Monkey Town UK: Inside a 16,000 Sq Ft Indoor Play Centre

On 18 October 2026, the Dutch leisure group 24 Indoor opened its first purpose-built Monkey Town venue in the UK: a 16,000 sq ft (about 1,486 m²) indoor play centre on Cherryfield Drive in Kirkby, Merseyside.

The Kirkby opening was the first of three. Trade press reported that the brand would follow with a converted site on the Liverpool waterfront and a repurposed former gym in Romford, all inside one week and all timed for the October half-term school holiday.

The scale behind the brand gives the story weight. 24 Indoor runs more than 80 sites across the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and the UK, and Monkey Town describes itself as the largest indoor play centre chain in the Netherlands, trading since 2001 with more than 40 European sites.

For anyone planning a venue, the interesting part is not the ribbon-cutting. It is what the format shows about age-banded zoning, the pay-once stay-all-day pricing model, and the three different routes the group used to secure buildings.

One caveat before the detail. Monkey Town has published an attraction list, not a floor plan. Everything below separates what the company has confirmed from what we can reasonably infer, and flags the gaps plainly.

1. What Actually Happened, Venue by Venue

Three venues opened under the Monkey Town name in October 2026, and no two of them took the same route to market. The table collects the confirmed facts from the launch announcements and follow-up reporting.

Venue Opening Building route Confirmed details
Kirkby, Merseyside 18 October 2026 Purpose-built, 16,000 sq ft (≈1,486 m²) on Cherryfield Drive Full format: under-3s zone, jungle adventure structure, interactive sports pitch, pixel floor, laser arena, family dining; more than 15 local jobs
Liverpool, waterfront 21 or 26 October 2026 (sources differ) Conversion of the former Yellow Sub at Brunswick Business Park Submarine feature retained, plus new play equipment, trampolines and an inclusive sensory room
Romford, east London 25 October 2026 Repurpose of the former Better Gym on Market Place Main adventure structure of almost 480 m² (≈5,170 sq ft), rising more than 5 m (≈16 ft)

The Liverpool date is the one loose thread. PlayNation’s 30 September report scheduled the reopening for 21 October, while the Liverpool Echo’s 15 October report said 26 October. Neither source explains the shift, so treat both as planned dates rather than confirmed openings.

The Kirkby schedule also slipped once. The brand gave September as the opening month back in May 2026, and the doors opened a month later. Anyone who has managed a fit-out will recognise the pattern; a venue of this size rarely hits its first announced date.

What the CEO said: “Kirkby, Liverpool and Romford are very different projects, but together they demonstrate the flexibility of the Monkey Town model and our ability to develop new venues, transform established family attractions and repurpose existing leisure space.” Peter van Wijk, CEO of 24 Indoor, in the launch announcement reported by PlayNation on 30 September 2026.

That quote is more than a launch line. It describes a deliberate portfolio strategy, and the rest of this article unpacks what each part of it means for an independent investor.

2. The Kirkby Format, Zone by Zone

The announcements describe the Kirkby venue as a full-format flagship. Reading the attraction list carefully, it organises into four layers, and each layer answers a different operational question.

2.1 The under-3s zone

What it is A dedicated area for children under three, with interactive ball pools, building blocks, slides and sensory play features. The announcement says the zone is designed to encourage creativity and early development.

What it decides A separate under-3s area keeps toddlers away from the running traffic of older children, which is a main reason parents with two children under five choose one venue over another. It also determines staffing: a supervised toddler zone needs attendants on the floor, not just at the desk.

What to verify The announcement confirms the zone exists but not its floor area. When you compare venues, ask what share of the total footprint the under-3s area takes, because that number drives both the safety layout and the toddler party business.

2.2 The jungle adventure zone

What it is The core structure for older children: crawl tubes, climbing structures, interactive challenges, the brand’s signature Volcano slide and an attraction called the Walk of Faith.

What it decides This is the photo-and-memory anchor of the venue. Multi-level structures of this type also consume the most vertical space, which is why the building’s clear height matters before a single attraction is chosen.

What to verify Structure height for Kirkby has not been published. Romford’s main structure is confirmed at more than 5 m (≈16 ft), which tells you the format expects tall structures wherever the building allows it.

2.3 The interactive layer

What it is Three technology-led attractions: an interactive sports pitch, an immersive pixel gaming floor with multiple game modes, and a multi-level laser arena set within UV-themed environments.

