As commercial real estate transitions into the post-4.0 era, a new "indoor" world filled with fantasy and excitement is emerging. Indoor playgrounds that integrate amusement, leisure, sports, technology, and multifunctional experiences are becoming essential for parent-child families.
These playgrounds have gradually become a normalized format for shopping malls to stabilize parent-child customer flow, providing not just fun but also fulfilling consumers' spiritual needs through immersive experiences.
Table of Contents
- Insight 1 Evolving Consumer Expectations
- Insight 2 The Boom of Kids Indoor Playgrounds
- Insight 3 Addressing Modern Consumer Challenges
- Insight 4 The Pursuit of Happiness
- Insight 5 Modern Parenting Trends
- Insight 6 Escaping The Daily Grind
- Insight 7 Demand of Unique Play Experiences
- Insight 8 The Integration Economy
- NinescapeLand – Your Partner in Indoor Playground Innovation
Insight 1 Evolving Consumer Expectations
Today’s consumers seek novelty and relaxation in their shopping experiences. They desire indoor playground equipment that offers immersive interaction and entertainment. The consumption mode of “experience + entertainment + novelty” is gaining traction in the market, reflecting a shift in shopping purposes:
1.0 Early Markets
Early markets represent the foundational stages of commerce where basic trading occurred, often in informal settings. These markets laid the groundwork for more structured retail environments, including indoor playgrounds that cater to families seeking entertainment and leisure. The evolution of these markets has led to the integration of indoor playground equipment, providing engaging experiences for children and parents alike.
2.0 Walking Street Market
Walking street markets are vibrant pedestrian-friendly areas where vendors sell a variety of goods directly to consumers. These markets often feature food stalls, crafts, and local products, creating an inviting atmosphere for social interaction.
In the context of indoor playgrounds, walking street markets can enhance family outings by offering nearby attractions that complement the playful environment, making them ideal for parents looking to combine shopping with leisure activities.
3.0 Department Store
Department stores are large retail establishments that offer a wide range of products across various categories, such as clothing, home goods, and toys.
Many modern department stores have begun to incorporate kids indoor playgrounds within their premises to create a family-friendly shopping experience. By integrating indoor playground equipment, these stores provide parents with a space for their children to play while they shop, enhancing customer satisfaction and encouraging longer visits.
4.0 Shopping Centre With Jungle Gym
Shopping centers are comprehensive retail environments that house multiple stores and services in one location. They often include a mix of department stores, specialty shops, restaurants, and entertainment options. The inclusion of indoor playgrounds within shopping centers has become increasingly popular, as they attract families looking for a fun outing. These playgrounds not only provide entertainment but also serve as a draw for foot traffic, benefiting all businesses within the center.
5.0 One-stop Complex Kids Indoor Playground
One-stop complexes are evolving into diverse leisure and entertainment hubs that cater to various consumer needs. These spaces integrate shopping, dining, and recreational activities under one roof. By incorporating indoor playgrounds and trampoline areas, such as trampoline basketball hoops and mini trampolines for kids, these complexes create engaging environments where families can enjoy quality time together while fulfilling their shopping needs.
6.0 Situational Experience Business With Indoor Play Gym
Situational experience businesses focus on creating unique environments that enhance consumer interactions through themed experiences. Indoor parks exemplify this trend by offering immersive play areas designed around specific themes or narratives. By prioritizing consumer experience, these businesses can attract families seeking both entertainment and educational opportunities within their indoor playgrounds.
Insight 2 The Boom of Kids Indoor Playgrounds
The market for kids indoor playgrounds is rapidly expanding. Recent statistics indicate that the market size for indoor soft playgrounds has surpassed 100 billion, with projections reaching approximately 200 billion by 2026. Parents and their children remain the primary consumers, with emerging trends showing that relatives and friends also contribute significantly to indoor park visits.
According to HCR research, parents and children are still the "main force" of indoor park consumption, but "travel partners" composed of relatives and friends are also "potential stocks" of consumption that cannot be ignored. In terms of age, the quietly rising post-80s and post-90s are the core consumer groups of indoor parks, of which 58.5% are parents of the post-90s and 40% are parents of the post-80s; in terms of regions, there are more adult companions in first-tier cities, and the parent-child travel group in second-tier cities is slightly higher than that in first-tier cities.
