I just got an email from the guys at Cream City Skatepark in Wisconsin asking me to add a link to their park’s site on our links page, and while watching the video of what looks like a super nice park I started thinking “Is there any skater who hasn’t dreamed of owning an indoor skatepark?” Just imagine, you could skate anytime, rain, snow, or shine. You wouldn’t have to pay to skate. You could build exactly what you want. You’d get to meet all the top pros and ams and hold contests. Chicks would flock around you. And on top of it, you’d make tons of money and people would give you free product if you let them skate there.
On the other hand, you have to make lease and utility payments for the building every month. Kids punch holes in the walls, spill soda on the ramps, get in fights, steal stuff from the park shop, smoke weed behind the ramps causing the cops to shut you down for two weeks, and sneak in without paying. You never get to skate because you’re always taking care of all the problems. All the chicks that dig you are 13. And even though all the kids complain that you’re charging too much, you can’t seem to even pay the bills, let alone have anything left over to buy a hamburger with. And you had to borrow $80K to build the ramps and now the bank is breathing down your neck wondering where that $2K payment is every month.
Does having an indoor park really work? Sure, it’s great for the kids, but if a park doesn’t make money it can’t stay open for long. I’m going to solicit responses to this from as many park owners as I can get. We’ll see which side of the story is correct, if it’s a combination of the two, or if there are certain things some owners have found that make it work that they can pass on so other owners can keep their parks open.
If you know a park owner, pass this link on to them.
It takes money and patience
2k payment every month? try 15k.
todd
Skateparks suck to own. Don’t do it unless you are expecting all the worst things that were mentioned above, not to mention:
-Becoming the cheapest baby sitter for every kid in the city whether they actually skate or not.
-Kids parents threatening to sue you for everything you own because little Billy broke his wrist and can’t play hockey
-Getting sick once a month from having sweaty snot nosed kids giving you money from their shoes.
-Working 14 hour days 7 days a week
-Cleaning up after 30 to 60 kids a day (don’t forget the bathrooms)
-Making little to no money, and having no vacations or holidays.
Anyways, owning a skatepark is a lot of fun, but the stress and workload can put a serious damper on it. Moreso in Canada, where the business is so seasonal that it makes it really hard to make ends meet in the summer. All the camps demos and competitions you can dream of don’t pay rent when nobody’s coming out to skate.
Of course everyone would like to have their own park, but do the ups outway the downs? I’ll let you know in a couple of years.
Has anyone ever figured out if the Van’s skateparks were making money? For them - it is almost a marketing writeoff - offering tons of publicity to the name - and their parks are usually paired with successful Vans stores - perhaps that offsets the income loss on the park. I would love to see those numbers if anyone can get a hold of them.
It takes some really savvy business strategy to keep a park running and to get skaters interested by runnning a top-notch facility. Look at Skatopia in Ohio, which is run by Brewce Martin. He’s kept it open for ten years and doesn’t charge a DIME. Sure, you have to work an hour to skate, but you also wonder just how the hell he keeps all 88 acres of it open. Brewce has also been lauded as a business man, even stating that he could run a fortune 500.
Alll crap aside, you also have to remember why you’re opening a park. It’s not about chicks, bucks or self-esteem- but about the skaters’ in the community and their needs.
Does anyone have any words of wisdom for a future skatepark owner? We should be open in six weeks.
Cody Caldwell
Boise indoor bike & skate
We are a group of bmx riders,bladers and skaters,who are fustrated waiting on the city council to provive a skatepark too meet our needs,so much so that we are looking into leasing our own warehouse and running a private facillity.
From a money making aspect. A park would be make more if it was for both skate and bmx. I dont know if its the same in other regions but in northern new jersey theirs a huge bmx scene, but no parks for them to go to which cuts the amount of people who would go in half.
A Skate park is what every %#@$ town need. My $%#@$ town is no exception. Im looking to rent an indoor warehouse and use it as a skatepark but I don’t want to pay insurance. Im sure thier is a clever loophole that someone who has already opend a skatepark figured out.if so, fill us in!:P
Hey Cody, it’s been 5 months …how you doing….i’m due to open in May? Any advise for me?
