Trampoline Parks Turn to IP: Three 2026 Openings Show How

On 16 October 2026, the first Southeast Asian edition of Squid Game: The Experience opened inside a shopping mall in Central Jakarta, filling more than 1,900 m² (20,451 sq ft) with rooms based on a Netflix series.

Six days earlier, a local newsroom in Rockford, Illinois reported that the interior conversion of a former air sports park into a Ninja Kidz Action Park was complete. The brand behind it grew out of a family YouTube channel, not out of an entertainment company.

On 23 October, an aerospace-themed playground covering roughly 20,000 m² (215,278 sq ft) began trial operations in a village in Pinghu, China. Its entire floor plan is organized around one original cartoon duck.

Three venues, three countries, three ownership models. The shared move is that a character or story layer now sits on top of the play equipment, and that layer is doing the differentiation work which equipment lists used to do.

This article treats the three openings as signals, not as a conclusion. It states what each one can and cannot show, runs the arithmetic the published figures support, and closes with what an investor planning a trampoline park build in 2027 should and should not copy from them.

A boundary before anything else: none of the three operators has published attendance, revenue or license-fee data. Nothing in this article invents those numbers.

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1. Three Signals, Three Countries, One Direction

The three cases below were verified against original reporting or operator statements, and each carries its own date. They are not reposts of a single event: the brands are unrelated, the markets do not overlap, and the outlets are independent of each other.

One company opening one venue is not a trend, and this article would not exist on a single case. What makes the pattern worth a buyer’s attention is that the three moves happen at three different market maturities: a saturated US secondary city, a first-of-its-kind Southeast Asian capital, and a Chinese county-level rural revitalization project. The direction is the same in all three, even though the income levels, the landlords and the equipment budgets differ.

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2. What an IP Layer Changes in the Box, and What It Does Not

Walk the attraction list of almost any park opened in the last three years and the same vocabulary appears: wall-to-wall trampolines, a dodgeball arena, foam pits or airbags, a ninja frame, soft play for toddlers, and a growing share of interactive systems. Interactive attractions have already moved from upgrade to baseline, so the electronic layer no longer sets one venue apart either. What still separates two parks with identical equipment is how the zones connect, which is a floor plan question before it is a story question. For the attraction layer itself, see our earlier piece on interactive attractions becoming the industry baseline.

An IP layer changes three things that the equipment list cannot.

First, sequence. At the Pinghu park, the mascot character leads visitors along a storyline that runs from Earth departure through rocket launch, space station stay and Mars landing to deep space. The 35 attractions are not a grid of independent stations; each one is bound to a science task, and visitors complete a stamped passport as they move. The same slide, the same climbing net and the same crawl tube exist in thousands of venues. Here they are chapters. That binding of separate zones into one journey is the same design problem described in our breakdown of placing a trampoline zone inside a multi-attraction box, only solved with narrative instead of adjacency.

Second, pre-built demand. A park that opens with no audience starts its marketing on day one. Ninja Kidz opens with a channel whose subscriber base is counted in the tens of millions, so the first weekend crowd arrives before the first advertisement does. The Edinburgh and Dundee openings distributed only 150 VIP meet-and-greet tickets per park, and local reporting describes queues that formed hours before the doors opened.

Third, inventory. Characters, themed food, merchandise and seasonal events are content that can be refreshed on a calendar, whereas a trampoline bed or a foam pit is a capital item that sits still for years. A venue with a story layer can run an event every school holiday without touching the structure.

What the IP layer does not change is equally important, and buyers get this wrong most often. Safety standards govern the equipment regardless of what wraps it: ASTM F2970 covers commercial trampoline courts in its jurisdictions and EN ISO 23659 covers trampoline parks in theirs, and neither cares whether the padding is printed with a cartoon duck. Structural constraints also remain. The multi-attraction box still needs its clear height, its floor loading check and its zone ratios before anyone writes a story on top. A theme cannot fix a building that does not fit the equipment.

One more boundary: the commercial terms of character licensing are private. Ninja Kidz has not disclosed what a park partner pays for the brand, and Netflix does not publish the fee structure behind its experience deals. Any advice that quotes a license cost as a percentage of revenue is guessing, and this article will not.

