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Mall Patrons Getting A Big Bounce

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By KLINT LOWRY | The Suncoast News

Published: August 1, 2008

PORT RICHEY -- Go to any decent sized mall and you can expect to be able to buy certain things: clothing, greeting cards, home furnishings, cell phones, jewelry, lotions, notions and various bric-a-brac.

At Gulf View Square, shoppers can purchase something not found at most shopping centers, a chance to defy gravity as the payload in a human slingshot.

All summer long, patrons – mostly the young ones – have been seeing the mall from a whole new perspective. They've been blasting off in the center court on Bugzy's Power Jump, a contraption that combines the bounce of a trampoline with the snap of bungee cord. It can propel people up to 25 feet in the air over and over again.

"It originated in Europe, or so I am told," said Doug Molesworth, general manager of the attraction.

Users take off their shoes and stand on air-filled trampolines. Once the user is strapped into a harness attached to a pair of bungee cords, the operator pushes a button and tension is added to the cords, pulling the user upward.

Add leg power on the trampoline and it doesn't take long to attain some considerable vertical momentum. Gravity and the elasticity of the bungee cords take care of the other side of the equation.

Molesworth got into the power jump business about 10 years ago, and has been in it full time the last three years. He set up his attraction Gulf View Square at the beginning of June.

Bringing in Bugzy's Power Jump was an attempt at introducing a new kind of physical, interactive attraction to the mall experience, according to John Liu, Gulf View Square marketing director.

"For a while we had the carousel, and we had that for a couple of years, but we thought bringing in something different would really bring in the shopper traffic," Liu said.

There are no hard numbers to define the effect it has had on overall mall traffic, Liu added, but the attraction itself has done better business than expected. Molesworth and his associate Donny Nystrom estimated they've gotten between 50 and 100 customers a day, paying $7 each for four minutes of jumping.

Most of their customers are 15 and younger, Molesworth said, but anyone over the age of 2 can jump – anyone who weighs less than 200 pounds, that is.

His oldest customer to date was 66.

"She had a grandkid on here, and he wasn't jumping," Molesworth recalled. "And grandma said, 'Well, I gotta come in here and show you how it's done.' "

Molesworth has noted that at every age, the ladies tend to be bolder on the bungee jump, much quicker to try midair somersaults.

One first-time jumper, Kori Stoner of Port Richey, proved his point Wednesday afternoon. With just a bit of prompting, she was spinning in the air like a seasoned aerialist, and when she was done she couldn't wait to tell her dad all about it.

"I flipped 20 times," she proclaimed. "Next time, I'm going to try to flip 50 times."

In just two months, Molesworth has picked up a lot of repeat customers, including sisters Raivyn and Jaiden Holdway.

"They did it for the first time yesterday," their mother, Michelle Holdway said. Her girls were so enthralled with the experience they talked Holdway into driving all the way from their home in Spring Hill so they could do it again.

Holdway and other parents all said they had no reservations about letting youngsters bounce up and down.

Likewise, Liu said mall management had few qualms about the safety of the attraction and possible legal liability. Before coming to Port Richey, Bugzy's Power Jump was at a mall in Georgia and its has a perfect safety record, he said.

Bugzy's Power Jump is contracted to stay at Gulf View Square for one year. After that, Molesworth and mall management will both decide if they want it to continue there.

"I think this is kind of like the starting point as to what kind of things we want to do here at the mall," Liu said. "With its success, I think we're going to look at some other things."

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