"The risk you run on a themed playground is that over time it will lose it's appeal to your repeat (core) market. "

Indoor Playgrounds
To Theme or Not to Theme?

By Family Entertainment Center

Page 1, 2

When pursuing this goal of ours, we sometimes forget who our target market is and focus on what we (adults) think is cool. Many times as a fun-loving entrepreneur that works out for the best, but sometimes, it's just selfish and not in the best interest of your overall facility goals or your target market. Themeing seems to fall into that category often, as grown adults stretch themselves to create their "fantasy-land".

The challenge with themeing is two-fold; 1) Once a Castle, always a Castle, and 2) Cost.

Minimal use of themeing with colors, murals and painted panels helps to reduce the cost and creates an 'expandable' theme that can be changed at a reasonable expense in the future.

Once a Castle

As you know children have a vivid and active imagination. Many early childhood practitioners will tell you the best and natural way for children to develop their own creative imagination is through pretend play. While a themed environment can help facilitate this, once your play area is themed a particular way, due to the expense and effort it usually stays that way over the long term.

Now little Jimmy who may feel like a pretending to be a King on one visit fits right into the Castle theme. Next time he may wish he were Tarzan or the Hulk, or a Pirate chasing buried treasure, but he is still forced to play in the Castle. Kids are incredibly resilient and will tend to make a new environment whatever they want it to be - for awhile. The risk you run on a themed playground is that over time it will lose it's appeal to your repeat (core) market.

This scenario may change if you are located along 'themed-row' in Orlando, for example where you HAVE to have some kind of themeing to catch the over-whelmed tourist eye. However, if your facility is dependant on your local community for repeat visits, parties, etc then your key to success is not so much in the WOW! Factor, but in the Play-A-Bility factor.

At What Cost?

The other factor for themeing is the cost. Themeing can very quickly consume 20% - 30% of your overall playground budget - and that's for "esthetics" only. There is next to zero play-value (Play-A-Bility) in themeing. As we have previously discussed, the critical success factor underlying your entire facility is "Play-A-Bility". From your activity mix, to your party packages... play-a-bility is the key.

For Example: you could design a playground with a capacity for 80 children at one time that may turn out to be 30' x 30' x 18' tall. Inside the play-a-bility factor may include 26 activities, events and play components and may cost you $70,000 (plus installation).

Spend $14,000 on themeing (20%) and your play-a-bility budget drops to $56,000 - so now your play-a-bility factor is down to 17 or 18 activities, but it looks really cool. Parents and children on their initial visit will be wow! this is cool, but the play-value has been compromised, and it is quicker for the child to become bored with the reduced amount of activities.

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