Guide · Soft play
What sessions should a soft play run?
Open play pays the bills, but it is also why a soft play can be rammed at 10am on a wet Tuesday and empty at four. Session types are how you fill the rest of the timetable, and some of them earn far more per hour than general admission ever will.
Look at your week, not your day
Most soft play centres know their busy hours instinctively: weekend mornings, wet school holidays, the toddler rush before lunch. The money is usually in what happens the rest of the time.
A weekday afternoon in term time is the clearest example. The under-fives have gone home for a nap, the school-age children are not out yet, and the building is heated, staffed and empty for two hours.
A session type is just a promise about who else will be there.
That is the whole product. Parents pay for the confidence that their toddler will not be flattened by nine-year-olds, or that the room will be quiet, or that other adults will be there too.
Toddler and baby sessions
The most reliable non-open-play session there is, and the one most centres already run.
- Under-fives mornings, with the big equipment closed. The promise is safety, and parents will plan their week around it.
- Baby and crawler sessions, smaller and quieter again. Low capacity, but the parents become regulars for years.
- A cafe that works for adults matters more here than anywhere. A decent coffee is a large part of why a parent chooses you over the church hall.
SEN and quiet sessions
Worth running properly rather than as a gesture. Lower lighting, no music, capped numbers, and staff who know what the session is for.
Two honest points. It will not be your highest-revenue hour, because the whole point is fewer people in the building. And it is the session that generates the most loyalty of anything on this list, because for some families it is the only version of soft play they can use at all. Word travels quickly in those networks.
Book it, cap it hard, and be clear about what is different. A quiet session that is not actually quiet is worse than not running one.
Filling the term-time afternoon
The two-hour dead zone is the hardest problem and the most valuable to solve:
- After-school sessions priced as a lower-cost hour, aimed at the walk-home crowd rather than a full visit.
- Childminder rates, either a group price or a pass. Childminders come midweek, come reliably, and bring four children at a time.
- Home educator sessions, a genuinely under-served group who are specifically free on weekday afternoons.
- Toddler classes, run by you or by someone renting the space. Music, sensory, baby yoga. Even as a room hire it turns an empty afternoon into income.
Holidays: the season that needs structure
School holidays fill themselves, so the aim is not attracting people but managing them and increasing what a visit is worth.
- Timed sessions rather than all-day open play on the busiest weeks, so the building is not unbearable by eleven.
- Holiday clubs, where children are left for a few hours. Much higher value per child, and it needs proper ratios and paperwork, so decide seriously.
- A daily activity so a family that comes twice in a week gets something different the second time.
The ones people forget
- Parties, which are the highest-value hour most centres sell. There is a fuller piece on what to charge for a party package.
- Adults-only evenings, which sound absurd and sell out. Nostalgia nights, charity events, work socials, using a building that was closed.
- Sleepovers, which are demanding to staff and command a price that reflects it.
- Private hire of the whole centre, which is worth pricing openly rather than treating as a favour.
How to decide what to add
Three questions, in order:
- Which hour is emptiest? Start there rather than adding to a session that already works.
- Who is free at that hour? Childminders, home educators and retired grandparents are free midweek; working parents are not.
- What promise makes them choose you? Quieter, cheaper, safer for little ones, or simply that it exists at all on a Tuesday afternoon.
In practice every one of these is a session with its own time, price and cap, which is why the timetable outgrows a whiteboard quickly. That is how Hatch works, with sessions priced separately for peak and off-peak, extras as their own ticket types, and the money into your own Stripe account. There is more on ticketing for soft play.
Common questions
What sessions should a soft play centre run?
Beyond open play, the reliable ones are under-fives mornings, SEN or quiet sessions, after-school hours, holiday clubs and parties. The useful way to choose is to look at your emptiest hour first, work out who is actually free at that time, and decide what promise would make them choose you, because a session type is really just a promise about who else will be in the building.
How do you fill a soft play on a term-time afternoon?
That two-hour gap between the toddler nap and the school run is the hardest slot to fill and the most valuable to solve. The groups who are genuinely free then are childminders, home educators and grandparents, so childminder rates, home educator sessions and toddler classes tend to work where a general discount does not. Renting the space to someone running a class still turns an empty, heated, staffed afternoon into income.
Are SEN and quiet sessions worth running?
Not as your highest-revenue hour, because the point is fewer people in the building, but they generate more loyalty than anything else on the timetable. For some families it is the only version of soft play they can use, and word travels quickly in those networks. Run it properly with lower lighting, no music and hard caps, because a quiet session that is not actually quiet is worse than not running one.
Written for UK soft play centres. Which sessions work depends on your catchment, your space and your staffing, and the emptiest hour on your own timetable is a better guide than any list.