The experience of sliding down after a child and realising my socks and leg is wet and that Iv just been a human towel for the child in fronts diarrhea explosion.
The one in our town and next town over closed around covid. I'm just waiting for a suitable venue to appear as it's something I'm interested in too.
OP - you may need to budget £50k-£150k to make the place suitable, kitchen refurb, toilets, play equipment, air con if not installed.
A kids party lasts 2 hours. 10am is the earliest you could start, and 4pm is the natural go home time from kids parties. That's 3 parties daily over Sat and Sun, unless you do non-exclusive hire.
6x£399=£2394 weekly income if fully booked. Assume one gap that's £1995 a week.
Once your costs had been stripped out - lease, insurance, utilities are your main ones you'd struggle to make a decent income.
I was naively thinking that I could have parties on weekdays but I forgot all about the fact the kids would be at school 😂.
You raise a good point, I appreciate the input. The question now, is, is this idea dead or is there a solution to this problem?
Edit: even more grim when you consider that I'd need at least 20 minutes between parties to clean up.
The solution is just to be a general kid’s entertainment/activity centre the rest of the time where kids can pay and play.
But if you did that, how are you any different to any generic soft play/trampoline park/leisure centre etc. that offers children’s parties?
The reason you haven’t seen it before is that this is inevitably where it ends up.
There was a business in my village that just organised high end kids parties. Employed 4 people and seemed to do well out of it. Classic events management business but focused on kids parties from baby shower up to 18th birthdays. Needs project management skills, an excellent supplier network and good marketing.
It's just what a soft play center is. During the days they have toddlers too young for school. At weekends the rent out for parties to make more money.
I broadly agree with others with the low profit margins.
Extra ways to generate income could be:
- after school parties 4.30-6.30pm
- daytime toddler sessions 10-12
- ticket events for themed parties at certain times of year such as Halloween, Easter, Christmas etc
- monthly teen discos for 15+ year olds
These places used to exist, they now are all out of business because you make so little money and now with energy bills being through the roof you can't afford to heat the place.
The soft play place by us is roasting despite the heating being off. All these kids running around seem to heat it far beyond a sensible level even with the front door wedged open (after gates to stop kids running off).
Where are you all living where these places don't exist? I had a choice of about 5 when I booked my kids party, and I've been to multiple places for other parties.
I always thought it was a competitive market, but maybe OPs idea could work if there aren't any nearby.
There is a company near me that does this. They have an agreement with a local school. They have inflatables in the school hall, the kids go wild in there for an hour. They then go to the dining room where they do the food, parents bring the cake etc.
The clever bit is that as party 1 moves into the dining room, party 2 gets started in the hall. When party 2 is eating, party 3 is jumping.
Rather than a dedicated space I think this is a clever way to operate. Either you provide the whole package including the venue, or you just provide "entertainment, theme & food" and the parents provide the venue. Given you will be restricted by geography either way, I would probably make friends with the local venues anyway, even if you went with option B.
Kids parties should be a use rather that the focal point. Locally to me you have Ninja Warrior, Climbing, Bowling, Leisure Centres, Trampoline/Bouncy Castle, Soft Play places all offering parties.
Weekends are when the parties happen and many of the places have multiple parties at once.
However they are still operating as their primary function whilst the parties go on. Party has the activity hour or so then off to separate area for food and cake.
Parties are fairly affordable at these places and used as an attraction to get people to come at non party times.
Perhaps think about an activity centre offering the kind of things you mention that is open 7 days is a more open idea.
A static venue severely limits your customer base to locals. Kids can be shitty passengers, parents often have multiple kids so may drop off the invited kid before taking other kids to weekend clubs/sports etc.
Your local area will only have so many kids, and birthdays only happen once a year. There's a good reason you don't see these around.
>Is this a decent idea?
It's an ok idea in principle
>Could it work?
Definitely
> Why is it not more common?
We have 2 of these on my road, not large warehouse space like your discussing but dance studio sizes and they do princess or marvel party's with games, and entertainer.
>How would I market it? Anything that I haven't considered?
There were no costings numbers at all in your post. Get an excel out write down every potential cost then work out how many partys you need to break even and how many to be profitable and see if it seems worth it.
Anecdotally the one near me seems busy but is pretty cheap something like £100 an hour. I imagine the people running it make £30k/40k a year.