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3. From YouTube Channel to Trampoline Park Chain: the Ninja Kidz Numbers

Ninja Kidz TV began in 2017 as a family channel built on martial arts and stunt videos. Audience figures differ by source, and the gap is worth stating rather than smoothing: The Courier reported more than 24 million subscribers on the channel at the Dundee opening, while the Edinburgh Evening News cited 35 million across the family’s combined channels. Both figures predate October 2026, and neither is an operator claim that can be audited.

The physical roll-out is easier to pin down. Rock River Current reported on 24 August 2026 that the chain counted 31 locations open or in development across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, according to the company’s own website. Three of those projects show how the brand enters a market.

Edinburgh. The existing Ryze trampoline park was rebranded after a GBP 900,000 investment, reported by the Edinburgh Evening News, and opened as the first UK Ninja Kidz Action Park on 1 August 2026. The work added more than 18 new attractions, including a ninja frame, battle beam, air tracks, adventure slides and dedicated soft play.

Dundee. A second Ryze site took a GBP 950,000 transformation reported by Dundee Culture and reopened on 2 August 2026 with 18 play zones, which local reporting describes as eight more than the venue had before. The park also introduced a reduced-cost membership restricted to Monday through Thursday for local visitors, a pricing structure aimed at weekday frequency rather than weekend peaks. That structure follows the same frequency logic we analyzed in trampoline park membership pricing, where a monthly pass only pays for the operator once visit frequency crosses the ticket price gap.

Rockford, Illinois. The box here already existed as Flow Supreme Air Sports, an independent air sports park that opened in early 2020. Renovations into a Ninja Kidz Action Park were announced in early July 2026, with roughly 20 new obstacles including slides into foam pits, trampolines, zip lines and a bouncy basketball court. As of 10 October 2026 the interior changes were reported complete, with no public opening date yet.

Read the three entries together and the entry strategy becomes visible: the brand has so far preferred existing boxes over new builds. Two UK conversions stayed inside buildings that already operated as trampoline parks, and the US conversion reused a purpose-built air sports facility. That is a content-led refurbishment decision, closer in spirit to the refurbishment cycle now visible across three park operators than to a greenfield project. For an operator holding an aging park, it is also evidence that a complete re-theme plus an attraction refresh fits inside a seven-figure budget rather than a new-building one.

What the numbers do not show is performance. No Ninja Kidz park has published visits, revenue or renewal data. The 31-site pipeline proves that capital is betting on the brand; it does not prove that the brand fills the parks after month three. Hold that thought for the section on falsification.

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4. Squid Game Jakarta: Licensed Screen IP and the 13-Plus Daypart

The Jakarta edition opened on 16 October 2026 at Agora Mall in the Thamrin Nine complex, following runs in New York, Madrid, Seoul, London, Sydney and Tokyo. The experience spans more than 1,900 m² (20,451 sq ft) across six themed rooms, with interactive games, photo zones, themed food and beverage and exclusive merchandise. Kingsmen Xperience, the location-based entertainment subsidiary of Singapore-listed Kingsmen Creatives, designed and produced it; the local operator is SideQuest Worlds, and Black Spade Capital announced the investment.

The published operating model is unusually specific, which makes it useful:

• Sessions run approximately 75 minutes, daily from 10:00 to 22:00 WIB.
• Tickets cost Rp299,000 to Rp349,000 depending on day and entry time, with a VIP add-on at Rp149,000.
• Entry is designed for visitors aged 13 and above, with under-13s accompanied by an adult.
• Group packages for corporate and organizational clients are sold through a dedicated channel.

Two pieces of arithmetic follow, both derived rather than published. At the 24 October 2026 reference rate of USD/IDR 18,090 from Exchangerate-API, the standard ticket converts to roughly $16.5 to $19.3 and the VIP add-on to about $8.2. Per minute, the midpoint ticket works out to about $0.24 across a 75-minute session. A comparable figure from the other side of the industry: Altitude’s Arlington park lists $19.99 for a 90-minute jump pass on its published price page, which is $0.22 per minute. A licensed screen IP experience and a trampoline park, at least on sticker price, are selling time at nearly the same rate.