Just in the process of analyzing the viability of an indoor skate park. We’ve found 2 available places to lease but both are extreme opposites. 1 too expensive(or so we think) and the other a complete dive(but affordable). We already operate a new skateshop and although it is really new, it seems to have huge potential. We were hoping to combine the 2 but really can’t get any idea of how successful these things are. All we ever hear is how one had to close. Are there any words of encouragement? Any advice from experience? Rates? Cheap alternatives for the skate course? We would feel just horrible if this fell through as we put all of our own money into the shop not to mention a few years ago the skaters dealt with the loss of a previous indoor park but as rumour has it, there was no admission fees, no supervision and no management. There was adonation jar and next thing everyone noticed was the owner had a new car and the park closed. I’m not about to find the guy and ask him for advice!
Hi Denise, I haven’t run a park myself but I have known well two sets of people who did. Both had to close down because they weren’t making enough money to keep them open. It wasn’t because the parks weren’t nice, they both were. It wasn’t because of location, one was in a good location, one was in a bad one. It wasn’t because they didn’t advertise the parks well. Every skater within a hundred miles knew about each park. And it wasn’t because there weren’t enough skaters to support the parks, there were more than enough. It wasn’t because they didn’t charge enough, or because they were managed poorly. The simple reason both parks closed down was because there were too many good places to skate in the area that were free. That is, here in Utah, there are a lot of free public skateparks, many of which are quite good, and that means when it comes to skating at the public park that is free or paying $5 to skate at the indoor park, everybody goes to the free park. Unless it’s raining or snowing.
Whenever the weather prevented skaters from going to the public parks the indoor parks were always full. And I mean super full. On a sunny day there might be 2-3 skaters at the indoor park. At the same time on the same day when it was raining there would be 80 skaters at the indoor park. In the summer the indoor park didn’t make anywhere close to enough money to cover their costs. In the winter they generally made enough just to get by.
Perhaps if your park were even cheaper you could get more kids to come. $5 is a lot of money to a 13 year old kid who earns his own money. $2 isn’t so much. Air conditioning in the summer might help. Neither of the parks I know had AC and they were sweltering in the summer, making it worse to skate in them than to skate outdoors. But I think more than anything else the success of a park is going to count on the situation around you. If there aren’t any public parks, that’s a plus for you. If you have long winters and lots of precipitation that will help you out. But if there is a decent public park within 20-30 minutes of where you would put your indoor park I’d say you’re at risk of spending a lot of money and not getting it back.
However, you can also run a skatepark as a loss leader. You lose money on the park, but make money by selling skate product on the premises. The extra profit you make from retail because you’re drawing in more kids because of the skatepark might make up for what you lose running the park and then some, in which case you get the positive cash flow you need.
Anyway, those are my two cents. Best of luck.
Those factors you mentioned are very important. Is an indoor skatepark needed where you are? What’s also important is how are you going to keep the cash flow going to maintain the park. You’re talking capitol to buy the space, construction, maintenance and staff pay, to mention the most important.
I don’t believe admission is enough, or even selling product. You have to diversify the park services AND do what all other indoor venues do- ADVERTISE. Kids might say that it’s selling out, but considering that these same kids pack in their parent’s SUV and head to the local mall to check out the Zumiez couch tour only to be saturated with adverts from major companies (Xbox, Monster, Mountain Dew, etc.), and you don’t hear them wimpering over it. Think of how much revenue is generated from those ads. Think of the X Games.
You have to keep the park open somehow, why not have other companies pay for it? Don’t count on any of the skate companies, apparel or equipment, to shell out anything except product either and don’t hang their banners up in your precious space unless they pay for it. That’s the way the world tumbles and they know it, because they make kids shell out $125 for a deck and $25 for a tshirt with their name on it. Your focus should be on the skaters and making a great, safe place for them to skate.