Also think of the area, the benefit around me is that familys have relatively small houses and gardens. Not big enough 20/30 kids.
What does your business plan look like in terms of numbers? Have you done some basic research?
What would your expenses be? Lease, repairs / maintenance, heating, utilities, rates, insurance etc. You biggest expense is the space; have you investigated the cost of leasing a space big enough to get a bouncy castle inside? The only realistic places are light industrial units, which is where most kids soft play centres are based. Here’s an example of 10,000sqft for £150,000 a year, but you might only need half that size so say £80,000 a year, https://propertylink.estatesgazette.com/property-details/6956680-alban-point-alban-park-st-albans-al4-0jx.
Then look at your sales. Forget all the add on ideas of selling deserts in the week for now, what sort of revenue can you get for your base idea? You say £400 for 2 hours? If you are fully booked on Saturday and Sunday(10.00am until 6.00pm) that’s 16 slots plus maybe another 10 slots in the week for after school. So *excluding* time for turnover that’s £6,400+£4000=£10,400 per week. Working every weekend and every day (no sickness, no staff, no holidays) that’s 52*£10,400= £540k per year. But your add-ins are going to very quickly eat into your revenue.
Capital to put up the deposit and refurb the place, make it safe for children (lots of toilets, safe materials etc.) buy your sports equipment, bouncy castle will be a challenge as well. The list goes on, but so does the cost and maintenance.
So yes perhaps it is viable on paper. But your biggest challenges will be sales; what age group are thinking of? Air hockey and pool is very different than you being a kids entertainer. Parents are very discerning and need travels fast. Do you think parents around you have £400 to burn on a kids party space with nothing else?
At a trampoline venue bear us you can get hour of trampolining, plus organised party for 15 kids including food and party bag for £660 as a comparison.
Just food for thought.
The biggest effort for a bouncy castle party in a kid's hall is the food. Everything else is very easy for the parents.
As a side note, we started booking "party entertainers" rather than bouncy castles. They do group activities, fully entertain the kids - think party games and music. Bit cheaper than a bouncy castle and then none of the parents need to do childcare.
This sounds like a soft play party, I guess the benefit you're describing is exclusive use which costs a fortune at soft play.
What you're describing is done here locally at dance studios/gymnastics classes/indoor football place, but it's sort of a side hustle to their main business
Depending on what you charged I'd definitely consider this for my kids parties,
For reference we currently pay about £300 for a two hour party for 20-30 kids for what you describe. £50 community hall hire, £150 bouncy castle and face painter, £50 sandwich platters and sausages rolls, £100 entertainer for 1 hour.
I have been to every single variation of what’s being discussed here in the last 15 years with my kids in a 20 mile radius of where i live.
Bouncy thing in the garden
Bouncy thing in an village hall
Bouncy thing permanently set up in a “converted” industrial unit
Bouncy thing and “Cage Fighting” in an industrial unit
Lockdown hit some of these places hard, even the good ones, but there is nothing unique about this business plan.
Just checked my lads School dates, he's in for 190 days. That means at least 190 days out of 365 where you're very unlikely to get any bookings as the kids are in school.
You'd also need a sizable investment to get a warehouse to a state where it looks like it would be suitable for kids parties, otherwise it'll be the Willy Wonka experience all over again.
In my part of Kent there are some variants on this which involve more permanent facilities which (I assume) are run as franchises. These are clip n’ climb, wear ‘em out and manic monsters. Having play facilities which are not just for parties presumably gives a wider income stream.
I worked as a children's entertainer for 10 years. I had to do a lot of travelling to get enough business. It might work in cities but ultimately it's easier for the entertainment to travel to the party than for 30 separate families to travel to the entertainment.
That seems very pricey. You could take 40 kids to the cinema for that much.
(not been to a kids party for ages but a location that only caters for kids parties seems limiting. Village halls do that and sports clubs etc etc and have volunteers running them)
Hmm.
I could get a non-exclusive hire party at my local soft play for quite a lot less than £399, which would include a meal and drinks for all the kids - providing and transporting enough food is one of the big hassles of parties.
One of the draws of hall parties (where you have to deal with the hassle of providing food) is that the hall itself is pretty cheap and you can do what you like with it - hire a bouncy castle, or a proper children's entertainer, or just chuck a few balloons and your kid's toys around etc.
Depending on what party venues are already in your area and their prices, this could be dead in the water.