The second calculation is a ceiling, not a projection. Twelve operating hours equal 720 minutes; divided by a 75-minute session that gives 9.6 theoretical session starts per day for a visitor moving through the full path. Real changeover, cleaning and staffing reduce that number, and the operator has not published utilization. The figure is still useful as an upper bound when testing whether a given box size can support a given ticket price.

The age gate is the detail that matters for a buyer of active entertainment equipment. Traditional trampoline and soft play venues concentrate on ages 3 to 14, with parents paying to watch. A 13-plus product built on a screen franchise sells to teenagers and adults on their own tickets, in evening slots, and pitches corporate team packages as a first-class product line. It is the same weekday-and-adult expansion logic that appeared when a Sky Zone in the Bronx hosted a government press event on a weekday morning, and when an all-age conversion in China repriced children and adults separately. Content choice and age gate are one decision, not two.

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5. Pinghu: Self-Owned IP and the Knowledge Layer on a Rural Site

The third signal runs on the opposite licensing model. Tonghang Universe, the China Aerospace Science Park in Zhaojiaqiao Village, Pinghu, opened in trial on 23 October 2026 next to the village’s existing China Aerospace Science Popularization Museum. The experience area covers about 20,000 m² (215,278 sq ft) on a site of roughly 70 mu, and the provincial outlet Tide News and the Jiaxing Daily both reported the opening after a pre-opening site visit.

The floor plan splits into five themed zones, and the published attraction count is 35, which divides to seven attractions per zone on average. The zones run from a launch area with Long March rocket models and a C919 flight cockpit built at 1:0.6 scale, through a gold-panning galaxy zone and a water-themed space station area, to a Mars descent zone organized in seven modules and a ranch zone with feeding games. For comparison, our reference 22,000 sq ft park layout breakdown shows how an unthemed box of similar scale allocates area across equipment types; the Pinghu plan spends that same area on narrative chapters instead.

The IP here is an original character called Qu Taikong Ya, the Go Space Duck. Its origin is local and verifiable: the design is based on the cotton pygmy goose, a wild duck under second-class state protection that was first recorded in Pinghu in 2022, the first sighting of the species in Jiaxing. The duck acts as a guide character along the storyline of Earth departure, rocket launch, space station stay, Mars landing and deep space exploration.

The mechanism that turns the character into operations is the part buyers should study. Every experience item is bound to a knowledge point, visitors carry a task handbook and a stamp passport, and completing the science tasks unlocks rewards. The operators told media that a layered course system with aerospace experts is planned next, aimed at school-group study travel. In equipment terms, nothing in that loop is expensive: handbooks, stamps and a character costume cost a rounding error against a dodgeball arena. What the loop buys is a reason to come back and finish, and reasons to finish are what bring a family back a second and third time.

The ownership structure differs from anything in the first two signals. Reporting describes a joint venture of state-owned capital, a village collective company and private social capital, with the village collective holding long-term equity, priority hiring for villagers and linkage to local farm products and homestays. For a supplier evaluating such a project, the practical reading is that the content decision came before the equipment decision: the story, the character and the education mandate shaped the zone plan, and the equipment list followed.

A needed boundary: the verified reports describe early-bird tickets sold through local channels, but none of the sources checked here publishes a standard ticket price list. We do not quote one, and a per-visitor revenue model for this park cannot be built from public data yet.

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6. The Published Numbers and the Arithmetic They Support

Everything below comes from the sources listed at the end, with each derived figure labeled as such. The table collects the raw published inputs first.

From those inputs, and only from those inputs, the following figures can be computed. Each one is a planning reference, not an operator disclosure.

• Conversion cost per added zone, Dundee. GBP 950,000 across 8 added zones gives about GBP 118,750 per added zone, roughly $158,800 at the reference rate. The investment covers the full transformation, including theming, soft play and attraction supply, so this is an upper-bound cost per zone rather than an equipment-only price.
• Conversion cost per new attraction. GBP 950,000 across 18 zones gives about GBP 52,800 per zone, and the Edinburgh figure of GBP 900,000 across at least 18 new attractions sets a ceiling of GBP 50,000 per attraction. Treat both as broad brackets, since design and theming work sit inside the totals.
• Squid Game Jakarta ticket in dollars. Rp299,000 to Rp349,000 at USD/IDR 18,090 converts to about $16.5 to $19.3, and the midpoint works out to about $0.24 per minute over a 75-minute session.
• Session ceiling. 720 operating minutes divided by a 75-minute session gives 9.6 theoretical session starts per day, before changeover and staffing losses. It is a capacity ceiling, never an attendance estimate.
• Pinghu in imperial units. 20,000 m2 equals about 215,278 sq ft, and 35 attractions across 5 zones averages 7 per zone.