One last thing, don’t forget that you have to generate excitement- give them one more reason to come skate the park instead of the public places. You can host demos and tours, do rock shows and stage competitions with a nice prize purse that some company might be willing to stake if their name is headlining the event. Then the advertising will begin to pay with all the traffic coming in and out.
Good luck to you.
In about 5 months i plan on getting a decent sized steel building, and starting an indoor skatepark. I have alot of ups on my side being as there arent many local parks, I’d right in the middle of the 4 biggest cities around here, and the only indoor park within 100 miles sucks, cost to much and is always to crowded. And im 25 miles from them, so i figured id draw in any skaters who think that park sucks, and miles from the other direction being as there are no parks.
Whats the insurance deal like? I dont want some little guy tripping over himself and trying to sue me.
I have the building the skatepark part down, but once i have it what does it take to run it??
Contact one of the other park owners that has posted here, or the guys at Cream City Skatepark.
i guess im just another kid that wants to open a park. Im 18 and ive dedicated my last 5 years to a landscaping buissness. Weve gotten alota good breaks and its a pretty safe founkation for a life. Truth is… a skate park has been my dream since 3rd grade. im wondering if i should just wait n save to get my dream started or find a worhty investor. i need to know shich direction i need to go in. do i need to take some kind of college coarses. whats insurance gonna be like. i just realized i didnt explain my situation very well. Im in a very good position to get somthin started. i need guidence. pLeAsE i need a professional. help.
I live in a small rural town and myself and a couple of people are trying to open an indoor skatepark, our town house a small skatepark with wooden ramps that have been built by people in the community. The ramps are all about to fall apart. They are not protected by the weather and the kids don’t really have any place else to skate other than going to another town. I have been asking around and got some really good ideas. Does anyone know of any grants or funds that are available to help open the skatepark or where a good starting place would be? I have found a building (it was an old roller rink).
I was wondering what everyone’s thoughts are on an indoor hybrid skatepark. It would be split with a concrete bowl/various transitions and a wood/masonite section with the ability to change the layout. I live in an area that already has two indoor wooden/masonite parks with no flow. Both these parks are about 50-60 miles away. I live in the northeast so the weather is in our favor. The closest concrete park aroumd that I know of is about 2 hrs away and its outdoor. Concrete seems to be were it’s at and to have it indoor in this area I believe would be beneficial.
Concrete is also a lot more expensive and permanent. I’d go with indoor/masonite until you learn the ropes and know what you’re doing. If you’re successful with that, then maybe think about concrete, but I wouldn’t do something so expensive and something that can’t be easily changed until you’re 100% certain of what you’re doing.
hey im from australia my wife and i are thinkin bout opening up an indoor sk8park… can anyone who has or is previously runny a sk8park tell me what kind of cost we’re lookin at to build??
My friend built a decent one for about $50K USD. But that was 2-3 years ago and lumber prices may have changed since then.
ok so i am wondering my birthday is coming up and i wanted to rent out a park in utah. so if anybody knows about a open park in utah, please please please let me know. i know a few people that own indoor parks but they are closed this up coming month. i am an amiture skater [like i hit a 30 foot gap and fingerflipped it. but no biggy]
—thanks
—-swade and justin.
You definitely want to PLAN. Write a strong business plan with worst case and best case scenarios. RESEARCH other skateparks. Call them up; learn/copy the successful ones and avoid the mistakes of the failing ones. You need to sit down and calculate how much to start, how much to live, how much to profit, etc. Additionally, talk to lawyers tha deal with real estate, injuries, contracts, business, accounting and other possible litigations that may be associated with your business.
Just some thoughts to consider.
The SkatePark will not support the business on admissions alone. You must consider having a store offering equip, apparell, expert advise in both saes and instruction. Add to this a nice concession with some hot snacks and a full line of drinks. Keep the skate area separate from the eating area. Hire intelligent staff that are knowledge and friendly. Attitudes kill sales and repeat customers. Offer services such as instruction, birthday parties, zone off times for younger skaters for both safety and raising the fun level for different age groups. Add an area for BMX if possible, thus increasing your potential client base x2.
