Creators of the UK’s Official Nerf Arena, Gulliver’s Theme Parks and Paragon Entertainment, are celebrating the branded attraction’s highly successful first year.
To mark the occasion, teams from the two companies fired the 25th millionth Nerf dart into one the three arenas located across the UK.
Gulliver’s was the first leisure operator in Europe to recognise the potential of installing a branded Nerf offering at their family entertainment theme parks. The first stand-alone arena, developed in conjunction with Paragon’s licensing department, opened at Gulliver’s Milton Keynes site in July 2014. The 3, 875 sq. ft. indoor attraction has two combat arenas, maximising the amount of missions in one play session. The Nerf Zone offers a target range and an armoury, packed with the latest Nerf blasters from the US.
Gulliver’s has since opened two further stand-alone arenas at the company’s theme parks in Matlock Bath and Warrington.
This cemented Gulliver’s Theme Parks as the official operators of three of only four official Nerf Arena venues in Europe.
“The huge visitor numbers are testament to the strong relationship between children and big brands such as Nerf, ” says Julie Dalton, managing director of Gulliver’s Theme Parks . “Parents continue to tell our arena teams that “NERF Zone” are the easiest words to use in order to detach their children from personal game consoles.”
According to Gulliver’s, all three sites have proved a big hit – 40 new jobs have been created to cope with the increase in visitor numbers.
Paragon Entertainment’s licensing division is aiming to expand the Nerf portfolio by over 100 per cent by the end of 2016.
“The success that the Nerf Zones have seen at Gulliver’s Theme Parks is something that we are keen to repeat across leisure facilities in the UK, our aim is to expand our Nerf portfolio, creating more official Nerf Arenas across the UK, introducing the concept to a whole new audience, ” reports Mark Pyrah, CEO of Paragon Entertainment. “Here’s to another 25 million darts blasting off at arenas across the world!”
