Advice needed - Soft play centres

[normal]

Sorry to be a bit cheeky but OH and myself are thinking about setting up a soft play / indoor adventure play centre as we don't think our local ones are much good.
I just thought I'd try to use (and abuse) the collected wisdom on here to tell us what you like in existing places, what you hate, and what you wish there was. Examples of places are also welcome if possible!
Simple really!
Our DD in coming up to 1 year now and so we've started taking her out and just found our local ones depressing and thought we could do better. Saying that, neither of us has any experience so all advice is welcome too!
We'd be truely grateful for all your help and advice.

Thanks!

Nappy addict your place sounds fabby I must find something like that to take my dd too! She is 7months and just about to crawl

i been to one where they had a disco room with flashing lights and music and a games console area - maybe it was the same one?

lockers for handbags, purses etc i always have to make sure i wear trousers with large pockets cos i don't want to leave it unattended when i go on the equipment with ds. a buggy park could be useful too.

ds loves those huge car mats too. he spends ages playing with those. my friend goes to one with trampolines which sound fun. ours has a supervised messy area where you can do painting, pottery, playdough, colouring, drawing, cutting and sticking etc.

a big play pen where you can put younger babies would be good. i hate it when ds crawls off and i am trying to drink my drink. more than once i've jumped up in alarm to rescue him and knocked it all over me.

i mentioned big leather sofas earlier but forgot about the big leather beanbags. they are to die for!!

obvious essentials are lots of parking, lots of easy to clean high chairs and play gyms for younger babies, low sinks and toilets for littlies, empty nappy bin regularly - ours has one of those nappy wrappers and it hardly ever smells and if it does if you tell them they empty it immediately.

a gift shop that sells little crafty items will bring extra money in.

never been to one with wi-fi but i would love it if you got free wi-fi access like in wetherspoons/starbucks.

oh ours does pottery painting parties to. good idea to advertise on the website if you are goin to be closing early because of a party or if certain areas will be closed off.

just looked on the website and they also offer 5 a side and mini make over parties.

One thing I've seen at one play centre that I haven't seen anywhere else is alarmed belts to put on the children when you go in, so that any child heading out the door will set the alarm off. The belts are 'locked' with a key onto the child's clothing.

Also one near us allows you to take your own food if you want. A lot of people don't bother but for weeks when i don't have much money but still want to do things with ds, it means i can still go as it only costs £1.50 but i don't have to worry about paying extra for food and drinks for him.

A tv room with lots of floor cushions and beanbags where they play movies etc is a nice touch too.

Another one has a netted off area with blow machines to fire soft balls at targets.

i think all staff should crb checked and therefore need to be 18+.

toilets big enough to take the buggy into.

choc/sweets not on counter - ds often stands up at the counter and grabs as much as he can which is a bit of pain.

also a cleaning station is useful but only if it is high up. same for the little table where you have milk, jugs of water, sugar etc for drinks.

if you have those air hockey machines, pool tables, coin operated machines can you make it so they don't actually require any money? i don't know how but i have been to one where they work without putting anything in them - i'm not sure if they use tokens or something instead?

Just a rant relating to the soft play centre we went to for the 1st time today. Yes, they are great for a rainy day at this time of year but I came away with so many negatives. For a 3 yr old and a 1 yr old it cost £8 + £2.70 for 2 cups of tea and a packet of crisps . This was quite a small centre and despite it being nearly new, it smelt of fried food. Groups of 3/4 year olds ran round pusing/shoving/congregating at the bottom of the slide with lack of supervision. There were 4 year olds in the under 3s area, throwing the balls around with no one taking charge of getting them to move away (safety issue imo). It was extremely noisy - I know there's bound to be noise but a better acoustic would have meant it could be less booming! In the situation we could only stick it for 45 mins so it wasn't good value for money. I suppose I'm looking at it from the slightly hassled position of taking 2 children under 4 but I dunno that'll I'll go back to that one!!

About the area for babies - I agree and make sure the babies can't get out of the area and find their way up to crawling up into the big play areas. At that in between age when they're old enough to crawl but not old enough to recognize danger you're forever running after them, picking them up and plonking them back in the baby bit. So in other words, gates a couple of feet high with bolts that parents can open from the outside but babies can't. THese might help keep the older kids out too.

