How to Start a Bouncy Castle Hire Business

Hiring out bouncy castles can be run alongside your full time job, children, other commitments. It’s really flexible just set up an email account and a professional voicemail (in case you can’t answer calls) and you respond to enquiries as and when you can on your lunch break, in the evenings, when the kids are at school or sleeping.

It doesn’t take a lot of time out of your weekend – when you first start you may have one or two bouncy castles so you are simply dropping them off at the time and spending 10/15 minutes setting up and then collecting in the evening another 30 minutes.

It’s easy to set up. Just let HMRC know that you are going self employed, set up a Facebook page and/or website and get advertising. Social media is a great way to advertise your business for free so it doesn’t even have to cost anything.

Research Your Target Location

When your starting a bouncy castle hire business, you’ll want to get a lay of the land for the area you’ll be servicing. Check the local newspapers, see who’s advertising. Perform a search for “bouncy castle hire [your area]” on Google to see who the local competitors are.

Don’t worry too much if there are other companies covering the area, there’s likely room in the area for more than one of you to offer bouncy castle hire services. Once you know who the competition is, take a look to see what they offer – bouncy castles for children (boys and girls), adults, inflatable obstacle courses etc.

You want to do this for a couple of reasons, firstly ,to see if there are any glaring areas that they’re missing, if for instance the competition only offers childrens bouncy castles, you might find there’s a demand for adult bouncy castle hire that they aren’t covering, giving you somewhere to start.

Secondly, for pricing points, even if there’s no glaring, open areas in the market, start with childrens bouncy castle, and make sure you don’t price yourself too highly, meaning you miss opportunities, or too low, meaning you could miss out on potential revenue.

Bouncy Castle Recommendations

When starting out, you’ll only need one or two bouncy castles, so choose wisely. Don’t just get one large princess bouncy castle as this cuts off your market for boys, it also, may not be suitable for most peoples back garden.

The most popular size bouncy castle you’ll normally see is a 15x11ft bouncy castle, with a roof and sun/rain cover, this is perfect size for most back gardens. Choose a gender neutral design that suitable for both boys and girls.

There is a way to expand your bouncy castle design range, to appeal to both boys and girls, without needing to buy more bouncy castles. Adding Velcro to the castle and having different themed Velcro artwork to swap out is a viable option and much cheaper alternative.

Equipment you’ll need

Now that you know where you’re targeting, and you’ve got a bouncy castle to hire out, it’s time to get the equipment you’ll need to run your business effectively:

• Bouncy Castle, preferably with a rain cover.
• Anchor pegs (for outside use), sandbags (for inside use).
• An electric blower.
• Ground sheet to protect underside of bouncer.
• Electrical extension cable (around 25 – 30 meters long).
• RCD circuit breaker (a safety cut-out device).
• Safety mat to put at front of the castle.
• A computer, for recording bookings, recording income and expenses.
• Safety instruction sheet and customer disclaimer form.
• A sack trolley.
• A vehicle and sat nav, for equipment delivery and pick up.

Finding Customers & Getting Bookings

Adverts in the local paper can help you pull in some customers. Contact local schools and see if you can be at their events, if you hand out flyers to all the parents at the school events this can lead to a lot of extra hires.

Going along to places where parents would congregate such as shows and galas, charity events, brownie and guide groups, open days and so on, handing out flyers will also help. Make sure that your flyers contain all the important info, including your name and contact details.

However, you may find that a lot of people will look online, when wanting to hire a bouncy castle, and if that’s where your customers are, that’s where you should be! Utilise social media – IT’S FREE! Join local sales groups for your area and advertise your business daily and link back to your Facebook page.

Make sure people can leave reviews on your Facebook page – this is important as it builds up trust for your business. When collecting a bouncy castle from a customers, leave them with a card, asking for a review on your facebook page. Alternatively, if you have their email, follow up after collecting, asking for a review, with a link to your Facebook page.

In this day and age, everyone checks reviews, and if you haven’t got any online reviews anywhere people may be more likely to choose a company that does, so make a habit of asking for them. You may get the occasional bad review whether it’s your fault or not, respond to it in a professional manner this will not hinder your business if it is occasional.

Business can grow quickly when advertising through Social Media and via word of mouth from your customers, and you will soon have your castles booked out every weekend and days in the week.

Once you feel you’ve grown enough, you could even get your own website and utilise the various marketing channels to bring more customers to your business/

Be prepared for customer questions

Once you’re out there, be prepared for your customers to have questions. You’ll likely be asked:

• What size bouncy castles you have available?
• What styles/designs do you have? (or requests for specific designs).
• How much hiring a bouncy castle will cost?
• When you deliver and pick up?
• If you offer your services where they are based?

Try and have answers for the big questions ready. If you get a question you don’t have the answer to, make a note of it for next time.

Get Yourself Covered

We strongly recommend getting Public Liability Insurance cover, generally one million pounds of cover should be the minimum. This is to protect you in the event of an accident while people are using your equipment.

Talk to your insurance broker, they can also advise you on insurance for loss of the equipment, and when you start to bring employees onboard, employers liability.

Safety

Safety is essential, regardless of what business your in, make sure you familiarise yourself with the Health and Safety at Work act and the Use of Work equipment Regulations, as these directly relate to what your business.

You’ll also want to create a safety handout to give your customers when you drop off the bouncy castle. This should cover what they can and can’t do, max number of people on the bouncy castle at a time and so on. This then, not only covers you, but also makes your customers more informed.

Keep a track of your finances

Finally, you’ll want to keep a track of your income and expenditure. Keep a note on everything, flyer costs, fuel, review cards any advertising expense. Create a spreadsheet on your computer where you can easily keep a track of everything.

This is just a little helpful information but a lot more is given in our business guide on each order. Remember, if you have any questions, you can drop us a message or give us a call, we’ll be happy to answer them for you.

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