All Age Group Enjoy Amusement
Parent-child travel is still the "main force" of indoor park consumption, and travel partners composed of relatives and friends are also potential stocks that cannot be ignored.
Data shows that 53.5% of parent-child travel users choose to go to indoor parks 1-2 times a month, and 35.7% of adult companions go to indoor playgrounds once every 2-3 months. This is an overall data. When we break down the data into first-tier cities and second-tier cities, we will find that in first-tier cities, 49% of adults go to indoor playgrounds at least once a month; in second-tier cities, 38% of adults go to indoor playgrounds at least once a month.
| Visitor Type | Frequency of Visits | Percentage |
| Parent-child travel users | 1-2 times a month | 53.5% |
| Adult companions | Once every 2-3 months | 35.7% |
| Adults in first-tier cities | At least once a month | 49% |
| Adults in second-tier cities | At least once a month | 38% |
Insight 3 Addressing Modern Consumer Challenges
During the HCR interview, some respondents said that they were unable to educate their children, and they tried their best but often saw no results. In terms of life, many consumers also expressed their boredom with the monotonous life of "sameness" and "unchanging", and believed that they needed to broaden their own world, and interesting souls also needed to be nourished by the beauty and fun in life.
Trapped by the pressure of modern life and the uncertainty of children's education, most indoor park consumers have a sense of confusion about the future, a lack of freshness and anxiety about the uncertain future. However, four new consumer economic trends of indoor parks that can make up for the feelings of modern people are quietly emerging.
Feeling lost
- Uncertain about their future: Future life is full of uncertainty, and they don’t know how to achieve their ideals and direction
- No direction in raising children: They know that children’s growth is important, but they don’t know how to raise them
Lack of freshness
- Trapped in busyness: the monotonous life lacks freshness and different experiences, which makes people feel bored
- Children are trapped in monotony: I hope that children can feel the fun and beauty of life, and fresh food can expand children's horizons
Anxiety
- Worry that children will encounter setbacks and setbacks during their growth and lack the courage to overcome difficulties
- Worry that children will suffer injustice and lose happiness and love
- Worry that children will face long-term pressure and lose their curiosity and spirit of exploration for new things
- Worry that children’s knowledge level and life skills are insufficient and not as good as other children
- ......
The four major indoor park consumption economies can make up for the above problems:
- Family Economy: can drive family play and connect service details across all aspects.
- Big Kid Economy: integrate sports and outdoor exploration projects, add technology/cultural products to indoor playgrounds, and provide curriculum development and research services.
- Content Economy: customizing experiences through storytelling and thematic elements.
- Fusion Economy: integrate elements of technology, sports, entertainment, epics, culture, and current trends.
Insight 4 The Pursuit of Happiness
Due to the confusion, lack of freshness and anxiety caused by the current living conditions, consumers pay more attention to the "replenishment" of the soul, and they are more willing to pay for "happiness". From the perspective of values, consumers pursue a happy family, love to make friends, and have a planned life; from the parenting perspective, consumers value experience, respect individual development, and advocate children's happy growth.
Based on the parenting views, values, consumption concepts and consumption preferences of theme park customers, NinescapeLand divides indoor playground customers into six target groups: interactive growth customers, target elite customers, unlimited explorers, free explorers, leisure and entertainment customers, and lonely life customers.
- Interactive growth family: attach importance to family atmosphere and interaction, encourage children to be themselves, and hope to participate in children's growth experience.
- Leisure and entertainment family: look for simple happiness without brainstorming, go to the playground to find innocence and fun.
- Target elite family: advocate elite education, plan a clear life path for children, have a strong purpose, and value the value of acquisition.
- Free explorer: keen on new things, love socializing, adventure, and challenges, and hope that life is full of infinite possibilities.
- Unlimited explorer: do not set limits on children's growth, guide children to explore in many ways, explore interests and hobbies and growth directions, and combine education with entertainment.
- Lonely life family: young mothers who are eager to find themselves, love life in their hearts, and are life artists who are curious about new things.
