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 went to a inflatable park at the weekend, it was loads of massive bouncy castles and slides. It was £8 per child all day.

OP what’s the length of your agreement with the school? You’ve invested a huge amount of money into their building.

A soft play near to us converted to an inflatable play centre. Their post COVID prices are £5.50 per child for a two hour session- parents don’t pay but don’t bounce beyond supervising a young child.

I think your best bet is hiring it for birthday parties.

I’d be concerned that the under 5s will want to leave their area, and play in the rest of it with older children and adults. You say this is allowed but I really can’t see how it is safe to have very young children mixing like this.
Surely all the pricing etc must be in a business plan and you must have worked out how many staff you need, dbs costs, account for time to set up and take down every weekend plus disinfection time and costs. It is a worry that almost all the replies on here say it’s too expensive or have safety concerns.

If I booked to take the kids to an inflatable theme park, and when I got there found it was a bouncy castle in a school hall, I'd want my money back!

I wouldn’t allow my kids to go on there with much older children/adults, it’s an accident waiting to happen. Our local trampoline park constantly had ambulances turning up and that’s with lots of smaller bounce areas and rules/supervision.

You're really good at answering people's questions except for the ones about staffing and first aid.

[quote Ohdoleavemealone]@Thesearmsofmine
We sell food too so people may pop off to have a bite to eat, a drink, visit the bathroom. Adults that bounce don't tend to bounce solidly for the hour and so I am estimateing that at any one time only 30 people will be on. We are allowed up to 100 so even if every person in the building decides to bounce it will be okay, it just isn't likely to happen.[/quote]
An hour to bounce, wait for table service, eat, drink and get out isn't very long at all. Certainly not worth anything like what you're proposing to charge.

I'm sorry but this sounds awful. It's not well thought out, it's super expensive and allowing a bunch of people to mingle on a bouncy council whilst we're in a global pandemic is just plain stupid.

The description of the activity at the link you provided is very different from just a very big bouncy castle:

– an arena of interlinked inflatables where your whole family will have fun running, jumping, climbing and sliding around for up to two hours.
Take on the giant assault course, scale the climbing wall, brave the death slides, shoot the basketball hoops, leap around the giant bouncing area and more. We’ve got smaller slides for toddlers too.

There is/was, not sure if it’s going to reopen, a purpose built indoor inflatable place near us. Lots of different zones for different ages, evenings open for adults or students etc. Employed cheap teenage labour, the amount of accidents including broken bones was a lot, I’m surprised it wasn’t shut down actually. If I had young children I wouldn’t have dreamed of taking them there, on the other hand we have a trampoline park near us that seems much better organised and I would definitely take my grandchild there when they are older.
Your plan sounds a bit more like our local community centre which has a large bouncy castle, you can hire it all for primary school aged whole class parties. I did that with my kids at that age, only kids of the same age could be on at the same time and there was a separate area for younger siblings. It was perfect for that and no major accidents beyond the usual bumps and bruises ever happened as far as I am aware.
I wouldn’t pay the cost that you suggest you would need to charge.

60 is the maximum number of people in the room. Most of the time, only 3/4 of those want to go on. So 45, but at any given time you have people joining and leaving the inflatable arena meaning you are likely to have on average 30 people on it at one time

If someone nips off to grab a quick drink because they are hot they will want to get straight back on again because it’s only an hour play. You can’t guarantee that only 3/4 of people want to go on, there won’t be any queues and that only around 30 people will actually be on it. If my child got off I’d be telling him that he only gets an hour (and for that price I’d want to get my money worth!) so he should go back on. Sorry op but I can’t see it working like you think it will.

Another anomaly. Is it 60 people Max or 100?

I wouldn't want to pay more than £5 per child for that.

Out of interest are you paying a hire fee (and electricity - inflatables take a LOT) in addition to the £10k investment? And how much did the inflatable cost? Or are you hiring it?

My kids love flip out and I'll happily pay there price (few pound more than yours) as its so big with lots of different things. I wouldn't pay £25 to watch them bounce on a bouncy castle tho no matter how big it is.

Our soft play centres have inflatables sometimes as well as the usual soft play stuff, hot and cold food, hot and cold drinks, some game machines and ride on machines (the kind you put a coin in the slot for) and for less than a tenner per child, adults free or low cost (depending on the day), and over an hour time even on the busiest days. This would seem expensive and limited to me in comparison. I would not spend more than a fiver. Might not bother go at all if it's just for an hour

You're not listening to anyone, you think you know better, so crack on. No point in adding to the chorus when you're not listening 🤷🏻‍♀️

I feel awful for the OP

I thought it sounded quite cheap 😂
I’d happily pay the £35 for me and DC.

There’s not a chance I’d pay £20 for DS to go on a bouncy castle, plus drinks and snacks.

@Isittimenow

I feel awful for the OP

This thread is actually great for OP. It has thrown up many things OP has not considered and they will now have the benefit of our criticism. It's not something to take personally, we are literally looking at a business idea and the more input OP gets, the better.

Our local trampoline park has one of these inside it. Can go on just the inflatable for £7 or pair ti with a bouncing session on the trampolines for £13.50. I couldn't take my DD to just a bouncy castle like this as she has hip problems and others bouncing around her is too much of a hazard, but I can take her to the trampoline place as there's no-one else bouncing on it with her, so you do need to think about the target group I'm lucky DDs an only but if she had a sibling, I couldn't have her sitting watching a sibling bouncing, so need to think about that too.

No sorry I wouldn't pay this for an hour. I'm not stingy but feel this is too high for such a short time plus drinks etc.

I would pay up to £10 for DS, although at £10 I’d treat it as a treat, at £6 or £7 I’d go often.

I absolutely wouldn’t pay to spectate, I can’t bounce being visually impaired and the old pelvic floor doesn’t allow it anyway! If I had to pay for parents I’d book something else. If I was feeling ornery I might even complain about your DDA compliance and you charging me for an activity that isn’t accessible to me.

To be honest with my retail and hospitality hat on (used to be a manager of a theme park) I think you’ve cocked up by going in the school as it devalues your product by making it seem temporary, if it was in a permanently themed unit with the set up designed for it people would perceive it as a higher quality offer.