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Beloved Kiwi trampoline park JUMP has rebranded to BOUNCE, and co-owner Sandra Mu is excited to welcome customers to their three freshly renovated locations in Avondale, Takanini, and the North Shore.
“At Avondale, we’ve got 12 new rock-climbing walls,” she details of the new features and play areas. “We have three double-lane X-Run courses, where you can time yourself and race against your mates. We’ve also got an exclusive Mini Bounce Zone for kids under 110cm with a three-story climbing apparatus, slides, ball pit and exclusive trampolines, so that all our under-five guests can have a safe and fun environment at any hour without the bigger kids.”
Since its inception 10 years ago, JUMP has become a favourite destination for kids of all ages who love to jump. With their array of indoor trampolines and play areas, JUMP was designed by Sandra and her late husband David to bring out the inner antelope in kids and parents alike, all while promoting fun, active play. In fact, Sandra and David’s original slogan was “Exercise in Disguise.”
“What we’ve created is something for all ages, and also for parents to get involved with their kids and have some fun bonding time,” says Sandra. “Instead of sitting down and watching your kids while they play, you can actually go in and have some fun with them. The park is also entertaining for teenagers, giving them something to do other than being on technology. People come here for entertainment, but they get the health benefits of exercising, too.”
Sandra and David formed the idea for JUMP in an unlikely locale: Las Vegas, USA. With all its glitz and gambling, Frank Sinatra’s old stomping ground doesn’t typically inspire a winning idea for fitness-based fun. But back in 2013, that’s just where Sandra and David dreamed up their now-wildly successful chain of trampoline parks.
“It was accidental,” says Sandra of the concept. “We went to Las Vegas for my brother’s wedding, and I was looking for things to do other than drinking and gambling. I came across a trampoline park – it was the very first one in the world, I think. It was kind of grungy and old, but the concept caught my eye.”
When Sandra brought the idea to David, he was all ears. “We all grew up on the backyard trampoline,” she says. “When I told my husband, we got obsessed, like, ‘Oh, New Zealand would love this!’ We started creating it and building our own park from there.”
JUMP was the first trampoline park of its kind in New Zealand, and Sandra says that convincing potential landlords to lease them a property wasn’t an easy task. “No one knew the concept. It took us 18 months to find a location because no one believed that trampolines could pay the bills.”
The first JUMP park eventually found a home in East Tamaki, and the fledgling business was a massive hit. “The public reception was overwhelming. We were sold out from 10 in the morning to 10 at night, and you had to book a birthday party two to three months in advance. Everyone loved it.”
The following year saw Sandra and David open two more parks – one in Hamilton and one on the North Shore – as JUMP’s popularity soared. “Within 14 months, we had three JUMPS. It was all a crazy whirlwind.”
The appeal of the park is clear: not only are trampolines fun, but there are lots of benefits to be had that are unique to this type of exercise. “It’s good fitness,” says Sandra, “but it’s also really good for coordination, especially for the younger kids. We get a lot of sensory-needs kids – the stimulation they get from jumping around on the trampolines is really beneficial.”
In 2016, Sandra and David opened a JUMP location in Avondale, a full-circle moment that reinforced how right they’d been to follow their instincts in pursuit of their dream. The couple had originally looked at basing their first JUMP there, but at the time, the only suitable option was a vacant section where they would have had to build. Keen as they were to launch as soon as possible, Sandra and David had decided not to wait, instead taking their search elsewhere. Three years later, when they were ready to expand JUMP into its fourth location, they were back.
“When this building came up,” Sandra recalls, “we said, ‘Oh, this is perfect – this is one of the locations we were looking at originally.’ We were the first tenants in that building, and we didn’t have to wait for the build – we opened three others before that.”
In 2020, everything changed for Sandra and her family when David suddenly passed away after an unexplained medical event. Only 41 years old, his death was a tremendous loss, and Sandra worked hard to keep JUMP going while navigating her own grief and that of their two children. Now, she says, she’s ready to make some changes. Enter her new and exciting partnership with BOUNCE, a global trampoline park based in Australia. Like JUMP, BOUNCE also started 10 years ago, and they have opened locations all over the world.
“Losing my husband and doing it on my own was a massive task, and I had to look for different opportunities,” Sandra says. “The BOUNCE brand and the JUMP brand are very similar in terms of vision and values. It worked well to partner with them to make JUMP bigger and better. We’re adding in lots of new features to make it more exciting and rejuvenate it for our customers. We’ve incorporated more off-trampoline stuff, adding value for people who want more than just trampolines. You can mix it up and go from trampolines to racing your mates on the X-Run or seeing how high you can climb on the climbing wall. We’re supporting our kids to gain confidence and push themselves if they can.”
Even better, she adds, is the ease of the transition. “There’s no change for our staff or for our customers, other than a few colours and a name change. The partnership is a continuation of what we were doing at JUMP: creating an inclusive action-adventure park where everyone can come and ‘unleash their free spirit,’ which is the slogan for BOUNCE.”
As always, the business remains a family affair. “My kids were three and seven when we first started, and now they’re 14 and 18,” says Sandra. “My son worked with me doing the rebuild until Christmas, before he started his new job this year. We’re all very much part of the process.”
Sandra and the BOUNCE tribes look forward to showcasing the new action-adventure experience! For more information, visit www.bounceinc.co.nz.
Roundabout Magazine
This article was published in Roundabout Magazine Issue 204 (February 2024).