How To Determine Your Open-Play Hours For Your Indoor Playground Or Play Cafe Business

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Determining the hours of your indoor playground is a business decision that you want to take the time to evaluate and prioritize, especially before presenting the hours to your community. 

The hours that you agree upon will impact how many people find you for open play, how many parties you book, and what your emphasis is going to be in terms of how you're going to actually make your money, which all have big implications on the success of your business.

For those reasons, it can feel overwhelming to solidify your hours and you may not know where to start. I want to share with you six key elements to consider when determining the hours of your business. 

But remember– these can always change as your business transforms. Don’t let this decision stop you from moving forward. While I recommend not changing your hours more than once or twice a year (due to seasonality, perhaps)-- this does not need to be a permanent decision. So use these 6 considerations to determine the starting point for your open play hours, and be open to adjusting as you learn more about your indoor playground or play cafe business and customers. 

1) What will be your main stream of revenue? 

The elements of your business that you anticipate making you the largest portion of profit are going to have a big impact on your hours. Take some time to consider what that offer or service may be. If you’re planning to focus on birthday parties - then you need to determine if you will be operating parties during open-play, or closing for private events. 

If you are planning on closing for parties like we did as a premier private party venue– I would keep your weekend open play hours extremely limited. We, for example, were open for weekend open play ONLY from 8:30am-12:00pm on Saturdays– then closed for the rest of the weekend to accommodate parties. 

Party revenue was much more consistent and significant than open-play revenue since it was our focus, so even though we got a complaint once-in-a-while about weekend hours– this was a crucial decision for us that kept our business sustainable and profitable. To quash some of these complaints, we would hold surprise extra open-play opportunities if we did not have a party or event planned.

If instead you're planning to mostly accommodate children and families as a membership-based business, you may want to expand your open play hours to make your unlimited memberships more attractive to a wider audience. 

Not sure what revenue stream to focus on? This YouTube video I created on exactly this topic will give you some added clarity!

No matter what your main service offer ends up being, it's important that your hours are supporting your focus and the needs of the ideal clients it’s geared towards serving.

2) How can you be as consistent as possible?  

In my experience, I’ve found that when our hours were changing frequently, many people wouldn't bother to visit. A parent's worst nightmare is going through the entire ordeal of getting their child ready, getting them excited, and then arriving at their indoor playground destination only to have it be closed because their hours fluctuated with little-to-no warning. Parents need hours to be dependable and consistent. 

Of course, there are emergencies and other situations where your hours may need to change– for example, due to seasonality. However, do your best to communicate as early as possible, and in as many forms as possible. Send an email, post on social media, have a sign displayed for current customers, change the hours on google and yelp– make sure as many bases are covered as possible to prevent upset customers and lost sales (not to mention negative reviews!). 

For membership-based businesses, this is especially important as members often create a structured routine with their children based on your hours of availability. If you make those hours too confusing or inconsistent, the value of a membership loses its appeal with your customers (and potential customers!).
Take the time to evaluate the needs of your community, identify consistent hours and establish them wherever possible. And if they need to change– communicate it thoroughly.

3) Will you have a cafe and are you going to count on childless walk-in traffic?

Somebody that I mention frequently is Play Maker Society member, Tal. She is the owner of Art Factory and Play Place in Virginia. She has an amazing cafe and has a ton of walk-in traffic who don't bring children along. 

Due to her strong community of childless visitors and patrons, she opens earlier than most (7:00am most days!) , and it works well for her business as her cafe accounts for a major source of her revenue. She is also open into the evenings, since she offers art activities and classes for adults in addition to children. 

However, if you were to decide that your building is too small to create a calm enough atmosphere to attract customers without children (or if you don’t have a drive-thru, etc), or you simply don’t want to rely on that stream of revenue– it may not be wise to open earlier than necessary. 

Typically parents will bring their child to play earlier than 8:30 AM- that's just the reality. So it may not make sense to open your cafe any earlier than that timeline or you will likely waste precious payroll hours.

However, if you plan to operate similarly to Tal – then a 7 AM opening time may work great! Evaluate the reliability of your non-parent clientele and work your hours around what feels most ideal. 

