t really comment on the price point as my DC are too young so I’ve not been to this kind of activity. But what I would say is that if I were you I would think about what you want to charge when Covid regulations are relaxed/removed and try not to charge too much extra in the intervening period. Otherwise you’ll get a reputation locally for being very expensive and then even if you put the prices down later when you can have more people, your customers will have already decided you’re expensive and ruled you out as a place to go. If you really can’t do this then you’ll need to do special offers later and have clever marketing so people feel like they’ve got a good deal.

I agree with others that I don’t think I would want a huge mix of ages but if you could open in the evening then older kids/adults might go to bespoke sessions with music, lights etc.

Good luck!

I wouldn’t pay those prices.

There was a kind of similar thing near us, big sports hall and it was set up with multiple bouncy castles (not one big one so slightly different) but one had slides, one had punch things, one had tunnels so variations.

It cost £3 for a child (only 5 and under) and £1 for accompanying adults. Mine got bored there pretty quickly and it was a pain when adults went on as the children got flung about. Very different to trampoline parks.

I wouldn't want separate age sessions as I have 3 children with a 3 year age gap between each one. I also wouldn't want my tiny 4 year old on with big 12 year olds or Dads trying to be big kids. So I just wouldn't go at all, sorry.

I would do birthday parties - they are so lucrative!

Google bounceagogo. He’s in south London. Had 2 children’s parties with him. Paid the money and provided cake and party bags. He did 3 a day as far as I can remember. In a school hall.

That sort of pricing structure might not work for families. For those who may have met another household and paid the price for a group of 6 on their first visit, they may be put off returning individually- who would want to return a second time with their own small family and have to pay more?

Maybe you could offer group discounts as some sort of party package, but not as the overall pricing structure.

Agree with many others - pricing needs to be per person and it seems a bit steep. The 7.50 sounds more reasonable.

I think you're better to make extra money selling add-ons (decent coffee for parents - many of whom want to sit and chat/relax, not bounce for the full time if at all) and slushies for the kids.

My local place is the equivalent of about 8 pounds for a 2 hour session. I agree with PP that an hour is far too short, and I think you'll lose custom on food/drinks if people only have an hour.

Here's my local place in South Australia - $15 for 5 year olds an up, spectators free - 2 hour sessions.
www.inflatableworldoz.com.au/

I would do 1.5 or 2 hour sessions. You’ll make more money on the catering. You’ll have less downtime due to cleaning. People will feel like it’s better value for money so you can charge more (even though you are probably right and they’ll still bounce for the same amount of time and then be exhausted). 1st adult is free, nominal charge for 2nd. Don’t allow the adults to bounce - you want them buying coffee and cake. The catering is where the big margins are.

I don’t think “adults can bounce too” is a big selling point anyway - that’s the sort of activity people take their kids to so they can sit down and have a moments peace!

OP, who is your target customer?

There is a TinyGym activity near me, which is basically under 5s free play with mini gym equipment. It’s £5 per child for an hour, and people go every week like a club. So mostly return customers, but the downside is they only run for limited hours.

Or our soft play is £3 per child - again, it is the kind of thing you might do on a Saturday morning if it’s raining. All repeat customers.

Or there is a big trampoline centre which charges more like £10-15 per child. No change for adults. Sessions last a couple of hours. It’s something you go to as a one-off, as a school holiday treat, or for a birthday party. Nobody goes every week, it’s too expensive.

You need to think about which type of customer you are trying to attract - to establish yourself as a big regional day out that people will travel to, you’ll need to be offering a full on experience, have proper parking, and let people stay on for much longer than an hour. And you will need to advertise, and provide signage so people can find you.

If you are going for the “weekly trip to the inflatables” audience, the price is far too high.

I've read all the OP's posts but not the whole thread. I'm not sure you have a viable business here tbh - not as a full time job anyway. First alarm bell for me was spending £10k on the school's electrics for something you're only going to use at weekends. What happens if the school make use of what you have had fitted and something fails? Who is on the hook to fix it? I hope you have a proper rental agreement in place too. We've no idea when you invested in the equipment, but I'm not sure you can expect to be making a profit whilst there are restrictions like SD in place. I've got lots of questions, as have many other posters.

