Half term is the week when a school hall, a garden or a closed-off street suddenly has to keep a lot of children occupied, and the kit you pick decides whether the day holds up. We've been hiring inflatables and games from Rotherham since 1999, so we've watched a fair few half terms come round, and the same planning questions turn up every time: what actually fits in the space, how many children get a go per hour, and what happens if the weather turns. Here's how we'd size it up.
Small gardens and street parties
For a garden, the classics still do the job best. Our bouncy castles come in sizes to suit most outdoor spaces, every one arrives with safety mats and a blower as standard, and a big family castle like the 15x18ft model hires from £199, rain cover included. The bouncy slides are the other regular for a garden crowd, and the bouncy castle with garden slide package is a long-standing choice for surprise birthdays - the booking mix hasn't really changed in years. For a street party, one castle plus a candyfloss or popcorn cart from the fun food hire range gives the queue something to do with their hands while they wait, and both run off a standard socket or a small battery pack.
Halls, fields and bigger crowds
Once you've got more than a garden's worth of children, throughput becomes the number that matters. On a field you can go big: our assault courses start from £199, and for the largest events the Spider Mountain climbing tower moves around 225 climbers an hour, the highest throughput of any climbing activity in the fleet, with 16 people on it at once. That's the figure to check when a school fun day has 200 children and a three-hour window - anything slower and the queue outgrows the game. Indoors, ceiling height is the constraint rather than floor space: the low-rise castles and garden slides fit most halls, but the taller games want 20ft of headroom, so it's worth measuring before you book rather than on the morning.
Community sessions
Half term is also when parish councils, scout groups and community centres run their own sessions, and that work is a proper share of our calendar. We supply fun days for Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster councils, and a single scout anniversary party for 80 young people is the kind of job a couple of garden castles don't stretch to - that's where the packages combining games, gazebos and PA come in. Every hire comes with £5 million of public liability cover, and the risk assessments and method statements reach you, or the venue, before the event - which is usually what the council's paperwork is really after.
What half term hire doesn't include
Now the limits. Garden kit needs reasonably flat access for the van and the trolley, so a flight of side steps changes what we can site. Halls with low ceilings and fragile floors rule out the bigger units whatever the floor space says. And you'll need someone responsible on hand while the kit is up - we supply trained supervising staff for the larger attractions, but a garden castle comes down to your own house rules. If the forecast looks grim, our delivery terms cover cancellation and rescheduling, and the details are on the delivery page.
Getting booked in
Weekend and half-term slots fill first across South Yorkshire, and we cover the rest of the UK for bigger bookings - Google reviewers have left us more than 200 five-star ratings, most of them from repeat hirers. Give the office a ring on 0114 345 0135 with the rough size of your space and the headcount, and we'll tell you which pieces of kit fit before you spend anything.
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