The reusable formula set is short: conversion cost per added zone equals the transformation investment divided by the added zone count; per-minute ticket value equals the ticket divided by the session minutes; and a session ceiling equals operating minutes per day divided by the session length. What cannot be computed from public data is the return side. License fees, royalty structures, utilization rates and attendance are unpublished for all three cases, so any payback period quoted anywhere for an IP-led venue is an assumption in disguise.

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7. What Would Prove This Wrong

A direction claim that cannot be falsified is marketing. Four observations would weaken the case that content and IP are becoming the organizing layer of active entertainment venues, and each is checkable over the next two years.

One: Ninja Kidz parks fail at an ordinary rate. The 31-site pipeline reflects capital commitments, not survival. If a material share of Ninja Kidz locations closes or drops the brand within 24 months of opening, at a rate clearly above comparable unbranded parks, the creator-IP model is a launch mechanism rather than an operating advantage. Watch the Rockford site in particular, since it inherits a box that already changed hands once, from an independent air sports operator to a creator brand.

Two: the Jakarta price holds only with discounting. Tickets at $16.5 to $19.3 for 75 minutes sit close to commodity entertainment pricing. If the experience relies on deep standing discounts to fill sessions, then licensed IP in this format commands no premium, and the per-minute parity with trampoline parks was a coincidence of positioning rather than evidence of pricing power. Utilization data would settle this; none is published, so ticket behavior is the proxy.

Three: unbranded chains keep out-growing branded ones. If operators with no character or story layer continue to win sites, funding and franchise signings at the same or faster pace, then IP-led venues are a niche inside the industry, not its direction. The comparison to watch is new-unit announcements from plain-equipment chains against renewals and expansions from branded ones.

Four: the content layer proves to be a one-time spike. Meet-and-greet queues and opening-week records say nothing about month twelve. If revisit-driving mechanics such as the Pinghu passport loop or the Dundee weekday membership do not appear in later operator disclosures, or if parks strip the content layer out during their first refurbishment, the thesis that content organizes the venue long-term collapses into the observation that content fills an opening weekend.

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8. What a 2027 Build Should and Should Not Copy

None of this argues that every venue needs a license. It argues that the content layer is now a budget line with observable reference points, and that it deserves the same seriousness as flooring or lighting. Four rules follow from the three signals.

First, budget the content layer before the equipment is quoted, not after. The observable reference is the Ninja Kidz spend: roughly $1.2 million to $1.27 million at the reference rate to transform each of two existing UK boxes, theming and attractions included. Your number will differ with scope and market, but a plan that contains a zero line for theming, characters and programming has already decided against differentiation by content.

Second, licensing is optional; a story is not. The Pinghu park built an original mascot, a five-chapter storyline and a stamped passport loop for what is, in equipment money, almost nothing. A single-venue operator who cannot access or afford a global franchise can still bind its zones into a narrative, attach tasks to attractions and refresh the story seasonally. The differentiation mechanism is the sequence and the completion loop, not the copyright.

Third, match the IP to the age gate and the daypart you actually want. A creator channel aimed at six-to-twelve-year-olds fills weekend mornings and birthday parties. A 13-plus screen franchise sells evenings and corporate groups. These are different staffing curves, different supervision needs and different food offers. Choose the audience first and the character second, then check that the box itself, its clear height and its zone ratios, supports that audience.

Fourth, reserve event inventory in the operating calendar. The 150-ticket VIP meet-and-greets in Scotland show character appearances functioning as scarce, high-margin inventory. A calendar with four such slots a year, tied to school holidays, gives the content layer a revenue moment instead of leaving it as pure decoration.

For buyers planning a trampoline park in 2027, the sequence that the three openings support is: fix the building and the safety case, assemble the equipment set, then design the story that binds it and the events that refresh it. If you want that sequence translated into a zone plan for your own floor area, our design and delivery process works in the same order and starts from your building rather than from a catalog.