I think you need to think of yourselves as competition for bouncy castle hire and as an alternative to things like soft play and look at having public sessions at rates people are prepared to pay on the basis they clearly want on this thread - kids paid for, adults free with no expectation they'll go on the inflatables - and private bookings for parties. If you did mornings for public use, with an early toddler session, and two or three private parties booked for the afternoon/evening sessions I think that would be a better use of your resources, a bigger money spinner and more manageable/predictable.

I'd be concerned about the fact that the school will want to use their hall at weekends etc for things like fêtes, assemblies, plays etc.

What happens then?

I would be concerned about how they will access the school in the first place. It's not like they are going to be handed a set of keys.

[quote Ohdoleavemealone]@Anatmony Jane it is a 450sm inflatable. Definitley cannot do it at home! It fills 3/4 of the hall and then we are carpeting the rest, have built a cafe/check in desk and have paid £10k to have the hall painted and the lighting redone to allow for a better atmosphere.[/quote]
I'm amazed that a school would let you carpet their hall when they are used for school lunches and PE lessons!

Anyway, back to your prices. I wouldn't pay that for a session on a bouncy castle. It's too expensive and at the size you mention there would be too many people on it normally and you say it will be mixed ages and sizes of people with adults and children so the potential for injury is too high.

@flashylamp

I would be concerned about how they will access the school in the first place. It's not like they are going to be handed a set of keys.

When I ran kids performing arts classes I had full sets of keys for two local schools, one secondary and one primary.

When I ran kids performing arts classes I had full sets of keys for two local schools, one secondary and one primary.

That's great. Not an issue then. I wonder why OP wasn't able to answer the same question?

OP - a few queries from me.

If you have 10 x tables of 6 (which you've said is what you're aiming for) you have 60 people potentially bouncing, but want to limit that to 30. You then go on to say there will be no queues.

I'm not sure how you can guarantee that?

Also, it IS expensive for most families on the basis that most adults won't bounce - so agree you should only charge for children per hour. £10 max per child, less for younger ones. However, there is a different price point for something you'd do every few weeks, and something you'd only do once is a blue moon.

I don't think you should offer longer sessions - it doesn't sound big enough to hold older children / tweens / teens attention for more than an hour so I think 60 mins is OK. However, as above, that means I'd want them to have all 60 mins on it - not queuing up waiting to get back on as more than 30 kids are already on it.

Yeah, I wouldn't have been interested in bouncing as an adult, and I wouldn't have wanted other adults bouncing with dc either as it isn't safe.

I think £8 per child is the absolute upper end of what you could charge for this. Tbh, as an activity set up in a local school rather than its own premises, I'd expect it to be more like £5 or £6. An hour is quite long for a bouncy castle in any case - I reckon dd would have got bored after half an hour-ish. And a school hall isn't the nicest place for a parent to sit and have a coffee - I'm assuming it would be cheap instant coffee rather than a proper coffee machine etc.

I'm not sure OP is coming back again now, bit jut in case: sessions are an hour and will start on the hour? So if my time was 1-2 I'd expect my child to be on the bouncy castle at 1.01 and not have to come off till 1.59. Where is your turnaround time? You'd be better doing 90 min sessions, say 10-11.30 then clean and prep for next session 12-1.30 etc.

It's a while since my DC were of an age to do this but I probably would pay no more than £7 or £8 per child, nothing for me.

I don't know how you are going to police the hour session?

It would be better to charge per person bouncing and do a wristband or something - have the session as unlimited - as they will self police and won't be there all day. You can say no groups of more than 6 people (bouncers and non-bouncers) for covid reasons for now.

I'm still not sure how this is a viable business though if it's only open at weekends and the odd bank holiday :/

Let's say you get a turnover of £10pp (Bouncing fees and cafe sales) - and you get 200 people through a day - that's a turnover of £2000 per day. You're open around 100 days a year, so in theory a generous £200,000p/a.

How much of that turnover is going out on Hall hire, wages, pension contributions, insurances, legal fees, replenishing stock (eg food/snacks, wristbands/tickets, replacement chairs/carpet tiles, rubbish bags, cleaning equipment and supplies etc), advertising, hygiene courses, safety inspections, transport, loan repayments (presumably you borrowed for the refurbishment and the purchase of the inflatable assault course?)

In your financial statement, when do you expect to return a profit?

@btchymcbtchfce - I gather they're planning on using carpet tiles, putting them down on a Friday evening, and lifting them on a Sunday evening.

I wonder where the OP is storing all the equipment during the week?