What it decides The interactive layer is what brings the same eight-year-old back for a fourth visit, after the climbing frame has lost its novelty. It is also the layer with software updates, spare parts and downtime in its cost profile.

What to verify The announcement confirms game modes, not suppliers. When you compare quotes for interactive systems, ask which components are proprietary and what a replacement tile, projector or vest costs five years in.

2.4 The support layer

What it is Family dining and a full birthday party programme, ranging from budget-friendly group parties to exclusive private hire options.

What it decides Under the all-day admission model described below, dining and parties carry the revenue per visit that a fixed session fee would otherwise provide. The seating count and party room inventory are load-bearing design decisions, not extras.

Now the boundary. Monkey Town has not published the Kirkby floor plan, the zone areas, the ceiling clearance, the equipment supplier or a capacity figure. We are not going to pretend otherwise. A headline area with no zone split is a marketing number until the operator releases the plan, and two venues with the same headline area can perform very differently depending on how the split falls.

3. Why Age Banding Comes Before Equipment

Trampoline-led parks and soft-play-led venues answer the same question with different hardware. The question is: who is on the floor at each hour, and can a family with children two years apart stay together? A court-led park weights its floor to trampoline courts and adds a small toddler corner; the Monkey Town format bands the whole venue by age and adds trampolines as one attraction among many, as the Liverpool conversion’s equipment list shows.

We compared the court-led approach in detail in our breakdown of how a 22,000 sq ft trampoline park splits its floor across eight equipment types. The contrast is instructive: the soft-play-led format spends its area on structures and role-play density, which suits a younger core audience and a stay-longer visit pattern.

There is a commercial logic under the layout choice. Free admission for accompanying adults, which all three venues offer, increases the party size per paying child. Larger parties stay longer and eat on site, which pushes revenue from the ticket counter to the kitchen and the party rooms. That chain, from admission policy to kitchen revenue, is the real design brief, and it is why the zone split has to be settled before the equipment list is written.

If your catchment skews to families with children under eight, look at how modern soft play structures and multi-level adventure systems are zoned by age band before you commit to a court-heavy plan. The structure decision and the audience decision are the same decision.

4. What Pay-Once, Stay-All-Day Does to a Floor Plan

The Kirkby venue introduced a pay-once, stay-all-day model: no fixed time slots, unlimited playtime, and free admission for accompanying adults, at what the brand describes as competitively priced entry. Trade reporting confirms the same model across the three UK venues.

For the operator, the model trades revenue per hour for visit length and volume. The inference chain runs like this, and it is our reading of the model’s mechanics, not a figure the company has released:

Daily revenue ≈ paid admissions × entry price + covers × average F&B spend per head
Peak occupancy ≈ playable area ÷ area per child at the busiest hour
Admissions capacity ≈ operating hours ÷ average dwell time × peak occupancy

Monkey Town has published none of these variables for Kirkby, so the formulas are a checklist for your own numbers, not a claim about theirs. What the model does change, structurally, is where the pressure lands:

  • Dining becomes load-bearing. A two-hour session park sells one snack window per visit. An all-day venue sells lunch, and the seating count has to match the peak, not the average.
  • Peak spreads differently. Without session turnover, the midday block accumulates every morning arrival. Capacity management shifts from selling turns to managing occupancy in real time.
  • Re-entry is part of the design. Families leave for naps, cars and school pickups, and an all-day ticket implies they can come back. The lobby and verification flow have to handle that without friction.

Get the dwell math wrong and an all-day ticket quietly discounts the families who occupy the most space for the longest time. The fixed side of that trade, the build cost, sits in the four-part budget structure we set out in our indoor play investment guide, and the admission model you choose should be settled while the floor plan is still on paper, because it changes how much seating, kitchen and party space the plan needs.

5. Three Routes to a Building: Build, Convert, Repurpose

The UK launch is also a case study in acquisition paths. The group did not arrive as a pure new-build developer; it bought its way in and built selectively.

  • Acquire and convert. The first UK move, in July 2025, was the purchase of Rascals Party & Play Centre in Preston, a family business that had traded for more than 17 years. In April 2026 it followed with Yellow Sub on the Liverpool waterfront, letting it trade through the season, then closing it over the summer for a full refurbishment.
  • Build purpose-made. Kirkby is the group’s first newly developed UK venue, at 16,000 sq ft on a town-centre site, and it carries the full format described above.
  • Repurpose leisure space. Romford takes over a former gym on Market Place, and the building’s clear height is doing visible work: the main structure rises more than 5 m, which a shopping-centre unit often cannot offer.

