Children have their favourites for just about everything. The same goes for your soft play centre. Any business can offer a fun visit or two, but only the best themes are going to do more, generating a strong sense of loyalty in your highly competitive market. For inspiration, here are five such soft play creations to make your centre’s offering stand out from the rest…

1. Outer space

From a spacecraft to the surface of the moon, a soft play area amongst the stars is a real delight. A walkway can become an interstellar wormhole. Alien designs can be anything you can conjure up in your imagination, whether that’s a tentacled monster or something more recognisable. Ball pits are a galaxy, with a predominance of black balls mixed with yellow for Andromeda, Orion’s Belt, and constellations. Lighting can enhance a space theme further, with the integration of LED devices for dimming effects.

2. Prehistoric

Or, instead, jump back to the past: what child doesn’t love a dinosaur? Large foam boulders are a fun addition to the ball pit. You can style a padded bridge like one that you would find across a jungle canyon, whilst cave drawings and creatures can peer out from the walls. If there’s a slide, fashion it in the middle of your soft play area and dress it as a volcano with a vivid lava spout.

3. Under the sea

Boys and girls will adore a deep-sea aesthetic full of blues, greens and starfish cushions. There might even be a sandpit to one side, next to the parent café. A pirate’s boat can sit alongside a mock aquarium, with hidden treasure chests to delight where kids will least expect them. Whatever you choose, be sure to use as much undersea fauna and flora as you can, such as nets of ‘seaweed’ over the tops and barriers of your play facilities.

4. Egyptian

We’re moving onto dry land again to the acres of desert under the North African sun.  Pyramid installations should give you a good starting point to create an Egyptian soft play space. Beyond that, we suggest a cobra-shaped slide, a room stocked with golden riches, and paths that can represent the looping arc of the River Nile. Bright lights will make the whole effect more believable. Children will be looking for secret passages in no time…

5. A foodie’s delight

It’s one of the more surreal themes on our list, but food can be an excellent (and inventive) palette to draw on. Think a massive, bouncing banana bridge from one area to the next. Or inflatable burger beanbags. Perhaps giant apples and oranges hanging by a wire, or a climbing frame in the guise of a sweet wrapper. The most profitable soft play centres are those that know what they do better than anyone else. But sourcing finance for your gear can seem like a losing game. Call Johnson Reed for advice on loans and leasing. We can approve a request in just a few hours, whether you’re a new startup, an existing one protecting your cash flow… or you have complex circumstances that make it difficult to secure finance through mainstream lenders. The theme of your business will soon be ‘success’, pure and simple.