Southern California- based brand adding locations across U.S.
AT: Dean Lamanna
CORONA, Calif. — True to its name, Big Air Trampoline Park is growing by leaps and bounces.
The entertainment center franchising company, headquartered in Ladera Ranch, California, has been expanding its springy footprint well beyond its original Southern California romping grounds. Currently operating in eight locations in five states — including attractions-rich Branson, Missouri, and Buena Park, California — the brand will add a facility in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in early 2020 (becoming the third Big Air in the state). As of October, nearly 20 additional franchise deals had been signed or were in early development.
“It’s a very fast expansion — but it’s controlled, because we are growing support structures in conjunction with the growth of our system,” said Kevin Odekirk, president of Big Air, during a roundtable interview with Amusement Today at the brand’s Corona location, which debuted in June. Joining the discussion from Big Air were Erin Davis, director of operations for the franchising team; Blake Spencer, franchisee support consultant; and Vicki Cassidy, owner-operator of the Corona franchise.
Focused primarily on trampoline-based activities, Big Air facilities range in size from 30,000-40,000-plus square feet and feature a main trampoline court, a ninja warrior course, a foam pit, basketball dunk courts and dodgeball. In addition, Big Air offers climbing wall challenges, mechanical bull riding and head-to-head padded jousting on a padded beam, plus, at some units, ziplines, laser mazes, virtual reality games and other higher-tech amusements.
The brand prides itself on its award-winning birthday program, regular events (e.g., Toddler Time on select weekday mornings, Cosmic Nights for teens with blacklights, lasers and music on weekends) and Big Eats, its convenient, quality-conscious in-house food service. And particularly its name.
“‘Big Air’ hints at the core of who we really are, which is active family entertainment,” Odekirk said. “And as the industry evolves, it can mean so much more than just trampolines — especially in our day and age, with the obesity epidemic where it is and digital entertainment taking over.
“There’s a five-word lesson that I teach all my franchisees the very first time we talk: ‘Your park is never finished.’ You’re always looking at what’s new, what’s next.”
Several years ago, as a working mom with two young daughters, Vicki Cassidy was ready for something new careerwise. A regular customer of Big Air’s Laguna Hills facility, she was so impressed by its cleanliness, safety and participatory recreation options that she and her husband decided to open their own franchise about 32 miles north in Corona.
“My kids, who are now teenagers active in sports, were just getting into cellphones back then,” Cassidy said. “At Big Air, children are not on their phones — they’re jumping around instead of sitting around. And their parents usually follow them around and jump with them, coming out just as sweaty.”
That post-fun physical condition recalled something else that impressed Cassidy about the Laguna Hills location: “When you walked into the park, it didn’t smell like feet,” she said with a laugh.
A jump on competitors
The absence of bad air at Big Air is another point of pride for the company.
“We hold ourselves to a different standard than certainly what was had in the trampoline park industry when we arrived,” Odekirk said. “The industry of old was an empty-warehouse one. They had an industrial space, threw in some trampoline equipment and didn’t really care too much about branding or, in some cases, heating, ventilation and air conditioning [HVAC]. We have engineered HVAC, and on top of that we have scent diffusers to counteract smells.”
Location also is key to Big Air’s appeal.
“Birthday Mom does not want to plan her child’s party across the railroad tracks, proverbially speaking,” Odekirk said. “She wants to have it in a highly retail-centric, family-friendly environment. Our [2013-opened flagship] Big Air park in Laguna Hills was far more retail-centered than a lot of our competitors.”
Similarly, the Corona location occupies 34,100 square feet within a former Kmart department store shell in a welcoming suburban strip mall. With commercial space vacancies on the rise, Odekirk noted that opportunities for well-sited Big Air units “keep presenting themselves as Amazon continues its forward march through all of the other retailers.”
Big Air itself arose from a twist of business fate that struck Wild Rivers in Irvine, California, in 2011. One of the country’s most profitable water parks, the operation was forced to close when landlord The Irvine Co. opted not to renew the lease in favor of residential development. The park’s vice president, industry veteran Greg Briggs, a 1998 World Waterpark Assn. Hall of Fame inductee, then led other members of the Wild Rivers management team in an initial plan to build and acquire water parks around the western U.S.
After purchasing its first water park in Redlands, California, the team explored options to generate revenue at the property year-round. Some indoor space was repurposed into SkyTown, a trampoline park, and its success refocused the team on the trampoline park industry. With Briggs as CEO and founder of the new company, the first Big Air facility was opened in Laguna Hills. (Briggs also became a founding member of the International Association of Trampoline Parks.)