Each route carries a different risk profile. A new build locks the ceiling height, egress strategy and structural loads into the design from day one, which is slower and capital-heavy but leaves nothing to inherit. A conversion inherits an existing customer base and its reviews, alongside the previous operator’s layout compromises. A repurposed gym trades a challenging planning conversation for a building whose structure, flooring and parking already exist.

The pipeline suggests this is a ramp, not a test. Reporting citing Propel puts the group’s target at 13 to 17 openings across its portfolio, of which two to four would be in the UK, and the brand said in April 2026 that further English sites were already progressing, London included. If you are weighing a resale against a standing start, watch how the October venues trade through the half-term before you commit either way.

Whichever route you take, the sequence from 3D design to installation matters more than the route itself, and our getting-started guide walks through how that delivery process runs for a first-time investor.

6. What the Attraction List Implies for Equipment Specification

An attraction list is a specification signal, even when the supplier is unnamed. Three implications are worth spelling out.

Height drives everything above the ground floor. Romford’s structure tops 5 m, and a multi-level laser arena is a vertically stacked system by definition. Structure height determines slide run length, supervisor sightlines across levels, and the fire and egress strategy that the local authority will review. In the UK and across the EU, playground equipment and its surfacing fall under the BS EN 1176 series, with impact-attenuating surfacing covered by BS EN 1177; both set test methods and scope rather than a single number, and the version in force matters when you check a supplier’s certificates. For trampoline courts, EN ISO 23659 covers trampoline park equipment in the European system, while ASTM F2970 governs the equivalent US scope; the two are not interchangeable, so match the standard to the market you are building in. Our overview of global safety certifications for indoor trampoline parks explains how the frameworks differ and what to ask a supplier for.

Interactive systems have a second cost curve. A pixel gaming floor and a laser arena are electronics first and play equipment second. Beyond the purchase price, they carry software updates, content refreshes, consumables and spare parts across a five-year cycle. The announcement confirms that Kirkby’s pixel floor has multiple game modes, which is a content commitment as much as a hardware one; a single-mode floor ages faster than the structure around it. When you compare quotes, ask what the year-three content library looks like and what a replacement module costs, not just what the opening-day system costs.

Materials decide how the format ages. Multi-level soft play structures take constant contact wear: crawl tubes, padding, netting and slide beds all age on a schedule you can predict from visitor counts. The difference between EPP and EVA foams, PVC thickness and flame-retardant grades shows up in year two, not on opening day, and our guide to soft play materials walks through how each option behaves over a five-year cycle.

For the trampoline element in a soft-play-led venue, the Liverpool conversion is the reference point: trampolines appear as one attraction inside a broader mix, not as the floor’s organising principle. That is a common pattern for venues courting a slightly older sibling audience, and it works when the trampoline zone is sized for the traffic the rest of the floor generates. If you are comparing court systems for a mixed format, start with our commercial trampoline range and size it against the projected zone traffic.

7. What to Verify Before You Borrow This Model

Reading a launch announcement and copying a format are different activities. Three checks separate the useful signal from the marketing surface.

1. The catchment claim. The company describes Kirkby as a community destination with strong local demand. That is a reasonable positioning, but it is also exactly what every operator says. Check the drive-time population, the competing indoor offer within it, and the school-holiday calendar yourself; the local councillor’s comments about regeneration are encouraging context, not demand data.

2. The admission arithmetic. An all-day model with free adult admission is a volume bet. Run the formulas in section 4 with your own catchment numbers, and test the weekday case specifically: an all-day ticket without weekday volume is just discounted capacity. The party programme and dining offer have to carry enough of the week to justify the floor area they occupy.

3. The published record. The group-level claims, more than 80 sites and a chain trading since 2001, are verifiable in principle, but the venue-level data you would actually design against, capacity, zone split, pricing, is not public. When a supplier shows you reference projects, ask for named parks you can call, and treat an attraction list without a floor plan the way you would treat a car sold without an engine specification.

None of these checks argues against the format. They argue for doing what 24 Indoor did, quietly and deliberately, before the opening: securing the building economics first and letting the attraction list follow.