Insight 5 Modern Parenting Trends
Parents born in the 1980s and 1990s are more relaxed when taking care of their children. While taking care of their children, they also pay attention to their own preferences and growth, and do not lose themselves on the road of taking care of their children.
Among the family-based parent-child travel consumers, the target elite families account for the highest proportion. They not only help their children to set goals scientifically and make clear future plans, but also combine education with entertainment, "look at each other" with their children, and grow up with their children through experience and interaction. They are eager to record and participate in the whole process of their children's growth. Accompanying is their long-term "confession" to their children.
In addition to FEC (family entertainment centers), theater-type parks are their main choices.
This group of young people prefer to focus on food, novel experiences, outdoor sports and economic activities when they are having fun. They are more interested in indoor parks that can enhance parent-child interaction and participation. At the same time, they are also detail-oriented and pay more attention to every aspect of the service. They want to play without worries, comfortably and happily.
Insight 6 Escaping The Daily Grind
When the "white-bone spirits" in the workplace get off work, they are eager to escape from their busy work for a short time and get rid of the "office smell". Theme parks provide a "spiritual harbor" for these leisure and entertainment seekers to return to their inner selves and regain their childlike innocence.
Free explorers love life, adventure, and challenges. Science fiction parks and escape room script-killing games that can bring novel experiences and rich content are their main indoor park choices. Lonely life seekers are mainly composed of young mothers aged 25-35. They still maintain their love for life and curiosity about new things in their hearts, and are eager to win the respect and recognition of others through hard work.
The entertainment world of modern adults is often simple and rough, and they take action to show their love for life. Most of these consumers are keen on outdoor travel and mass sports, pursue new things, love making friends, and pay attention to amazing cutting-edge technology.
Insight 7 Demand of Unique Play Experiences
For consumers of indoor parks, they still advocate content-oriented and pay attention to more experiential leisure and entertainment venues. In addition, consumers are increasingly demanding that indoor parks have both entertainment and content playability and uniqueness, and this demand is also extending to younger children. Indoor parks with strong experience, sufficient immersion, and large scale are popular among consumers. At the same time, content is king and will never go out of style. Adult consumers need a mature content system, and the real sense of fantasy is often more shocking than virtuality.
Insight 8 The Integration Economy
The integration economy has become a new trend in the consumption economy of indoor parks, which requires indoor parks to combine NPC interaction, level-breaking, role-playing, dress-up and other entertainment forms to provide experiences in technology, sports and culture. However, entertainment methods with a single experience and a narrow audience group have relatively low market popularity.
As consumers become both emotional and rational, it is a wise move to create diversified indoor playgrounds. Indoor parks that integrate technology, sports, entertainment, performing arts, culture and other elements are obviously more popular in the market, with higher popularity and a wider customer base.
NinescapeLand – Your Partner in Indoor Playground Innovation
As we navigate the evolving landscape of indoor playgrounds, NinescapeLand stands at the forefront, mastering the latest trends to provide unparalleled insights and solutions. Our commitment to excellence ensures that we not only deliver comprehensive reports on industry trends but also offer innovative designs and high-quality indoor playground equipment tailored to meet the diverse needs of our clients.
If you're searching for a reliable and professional partner to help you establish a successful indoor playground, look no further than NinescapeLand. We specialize in creating unique kids indoor playgrounds that captivate and engage children while providing a safe environment for play. Our offerings include:
- Soft indoor playground equipment designed for safety and comfort.
- Comprehensive solutions for shopping mall indoor playgrounds, enhancing the shopping experience for families.
- A variety of trampoline options, including kids trampolines, small trampolines for kids, and even adult trampoline parks equipped with features like trampoline basketball hoops and basketball ring trampolines.
NinescapeLand is dedicated to supporting your vision of an engaging, fun-filled space where children can explore, learn, and grow. Whether you are considering opening an indoor playground or need assistance with an indoor playground business plan, our team is here to guide you every step of the way.
In summary, with NinescapeLand, you gain a partner committed to delivering exceptional experiences through innovative design and quality equipment. Together, we can create indoor playgrounds that not only meet but exceed the expectations of families seeking joy and adventure.