Play is a bonding experience as much as a fun one and our seating areas are cleverly integrated in design so that parents can rest and play at the same time. While childcare and teaching experience is common in role play venue owners, we want people who can run a business, not teach. Owners typically come from a professional background, but you do need to be comfortable dealing with adults while instinctively appreciating the needs of children around you.

With the right advice and good plans, you can build a quality play centre that generates profits at a good price. The costs to set up a venue are largely associated with the design and build process; we work with you so that the venue reflects your personality, dreams and aspirations whilst being as cost efficient as possible. Before you invest any money, you will have detailed plans about the costs of setting up and running your specific business.

With any business there will be up-front costs, which can be funded in various ways. Our links to high-street banks will be beneficial if this is your chosen route. This and other finance details will be discussed more when we have a sit down meeting in the second stage.

There is an initial up-front investment which covers the setting up of your Tots Town play venue. Once open and operational, your monthly management fee, based on a percentage of your sales, provides you with ongoing coaching and support, and continued access to shared resources, support materials and our expert knowledge and skills. This will be explained more fully when you apply.

Well, not easy, but definitely enjoyable. You will work some long days when you open. Our team undertake the complex parts of a business freeing up you to focus on the enjoyable parts. We will give you a thorough training and work experience programme so that you are ready from day 1 to confidently run your own venue.

Tots Town was one of the first role play venues to open in the UK. We had to learn quickly about the likes of building regulations, planning laws, toy safety rules, e-commerce laws, marketing, advertising to name but a few. Fortunately, we already knew quite a lot about child psychology and play. It was hard back then but we did it on our own, when there wasn’t much competition. Times have changed, and some people have attempted to open copycat play centres without the underlying knowledge. The reality is that independent owners will increasingly struggle to be competitive and need the benefits of being part of a bigger network to survive long term. Some people copy; Tots Town chooses to lead.

We are currently considering applications from existing play venues. If you meet our criteria we will talk your through the process to join our network and how it can benefit your business.