Agree about lockers too that's a great idea. Nice food for grown-ups and lots of nice looking fruit instead of just chocolate bars and crisps.

ours does a play scheme for over 8s where you can leave the children and they have trained play supervisors to look after them. it is £7.99 in term time and £8.99 at weekends and in holidays.

they also have a creche which is £4.20 for up to 2 hours or £2.95 for up to 90 minutes.

there is also a group rate where if there is 10 children or more you get 50p or £1 off each child.

also have the age limit as 16 cos often, especially if you are on holiday and using one of these places or going en route from shopping or whatever you will have older siblings with you and they will probably want to join in too. no one wants a sulky teen hanging around whilst their younger brothers and sisters are having the time of their lives. and make sure the adults can go on too. when i take my child somewhere i want to be able to play with himand have fun not sit bored at a table.

this is one we go to a lot

oh i forgot one round here has just started doing a cookery session and face painting and they've just got some of those wheelybugs which all the kids love. there is also a sensory room which is fabby.

i like the ones that are open from 9:30am to 8pm every day - it means it doesn't get as crowded cos the times when people go are more spread out.

the toddler sessions are really good value cos they are only £2.50 for 2 children and then £1 for each additional child.

also ours do a thing mon-fri where if you buy an adult meal you get a child's meal for a £1.

there seem to be quite a few with climbing walls and go kart tracks aswell these days. climbing and go karting parties would mean getting older children having parties there too as do the sports areas which mean you can have netball, basketball, tennis and football parties. oh and the one with the disco room i mentioned has disco parties.

they also sell sunday roasts on a sunday which are very popular apparently. they have sky tv which show are the latest programmes and premiership football matches.

they also do adult parties between 8 and 10pm which are fab. my favourite bit is the drop slide it's £5.95 per person and you get free food and drink.

another site to look at for ideas

sorry further down i said over 4's are £2.95 - i i meant over 5's and at the p&t sessions its 50p for extra children not £1.

oh and ds loves those crazy mirror things. my 8 year old cousin says CLIMBING WALL CLIMBING WALL CLIMBING WALL. don't even ask why he's still up!!!

Can't be bovverd to read all posts, but it must be:

Clean (so socks don't get soaked in wee and sick0
Healthy, cheap food.
Good for older sibs (internet)
Supervised (so smelly bullies whose parents aren't watching get told off)
Have I mentioned WiFi?

My no 1 priority is that the place is clean!

I went to a soft play a couple of years ago and as my sister and I were chatting (the children playing in the playzone) I noticed something from the corner of my eye and turned to see a mouse scurrying by!! A mouse ffs - eeeeeeeeeeuuuughhhh

Needless to say that we never went back ...

one by us popstar and rockers parties where they do kareoke and have a pop idol type competition.

stretch limos are available for all parties

Gosh lots of people have very sophisticated soft play near them. I just want somewhere clean.

Somewhere that doesn't smell of rodents would be great.

clean loos are a must. There is a soft play centre near me that I really like but the loos are a bit manky and smell of wee! And the hand drier doesn't work.
Our one also has double handles on the door - you have to turn both to get out, so it keeps kiddies in.
Good luck.

other popular themed party rooms at these places are pirates, space, diamond mine, land of sweets, desert island, under the sea, jungle, disco, harry potter, star wars. some have a party throne for the birthday boy/girl. you get free invites, party bags and a free return visit for the birthday child.

i don't really like to pay more than £2 for toddler sessions £3.25 for teatime sessions.

Dc's went to a party at a soft play called 'the flying fortress' last year. Don't know if it is the same one but if so it was doing ok. Very clean and spacious with decent food.

Things I agree with from earlier posts (apart from obvious cleanliness etc) are:-
Lockers! That would be fab as I always have to supervise/rescue ds and end up trusting to luck that my bag will be ok hidden under the buggy. Good security at the door but could you make it so it keeps older children in as well as toddlers? My ds has sn and is quite tall but would be just as likely to get run over/lost as a toddler would if he escaped. Just having a high-up catch is no good and since our local place got an electronic lock it has been a weight off my mind. Also agree with letting parents on. None of us want to be clambering over the equipment all the time as the whole point is that children are free to have a good play together, but it's horrible when you have to do a bit of rescuing and you can feel disapproving eyes boring into you!

Further to NappyAddicts point that prices shouldn't increase in school hols/ after school: I disagree. From a business point of view differential pricing is a good way to manage demand.

If you incentivise pre-school families to come during school hours you maximise your revenues.

I am an ex-business consultant and used to advise start-ups and would say do a proper business plan a.s.a.p., carry on asking questions on here (free market research - cool! Loads of market research is vital - you will need to do some locally too to get the pricing right), do some initial calculations of likely startup costs (I suspect the equipment might be very very expensive?), rents etc. (Apologies if I'm being patronising and you know all this - probably fairly obvious!) Also visit the 'benchmark' places mentioned here - the ones you want to steal the best ideas from and also every single competitor you have locally - direct competitors (i.e. other play centres) and a few indirect (other places people could choose to spend their time with kids at instead - only a few of these!)

i have a 19 month old. it annoys me that i have to pay more to take him anywhere during school holidays. our local play centre does a toddler session which is cheaper but they also don't increase normal prices during the school holidays. so if you have a 5+ year old it is the same price during the week and at weekends/holidays.