Theme finishes, printed padding and custom graphics also carry material and fire-performance requirements that vary by market, which is why we confirm material specifications and certification scope per project before a theme package is agreed. Our notes on materials and quality control cover what to verify in the soft cladding and printed surfaces that a theme package adds.

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FAQ

Does adding a character or IP theme change the play equipment I need to buy?

No. Safety standards apply to the equipment regardless of theming, and a themed pad is still a pad with the same performance job. What changes is the surrounding layer: graphics, custom soft cladding, signage, lighting scenes and programming. Those items should be specified for the fire and material requirements of your market at the same time as the equipment, not retrofitted after installation.

How much does it cost to re-theme an existing trampoline park?

The only recent public references are the two Ninja Kidz conversions in Scotland: GBP 900,000 in Edinburgh and GBP 950,000 in Dundee for complete transformations that each added more than 18 attractions inside existing buildings. Those totals include theming, design and attraction supply, so they are not equipment-only prices. Your cost depends on the shell condition, the number of zones added and local labor rates, which is why a per-zone or per-attraction bracket is more useful than a single number.

Can a single independent park use IP without a global license?

Yes. The Pinghu aerospace park runs entirely on an original mascot and storyline, with task handbooks and a stamp passport binding the attractions together. An original character costs design time rather than royalty fees, and seasonal story refreshes cost calendar discipline rather than capital. Licensing a known franchise is a marketing shortcut with private pricing, not a technical requirement.

What audience does IP-led content actually serve?

It depends on the property. The Ninja Kidz parks target families with primary-school children, the Jakarta Squid Game experience gates entry at 13 and above and pitches corporate groups, and the Pinghu park centers on ages 3 to 12 with school study groups planned. The content choice and the age gate are the same decision, and that decision drives the staffing curve, the food offer and the weekday-versus-weekend revenue mix.

Can I re-theme my park without a full rebuild?

The Ninja Kidz cases say yes, within limits. Both UK conversions reused buildings that already operated as trampoline parks, adding zones and theming inside the existing shell. Before committing, verify the same constraints any expansion faces: clear height at the lowest beam, floor loading, egress routes and the supervision sightlines that a new themed partition can quietly block. A zone-level layout review comes first; the theme follows the building.

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Sources

1. Rock River Current, “Flow in Rockford undergoing renovations to reopen as new Ninja Kidz Action Park”, 24 August 2026 — https://www.rockrivercurrent.com?p=273517/
2. Rock River Current, “Takeoff Adventure Park opens in former Burlington space on East State in Rockford”, 10 October 2026 (Ninja Kidz interior completion reported) — https://www.rockrivercurrent.com/2026/10/takeoff-adventure-park-opens-in-former-burlington-space-on-east-state-in-rockford/
3. Edinburgh Evening News, “Viral trampoline park set to open first UK site in Edinburgh with VIP meet and greet”, July 2026 — https://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/ninja-kidz-trampoline-park-edinburgh-8770414
4. The Courier, “Hundreds of fans turn out for opening of new Ninja Kidz Action Park in Dundee”, 2 August 2026 — https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/5549478/ninja-kidz-action-park-opens-dundee/
5. Kingsmen Xperience, “Listed Kingsmen Brings Southeast Asia’s first Squid Game: The Experience closer to Regional Fans”, 27 August 2026 — https://kx.kingsmen-int.com/?p=247894
6. CNN Indonesia, “Squid Game: The Experience Hadir di Jakarta Mulai Oktober 2026”, 28 August 2026 — https://cnnindonesia.com/hiburan/20260828174707-248-1397557/squid-game-the-experience-hadir-di-jakarta-mulai-oktober-2026
7. Tide News (Zhejiang), “Chao Yong Du Shan: The universe keeps growing in this Pinghu village”, October 2026 — https://tidenews.com.cn/news.html?id=3592607
8. Jiaxing Daily via Sina Finance, “An aerospace theme park rises in a Pinghu village”, 24 October 2026 — https://finance.sina.com.cn/jjxw/2026-10-24/doc-iniwhnxu8181762.shtml