I’m considering opening a skatepark myself and these are just a few of the points I came up with. I’d be thankful to hear from other folks out there that can expand on this.
Thanks!
Currently i am 18 years old in college getting my busniess administrations degree and I work for a surf/skate shop in Florida. I am good friends with some higher ups in the company i threw the idea to them that i wanted to start my own park and it might be a good investment for the company as well to combine with the park and have their own official skateshop on site. They’re interested in the idea, so i was curious if any other owners thought this was a good idea. Also the only good park within 1-2 hrs is about to close, because i know the owners and they have decided to sell the land, and they were far past succesful. The park was not that great anyways, which is why i believe a park would be a great idea, ecspecially with a better design.
I just wanted any little advice at all. I have always worked in sales and am experienced there, so i already know how seeling product works best. I want to take this investment serious so any advice will help.
The location in my area is great and in need of a good park, so the basics i have already taken in to account. Thanks.
-Kenny
I am 18 and live in a small city with an extremely shoddy skate scene. Its about 17,000 large.
For a school (Grade 12) assignment I am creating a business plan. I decided to do mine on an indoor skatepark because…. Well lets face it, what skater doesn’t want to own their own skate park. Even if we only realize the glamorous parts of it.
My main doubt is if the city will be large enough and if I will have a large enough consumer base… There are not alot of skatespots, nevermind good ones. There is a outdoor skatepark in a bad locaion. It has some ramps, yet they are set up horribly and they aren’t that great. The pyramid is about 1.5-2ft high and is about 15ft long… Its more of a BMX ramp… Most of the ramps in the park are. there is a quite bad grind box and an okay manual pad. Some mediocre QP’s aswell. I think I would have the interest of most of the local skaters, because of the lack of a real skate scene. Yet I don’t know if it would be enough to draw real revenue… I guess my business plan will help me out with that…. Any other tips/ideas anyone could put up here? Someone should write up an online guide with alot of real life examples of how things should be done and should not be done… Put maybe a basic outline of it and some guidelines. Other ways to generate revenue?
Thanks,
Dylan
I am thinking about opening a indoor skate & BMX track in NH. The town that I live in have no skate parks or any bmx tracks. When I go to the store I see alot of kids sakating and BMX in the parking lot. I found a good location to open one up. How do I get started?
Thanks Mike
We are currently looking at several buildings for our new indoor skate park and I would have to agree with what I have read so far, costs are high and so is the amount of money and time needed to start one. Here is where you critically examine the locations and the market to see if it’s even sustainable. If it’s grim like our location, then open it for the other reasons that motivated you to even consider it in the first place.
I don’t expect to make money for at least six month on our park, but that’s not why we are opening one. We will relocate our shop to the same location in hopes that it will have a positive outcome on the parent company, but if it doesn’t at least we will have a bad — powerhouse combo and support the scene and if we make a few while doing it I’ll be even happier.
Chris
You can make money, know how to run a business and you will succeed. A large portion of sales is concessions(35%). My husband and I are opening an indoor park, CAN YOU SAY AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAM? Big bucks, help the kids, parents love it. There are tons of successful parks, stay positive.
Thinking about this business. Where do I get info on Insurance and liability? There is nothing in my area, but I’m sure space is very expensive.
I like all of the people that have added to this blog am interested in opening an indoor skate park. My reasons are NOT because I skate, I do not, I would brake my head as I am a mother, grandmother and a concerned citizen. I have a 15 year old who loves to skate. Our good skate parks are several miles away with only a couple of “ok” out door parks close by. I am not rich by any means but this community needs a skate park so the kids have a decent place to skate with supervision. I know that it could be alot of babysitting, but that comes with any business that involves kids. I am looking into grants to supplement. Does anybody have an idea of what it would cost to build a moderate size park indoors?
I’m stilll thinking about it. My area of NJ has high rentals for warehouse space. I still haven’t gotten info on insurance. Can anyone help me on that? I would believe it’s high cost.THere is also a question of how much space is needed say for a medium size indoor area. I see that Becky has the same questions. If she has any info on grants I’d appreciate it. I never thought of grants.