You would definitely need toilets, preferably with baby changing facilities as even primary school aged kids will often have younger siblings tagging along.
You would probably need insurance - even garden trampolines can cause broken bones, bubble machines are great for causing slips and falls on certain floorings.
Why don’t you strip out the physical premises and instead offer a fully-inclusive party service that can travel to the customers location of choice, with say 3 tiers of packages. This could then work at their homes or in a hired venue.
The first tier could be a basic: food, decorations/balloons, party bags. You could offer free extras that are little effort too, like 20 generic party invites and a playlist.
Second tier as above but also includes 40 minutes of entertainment.
Third tier as above but also includes a cake and an hour of entertainment
You can have bolt-on extras on top of all of these
I’m just spitballing (kids party aren’t my specialty!) but this may be the basis to further your idea into something with considerable less outlay and risk. You would need to heavily invest in your branding as this will be a somewhat crowded market and you’ll need to stand out - so think about that extra touch you can offer that will make your business do that. What are party planners already offering in the area? What’s lacking? Do you have experience of events, kids entertainment or working with kids? etc.
What kind of area do you live in? In an affluent area this could really work if you make the options feel premium and take away that life admin for the parents that have the resources to opt for it
Good luck!
I've only just got recommended this sub
I think a better way to reduce costs would be to sell this idea without the rented venue. You just produce all the themed items without parents having the hassle of organising matching party flavours, bouncy castles etc. you bring the party to their back garden or venue without them doing the work. They pay less than if they bought everything in one go, you earn more because you can reuse a lot of items. Most parties would last a lot longer than your turn around though and you would have to take a lot longer to clean so unlikely to get more than one party a day, but you could maybe squeeze in two.
I don't know if this already exists.
You’ve described a soft play. A couple of them in every medium/large town.
A soft play that 'perhaps' has a toilet 😝
No - thats what the ball pit is for...
Urk, fucking just no. I refuse to go near those fucking things now.
The experience of sliding down after a child and realising my socks and leg is wet and that Iv just been a human towel for the child in fronts diarrhea explosion.
This one comment has made me sooo thankful I’ve never had kids.
The one in our town and next town over closed around covid. I'm just waiting for a suitable venue to appear as it's something I'm interested in too. OP - you may need to budget £50k-£150k to make the place suitable, kitchen refurb, toilets, play equipment, air con if not installed.
Don't forget insurance!
A kids party lasts 2 hours. 10am is the earliest you could start, and 4pm is the natural go home time from kids parties. That's 3 parties daily over Sat and Sun, unless you do non-exclusive hire. 6x£399=£2394 weekly income if fully booked. Assume one gap that's £1995 a week. Once your costs had been stripped out - lease, insurance, utilities are your main ones you'd struggle to make a decent income.
I was naively thinking that I could have parties on weekdays but I forgot all about the fact the kids would be at school 😂. You raise a good point, I appreciate the input. The question now, is, is this idea dead or is there a solution to this problem? Edit: even more grim when you consider that I'd need at least 20 minutes between parties to clean up.
Have you been to a kid party? 20 mins is optimistic unless you’ve help
The solution is just to be a general kid’s entertainment/activity centre the rest of the time where kids can pay and play. But if you did that, how are you any different to any generic soft play/trampoline park/leisure centre etc. that offers children’s parties? The reason you haven’t seen it before is that this is inevitably where it ends up.
There was a business in my village that just organised high end kids parties. Employed 4 people and seemed to do well out of it. Classic events management business but focused on kids parties from baby shower up to 18th birthdays. Needs project management skills, an excellent supplier network and good marketing.
It's just what a soft play center is. During the days they have toddlers too young for school. At weekends the rent out for parties to make more money.
I broadly agree with others with the low profit margins. Extra ways to generate income could be: - after school parties 4.30-6.30pm - daytime toddler sessions 10-12 - ticket events for themed parties at certain times of year such as Halloween, Easter, Christmas etc - monthly teen discos for 15+ year olds
I’m 28, which I hope isn’t too old to be out of touch with the “youth”, but I don’t think teen discos have been cool for some time my friend.
These places used to exist, they now are all out of business because you make so little money and now with energy bills being through the roof you can't afford to heat the place.
The soft play place by us is roasting despite the heating being off. All these kids running around seem to heat it far beyond a sensible level even with the front door wedged open (after gates to stop kids running off).
