Thinking of opening a soft play centre, advice wanted!!!!!!!!!

[alkar]

I have been told that the lab I work in will possibly shutting down and we could all be out of a job soon. I was beginning to look for other jobs anyway because, to be honest after doing the job for over 10 years I'm bored. I've been thinking about what I could do instead and have realised that there are no soft play centres in this area and myself and friends always have to travel to go to one.

As I said I have always worked in a lab and have no business experience at all. I will be in partnership with a friend of mine who is a chef so the catering side is sorted. Does anyone have any experience they can share????

Mummydoit - what area are you in? I've never paid to go in as an adult in any of our local ones.

Agree that cleanliness will go a long way to helping your reputation. Don't neglect the toilet area either - it's make or break in my book.

I always appreciate the ones that have an area for babies i.e. under 1 year old. Particularly those with activity type seats so I can put the baby down safely for 5 minutes while I drink my coffee.

One we go to charges adults £1.50 to go in, but you do get your first drink with that.

The baby area is completely separate from the main part and is patrolled by staff to keep older children out.

All the (heavily padded) entrance and exit gates are released by a switch about 5'6" up, so children can't reach and adults don't have to wait for staff to let them out.

Toilets - 2 child height sinks, 2 normal height sinks. Step stools and toilet trainer seats in each cubicle.

HTH.

Good luck!

Lionstar, I'm in Herts. We usually only pay £1 but I still think any charge for adults is unnecessarsy.

Well, apart from the suggestions of what people like to see in such centres, you have to consider it from a business perspective, will you have the necessary funds to start up? With soft play there is a lot of initial out-lay, from building rent and insurance, equipment and installation, kitchen and toilet fit out, public liability insurance, security, staffing etc etc.

If you must have a TV, don't have cbeebies on - I can stay at home for free and plonk my little one in front of ITNG - really bothers me at the one we tend to go to (it has the best coffee and is cleanest, so forgive the TV)

Have feedback forms - I have often wanted to give some feedback about the TV, but there's no mechanism to do so!)

Just thought of another one. Don't have music. The kids are all shouting and screaming anyway so it's loud enough as it is. If there is music, it has to be on incredibly loud to be heard and that makes conversation difficult if you're with friends and reading difficult if you're by yourself. (my eardrums have not yet recovered from having to sit near the speaker on our last visit to Big Space).

Hello to all fellow mothers!
I live in Tyne and Wear and am lucky to have a local pub with a seperate play area which does mother and toddler sessions aswell as keeping older children entertained. it is value for money, to say the least, the girls are absolutely lush! and are great with my two wonderfull 7 and 3 yrs old. just thought i would share my great discovery with any fellow mothers living near me and that are desperate for somewhere to go with the rapidly approaching summer holidays. they've even got there own facebook page just type in Fuzzy ed's Magic Lantern and it has all the info! and you too could become a friend like me!
good luck!

No, don't charge for adults. I don't really want to go anyway, i only go for my DS.

Supervise the younger areas properly: stop the bigger kids going in and spoiling fun for little ones.

One we go to has sit in, push along cars and climbing equipment too which are always well used.

put the balls back in the ball pools/pits at the end of the day.

good food and a nice cafe area where you can KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR DC'S. you'd think that was really hard to achieve, judging by my local soft play areas...

Good Coffee!!!!

I have just opened a soft play centre in Torquay "Torplay". Me & my daughter run the business together. We have 3 play areas - A small area for non walkers, an area with little tikes play equipment & a play frame for children up to 12yrs. The cafe area is right beside the play equipment, giving parents a good view of their children, we are a chip free zone & offer a wide range of healthy food at very resonable prices with drinks from just 30p & kids sandwiches from just 50p. We also have a function room & 3 party rooms & offer a wide range of party packages starting at just £5 per head with no minimum number of children. We spend a lot of time making sure all our equipment is clean.

agree with all of the above!

main thing for me would be properly separate areas - babies-little toddlers, bigger toddlers- preschoolers and then school age up for example.

I find that the 2yo up to about 4yo (depending on size, confidence, ability of course) children are too big for the baby stuff but get knocked flying by the school age kids who do rather rampage madly about (as you might expect!), and this age group also need closer supervision and help. So something that really catered for them would be fantastic.

Good luck!

Please don't include the crappy branded pay-to-ride things - you know the ones that cause countless arguments outside supermarkets. More and more of them are springing up at our nearest soft play.

DD spends more time asking if we have money so she can sit next to Iggle Piggle and be gently swayed back and forth for approximately 1.7 minutes than she does playing on the soft play stuff.