Hired by Big Air as it prepared to open its second location in Buena Park in 2015, Odekirk, having demonstrated executive / Fortune 500-level success driving bottom-line growth through marketing, education and sales management for brands including Jaguar Land Rover, Max Muscle Sports Nutrition and EMI / Capital Records, had to determine the concept’s franchise-worthiness.
“I came in and did my due diligence,” he said. “And I found a business that had the three things that, to me, were needed for franchising — it had to be simple, repeatable and effective, with the bottom line numbers to make it work. I’m really pleased that we’ve been able to leverage all three of those things very effectively.”
Big Air also “leverages almost three decades of park operational experience,” said Odekirk, who holds a marketing degree from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and an MBA from Texas A&M University, and who honed his presentation skills performing on Broadway (Les Misérables) and touring with singer-actor Julie Andrews. The company’s customer service (including accommodating guests with special needs), group sales, membership program, safety protocol and community outreach are modeled on the operation built at Wild Rivers and have been applied effectively to the trampoline space.
Value all around
Big Air’s average per-unit revenue of $2.6 million annually derives from four sources: general admission (66%), birthdays and events (19%), food and beverage (11%) and retail (3%). General admission guests book jump sessions by the hour, with subsequent sessions booked after the first hour offered at 50% off to incentivize extending length of stay.
“While the bulk of our business is general admission, parties drive it,” said Erin Davis, a member of the original management crew from Wild Rivers, where she got her first job as a lifeguard in 1995 and eventually headed the medical team. “When somebody has a party, they’re exposing 10, 15, 20 of their friends to this experience and drive the business forward.”
Davis, who managed Big Air’s Buena Park location for several years before joining the company’s franchising team, provides support to franchisees with special focus on park design, operations, maintenance and safety. She is assisted generally and on quarterly franchisee onsite visits by Blake Spencer, who previously worked as an assistant manager at the Buena Park facility.
“Safety is our number-one priority and is at the forefront of everything we teach our franchisees and their staffs,” Spencer said. “That includes court capacity, how many people per trampoline, and how many people should be playing on dodgeball and other attractions at once.”
“The industry today is better than it has ever been in terms of safety and standards,” Odekirk noted. “I’m proud to say that all Big Air parks are 100 percent ASTM compliant and that all of my frontline employees are CPR certified. It’s a core value of who we are.”
According to Odekirk, a significant portion of the trampoline park industry still does not offer in-house food service — something he finds flabbergasting in a business that promotes party hosting.
“Try outsourcing that many pizzas to that many parties and having them delivered at the right time and temperature, with the right ingredients — that’s going to be the first reason why you want to provide food service,” he said. “With our Big Eats in-house model, we can provide all of that at a high quality at the right time. It’s about meeting the customer’s needs holistically, with a one-stop shop, and it’s a very serious business within a business.”
In addition to the usual park goodies, such as corndogs, churros and Dippin’ Dots, Big Eats offers healthier and regional food alternatives and uses air frying instead of deep frying.
At the very top of the menu, said Odekirk, is enhanced memory-making.
“Parents throwing a birthday party at Big Air don’t have to plan, cook, set up or clean up, which allows them to focus on what really matters — spending time with their kids, enjoying the party and being in the pictures instead of on the outside preparing everything.”
Big Eats was another feature that helped sell Vicki Cassidy and her husband on the Big Air franchise — their purchase of which she described as a “seamless experience. There are many pitfalls with starting up your own business, especially in California, and Big Air helps you all the way through. I could contact anybody at any time if I had a question or issue. Without that guidance, I wouldn’t have had the confidence.”
Odekirk attributed the success of Big Air’s operational philosophy to three founding principles: perfecting the guest experience, driving profitability and increasing individual worth. While acknowledging that the attractions mix and careful decision-making can fulfill the first two, he emphasized that the latter requires fostering interactions of lasting positivity between personnel and patrons.
“Everyone who comes in contact with the Big Air brand should be better for having done so,” Odekirk said. “They include guests who’ve created memories here that they can take away with their families and the kid who now has a feeling of accomplishment after doing something new on one of our attractions.
“It also means my employees are better for having connected with the Big Air family — every one of them should become stronger professionally and personally. That’s the way companies become great.”
This article appears in the NOVEMBER I 2019 issue of Amusement Today.
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