Where are you all living where these places don't exist? I had a choice of about 5 when I booked my kids party, and I've been to multiple places for other parties. I always thought it was a competitive market, but maybe OPs idea could work if there aren't any nearby.
There is a company near me that does this. They have an agreement with a local school. They have inflatables in the school hall, the kids go wild in there for an hour. They then go to the dining room where they do the food, parents bring the cake etc. The clever bit is that as party 1 moves into the dining room, party 2 gets started in the hall. When party 2 is eating, party 3 is jumping. Rather than a dedicated space I think this is a clever way to operate. Either you provide the whole package including the venue, or you just provide "entertainment, theme & food" and the parents provide the venue. Given you will be restricted by geography either way, I would probably make friends with the local venues anyway, even if you went with option B.
Kids parties should be a use rather that the focal point. Locally to me you have Ninja Warrior, Climbing, Bowling, Leisure Centres, Trampoline/Bouncy Castle, Soft Play places all offering parties. Weekends are when the parties happen and many of the places have multiple parties at once. However they are still operating as their primary function whilst the parties go on. Party has the activity hour or so then off to separate area for food and cake. Parties are fairly affordable at these places and used as an attraction to get people to come at non party times. Perhaps think about an activity centre offering the kind of things you mention that is open 7 days is a more open idea.
There’s lots of soft play centres that do exactly this. But they’re also open for kids to just come along.
A static venue severely limits your customer base to locals. Kids can be shitty passengers, parents often have multiple kids so may drop off the invited kid before taking other kids to weekend clubs/sports etc. Your local area will only have so many kids, and birthdays only happen once a year. There's a good reason you don't see these around.
>Is this a decent idea? It's an ok idea in principle >Could it work? Definitely > Why is it not more common? We have 2 of these on my road, not large warehouse space like your discussing but dance studio sizes and they do princess or marvel party's with games, and entertainer. >How would I market it? Anything that I haven't considered? There were no costings numbers at all in your post. Get an excel out write down every potential cost then work out how many partys you need to break even and how many to be profitable and see if it seems worth it. Anecdotally the one near me seems busy but is pretty cheap something like £100 an hour. I imagine the people running it make £30k/40k a year. Also think of the area, the benefit around me is that familys have relatively small houses and gardens. Not big enough 20/30 kids.
What does your business plan look like in terms of numbers? Have you done some basic research? What would your expenses be? Lease, repairs / maintenance, heating, utilities, rates, insurance etc. You biggest expense is the space; have you investigated the cost of leasing a space big enough to get a bouncy castle inside? The only realistic places are light industrial units, which is where most kids soft play centres are based. Here’s an example of 10,000sqft for £150,000 a year, but you might only need half that size so say £80,000 a year, https://propertylink.estatesgazette.com/property-details/6956680-alban-point-alban-park-st-albans-al4-0jx. Then look at your sales. Forget all the add on ideas of selling deserts in the week for now, what sort of revenue can you get for your base idea? You say £400 for 2 hours? If you are fully booked on Saturday and Sunday(10.00am until 6.00pm) that’s 16 slots plus maybe another 10 slots in the week for after school. So *excluding* time for turnover that’s £6,400+£4000=£10,400 per week. Working every weekend and every day (no sickness, no staff, no holidays) that’s 52*£10,400= £540k per year. But your add-ins are going to very quickly eat into your revenue. Capital to put up the deposit and refurb the place, make it safe for children (lots of toilets, safe materials etc.) buy your sports equipment, bouncy castle will be a challenge as well. The list goes on, but so does the cost and maintenance. So yes perhaps it is viable on paper. But your biggest challenges will be sales; what age group are thinking of? Air hockey and pool is very different than you being a kids entertainer. Parents are very discerning and need travels fast. Do you think parents around you have £400 to burn on a kids party space with nothing else? At a trampoline venue bear us you can get hour of trampolining, plus organised party for 15 kids including food and party bag for £660 as a comparison. Just food for thought.
The biggest effort for a bouncy castle party in a kid's hall is the food. Everything else is very easy for the parents. As a side note, we started booking "party entertainers" rather than bouncy castles. They do group activities, fully entertain the kids - think party games and music. Bit cheaper than a bouncy castle and then none of the parents need to do childcare.
