No shoes, no screens, no problems—why these birthday party venues are bouncing

If you’ve spent any time on the kids’ birthday party circuit in the past few years, you’ve likely logged more than one Saturday at a trampoline park amid packs of children freed from the tyranny of indoor voices.

Parents of yore in search of movement-focused venues had to settle for Chuck E. Cheese or the ball pit at McDonald’s. Today, chains like Sky Zone, Altitude, and Urban Air are competing to earn the loyalties of energetic children everywhere. With a mix of acrobatics, rock climbing, and foam pits, these venues prioritize exercise over technology—and their recent success challenges common assumptions about modern parents’ tolerance for risk, if only for the length of a children’s party.

Or perhaps they’re just thrilled by the absence of smartphones. “We hear a lot from our customers about screen time,” says Shawn Hassel, CEO of Sky Zone, the trampoline park sector’s dominant player. “We focus on that analog experience, where kids can just be kids.”

Sky Zone’s 251 locations in North America, almost evenly split between corporate owned and franchises, collectively hosted 300,000 birthday parties in 2024. The company saw $435 million in corporate revenue, $80 million of which Hassel says will go toward expanding to 500 locations by 2027, mostly via franchises. Fueling its growth is a shift to targeting experienced franchisees; the company recently closed a 10-pack deal in the Dallas and Oklahoma City markets with a family that owns several McDonald’s locations.

On the customer side, Sky Zone’s membership program, with 800,000 active members, continues to grow, driven by—you guessed it—birthday partiers. “Every time, they bring 9 or 12 of their friends,” Hassel says. “It pretty much sells itself.”