Feature: Trampoline Parks
when accidents occur. It’s not on a huge scale but it gets a lot of media coverage when it happens. “Everything has to do with either the installation of the park or operations; if you run your park in a proper manner and your park has installed to the British Standard (PAS 5000, introduced in March 2017), you might have one injury in 6000 visitors – and it’s likely to be something trivial like a sprained ankle. Having an ambulance twice a week is not normal. That’s why the British Standard that has been introduced to the UK is really important, we can all work to it and it makes everything safer. When you have a new product or concept, there are no regulations – regulations always follow; the UK has been very successful in getting regulations up and running very quickly. “When we finish installing a
trampoline park, we hire an independent company that does approvals and they make sure what we have done it right and proper. This can actually help our clients get lower insurance costs, because they know what has been done is reliable and good quality; of course, the operations side also needs to be organised, but we make sure the operator has everything they need from us to be successful.”
There is no escaping that need for safety though. The dangers of
trampoline parks have been well documented in British newspapers, both red-tops and broadsheets. But is this because the trampoline park is a new concept or are they inherently dangerous? Eli Play’s René says that injuries are
part of the package – but not serious ones, or in large numbers. He says: “You cannot avoid injuries, but you can minimise risk and that is our aim. We have a simple philosophy – we do not compromise on safety. Safety cannot be given by the structure itself, it has to come from good supervision and staff. Incidents happen as a combination of critical events in the
setup – for example people might collide while jumping – and bad supervision. “We are doing everything to avoid a combination of events where people can collide, and we give very clear instructions to our customers as to where they should have supervision and under what restrictions an element can be used.” But it’s clear that the bulk of responsibility is with the operator, so what can they do to help themselves? Jump XL’s Ruud says the key is in both staff numbers and training. He elaborates: “We refresh our jump masters’ training every three months; we show them what can happen on a trampoline, so they learn how to observe and help our customers. For every 30 jumpers in our park, we have one jump master. So if we have 125 jumpers in the park, we have five jump masters to see what’s happening all around. Some parks in the UK I’ve seen with one jump master for 80 people or more. That’s just not right. You must have enough personnel to work the trampoline court.” “If you do the training once a year, they can lose their sharpness; we have found that every three months works really well. “We are also working in the European Commission for safety in our industry, and working with governing bodies in Europe to make trampoline parks safer. When we open a park we get independent assessor to confirm the park is as safe as it can be, checked completely by a company focussed on safety.”
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www.globalamusementsandplay.com June/July 2017
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