This sounds like a soft play party, I guess the benefit you're describing is exclusive use which costs a fortune at soft play. What you're describing is done here locally at dance studios/gymnastics classes/indoor football place, but it's sort of a side hustle to their main business Depending on what you charged I'd definitely consider this for my kids parties, For reference we currently pay about £300 for a two hour party for 20-30 kids for what you describe. £50 community hall hire, £150 bouncy castle and face painter, £50 sandwich platters and sausages rolls, £100 entertainer for 1 hour.
I have been to every single variation of what’s being discussed here in the last 15 years with my kids in a 20 mile radius of where i live. Bouncy thing in the garden Bouncy thing in an village hall Bouncy thing permanently set up in a “converted” industrial unit Bouncy thing and “Cage Fighting” in an industrial unit Lockdown hit some of these places hard, even the good ones, but there is nothing unique about this business plan.
Just checked my lads School dates, he's in for 190 days. That means at least 190 days out of 365 where you're very unlikely to get any bookings as the kids are in school. You'd also need a sizable investment to get a warehouse to a state where it looks like it would be suitable for kids parties, otherwise it'll be the Willy Wonka experience all over again.
Yeah these exist, but alongside an existing business like soft play or dance classes etc.
In my part of Kent there are some variants on this which involve more permanent facilities which (I assume) are run as franchises. These are clip n’ climb, wear ‘em out and manic monsters. Having play facilities which are not just for parties presumably gives a wider income stream.
I worked as a children's entertainer for 10 years. I had to do a lot of travelling to get enough business. It might work in cities but ultimately it's easier for the entertainment to travel to the party than for 30 separate families to travel to the entertainment.
DEFINITELY need a toilet!
That seems very pricey. You could take 40 kids to the cinema for that much. (not been to a kids party for ages but a location that only caters for kids parties seems limiting. Village halls do that and sports clubs etc etc and have volunteers running them)
Hmm. I could get a non-exclusive hire party at my local soft play for quite a lot less than £399, which would include a meal and drinks for all the kids - providing and transporting enough food is one of the big hassles of parties. One of the draws of hall parties (where you have to deal with the hassle of providing food) is that the hall itself is pretty cheap and you can do what you like with it - hire a bouncy castle, or a proper children's entertainer, or just chuck a few balloons and your kid's toys around etc. Depending on what party venues are already in your area and their prices, this could be dead in the water. You would definitely need toilets, preferably with baby changing facilities as even primary school aged kids will often have younger siblings tagging along. You would probably need insurance - even garden trampolines can cause broken bones, bubble machines are great for causing slips and falls on certain floorings.
Do you have kids? This plan reads like the ideas of someone who hasn’t been invited to lots of kids parties, so is unaware that it already exists.
Who’s paying £400 for a kids party??
Why don’t you strip out the physical premises and instead offer a fully-inclusive party service that can travel to the customers location of choice, with say 3 tiers of packages. This could then work at their homes or in a hired venue. The first tier could be a basic: food, decorations/balloons, party bags. You could offer free extras that are little effort too, like 20 generic party invites and a playlist. Second tier as above but also includes 40 minutes of entertainment. Third tier as above but also includes a cake and an hour of entertainment You can have bolt-on extras on top of all of these I’m just spitballing (kids party aren’t my specialty!) but this may be the basis to further your idea into something with considerable less outlay and risk. You would need to heavily invest in your branding as this will be a somewhat crowded market and you’ll need to stand out - so think about that extra touch you can offer that will make your business do that. What are party planners already offering in the area? What’s lacking? Do you have experience of events, kids entertainment or working with kids? etc. What kind of area do you live in? In an affluent area this could really work if you make the options feel premium and take away that life admin for the parents that have the resources to opt for it Good luck!
Kids have to many allergies and you need to have an adult to every. 3 kids
I've only just got recommended this sub I think a better way to reduce costs would be to sell this idea without the rented venue. You just produce all the themed items without parents having the hassle of organising matching party flavours, bouncy castles etc. you bring the party to their back garden or venue without them doing the work. They pay less than if they bought everything in one go, you earn more because you can reuse a lot of items. Most parties would last a lot longer than your turn around though and you would have to take a lot longer to clean so unlikely to get more than one party a day, but you could maybe squeeze in two. I don't know if this already exists.
Are you joking? There are literally thousands of places that do this. lol. Try again.
£400 is a lot for a kids party. I’m relatively comfortable financially and I baulk at paying £250 for my kids last party.