8. Summary

Three facts sit at the centre of this story. First, a major European operator chose soft-play-led, age-banded formats as its UK entry vehicle, with trampolines as one attraction among many. Second, it chose pay-once stay-all-day pricing with free adult admission, which pushes revenue toward dining and parties and reshapes the floor plan around dwell time. Third, it reached the market through three different building routes in one week, which tells you the format is designed to fit buildings rather than waiting for perfect ones.

For an independent investor, the transferable part is the sequence: audience and admission model first, zone split second, equipment list third. The attraction list is the visible tip, and the announcements give you that part. The floor plan, the capacity math and the supplier specifications are the part you have to build yourself, and the earlier you start, the fewer expensive revisions the plan needs.

9. Three Things You Can Do Today

1. Map your age bands before your equipment list. Sketch who occupies each zone at each hour, from under-threes to ten-year-olds, and check that siblings can stay within sight of each other. If you want a second opinion on how a split like this works at your floor size, send us your dimensions through our contact page.

2. Price the all-day model against your own catchment. Fill in the three formulas in section 4 with local numbers and test the weekday scenario. If the volume case fails, a fixed-session model with party slots may fit your market better, and it is far cheaper to discover that now than after the kitchen is built.

3. Shortlist your building route. Score the build, convert and repurpose options in your area against capital, timeline and clear height. A former gym with 5 m of headroom and a standing structure is a different project from an empty shell, and your equipment list should be written after that scorecard, not before.

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FAQ

How big is the new Monkey Town in Kirkby?

The Kirkby venue is 16,000 sq ft, about 1,486 m², on Cherryfield Drive in the town centre. It opened on 18 October 2026 and is 24 Indoor’s first purpose-built UK venue. The company has not published the internal zone split or a capacity figure.

What does pay-once, stay-all-day mean for an indoor play operator?

Visitors pay a single entry fee with no fixed time slot, and accompanying adults enter free. For the operator, the model trades ticket revenue per hour for longer dwell times, which shifts revenue weight toward food and beverage and birthday parties. It also concentrates occupancy in the midday block, so seating, dining capacity and re-entry flow must be designed for the peak rather than the average.

Who owns Monkey Town?

Monkey Town is operated by 24 Indoor, a Dutch leisure group that runs more than 80 sites across the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and the UK. The Monkey Town brand describes itself as the largest indoor play centre chain in the Netherlands, trading since 2001 with more than 40 sites across Europe.

Is Monkey Town a franchise?

Not in the UK at present. The brand publishes no franchise offer on its UK website, and its first UK venues are operated directly by the parent group, with the Preston and Liverpool sites acquired from existing owners. Its UK growth is company-run rather than franchised, based on reporting as of October 2026.

How much does it cost to open a 16,000 sq ft indoor play centre?

Neither 24 Indoor nor Monkey Town has published the Kirkby investment figure, so any number circulating online is speculation. The cost splits into four parts: equipment, fit-out and building works, soft costs such as design and permits, and working capital for the opening period. Our investment guide sets out the structure and the variables, and a supplier quotation against your actual floor plan is the only number worth planning around.

Sources

  1. PlayNation (UK), “24 Indoor to launch Monkey Town in UK with three October openings”, 30 September 2026 — https://playnation.uk/blog/2026/09/30/24-indoor-to-launch-monkey-town-in-uk-with-three-october-openings/
  2. Liverpool Echo, “Huge play centre confirmed for Liverpool’s waterfront”, 15 October 2026 — https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/huge-play-centre-confirmed-liverpools-34766600
  3. Liverpool Echo, “Worldwide play centre opening its first site in Kirkby next month”, accessed 21 October 2026 — https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/worldwide-play-centre-opening-first-34602033.amp
  4. Liverpool Echo, “Liverpool waterfront play centre closes as ‘new chapter’ confirmed”, accessed 21 October 2026 — https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/liverpool-waterfront-play-centre-closes-34733865
  5. L’Express Franchise, “Monkey Town lines up three branded UK openings in October”, accessed 21 October 2026 — https://lexpress-franchise.com/en/news/monkey-town-three-uk-openings
  6. BritBrief, “Liverpool waterfront play centre closes as new chapter confirmed”, accessed 21 October 2026 — https://britbrief.co.uk/education/schools/liverpool-play-centre-closes-as-new-chapter-confirmed.html

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