4) Will your parties be private?   

If you are planning on having multiple streams of revenue including open play, memberships, and private parties– then you're going to need to consider how you will accommodate members during those private events.

As I mentioned, we chose to have only 3 hours of open-play on Saturdays and ultimately closed on Sundays to host private birthday parties. Did we get complaints about that? Yes. However, one of the biggest mistakes an indoor playground owner can make is relying too much on open play. The reality is that open play is a low-ticket sale (and fighting for too many of those is the fastest road to burnout) and birthday parties are what bring in the greater, guaranteed revenue. 

Again, check out my YouTube video here about which revenue streams I suggest focusing on in my experience working with hundreds of indoor playground owners!

To give our members the best experience while maintaining our focus on birthday parties, we chose a consistent open play schedule of 8:30 AM - 12:00 PM on Saturdays and closed on Sundays. This provided members with guaranteed play hours they could develop a routine around while continuing to provide exceptional private parties that drove greater sales.

Now, if you have a private party room, or if you're able to stagger parties to accommodate open play during your birthday parties, then obviously it's going to be a little bit different. But when you're determining your hours, that's something that you need to consider because it's going to have a big impact. 

5) What ages will you accommodate?

If you are focusing on serving families with babies and toddlers like us, your busiest hours will likely be between 10am and 1pm– before nap-time. If you desire to also accommodate working parents, you may want to try opening just one night a week to see how it goes– then adjust from there. Opening only 1-2 evenings per week gives parents something to schedule around and will bring in a more concentrated flow of customers during an otherwise quiet time. 

If you accommodate school-age children, then you might want to open later and REMAIN open later. For example, 10:00 or 11:00 AM to welcome homeschooled children or perhaps older toddlers that are in morning preschool. Then, you’ll likely want to remain open until around 7:00 PM for those attending school late into the afternoon.

You really need to consider the ages of the children that you're going to accommodate to account for their bedtimes, school hours, extracurriculars, etc. when you're determining your open hours. 

6) Who is your ideal customer? 

Beyond understanding the age demographics of your visitors, you also need to consider the IDEAL groups of customers. For example, your facility may ALLOW children up to age 7– but who do you BEST serve? For us, though we allowed up to 7– our ideal clients due to our size and type of play were under 4 years of age.

Now– consider their schedules and family dynamics you will likely attract in this demographic. Are the primary chaperones nannies or other caregivers? Are you accommodating homeschool groups or daycares? Depending on your answers, you may need to adjust your hours to fit the needs of those groups.

If you do plan to allow larger groups to visit during open play, it typically makes for a very low adult-to-child ratio. This can make for a more chaotic environment, messes, and the overall need for more staffing from you. Knowing this, you will likely need to consider staying open during less busy hours so that the large group fits and you can properly staff their visit. 

If you notice little ones aren't really coming in after one o'clock or after two o'clock, then you can adapt your hours and decide that after your open-play ends would be a great time– maybe a few hours a week– to host a class or group. I have found that if there is a compelling reason for parents to visit later in the day AND they pay in advance (so they can plan), they will. This is especially true for parents of younger infants who nap multiple times a day and aren’t tied to one long afternoon nap.

Identifying your unique ideal customers as described above can help you shape your hours successfully and develop a plan that works best for you and your team.

To wrap it up...

You may have noticed that the theme across all of the considerations presented above, is the importance of consistency. Take the time to sit down and understand your demographic, their desires, and their predictable behavior (like naps or school hours), and make a decision for your hours that you feel confident you can stick to for a while.

It can also be great to ask for feedback, get people involved, and allow your customers to feel a part of a community, but remember that YOU are still the business owner. 

They're not going to be the ones paying the bills for your staff and making every open play or event run smoothly.

Develop hours that make sense for YOU and your business’ sustainability above all else, and present those hours as consistently as possible. Your right clientele will always adapt and embrace your schedule if it’s catered with their needs in mind, creating a happy (and beneficial!) environment for all involved.

Have any questions or want to learn more? Visit my YouTube Channel with over 200 videos or my podcast with over 130 episodes at the time I’m writing this!