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In case you hadn't noticed, we're big fans of anything that involves giant water slides, ball pits and other big kid activities, so we got pretty damn excited when we heard last month that an entire room of 150 trampolines was coming to London. Obviously we couldn't wait to go down and have the first bounce at London's new trampoline park, Oxygen. Here's what we made of it.
The park doesn't officially open until July 20 so parts of it were still under construction, but even in its half-finished state it's seriously cool. As well as your bog-standard bouncing, there are designated courts where you can play basketball and dodgeball on trampolines and there's even a special section where the more advanced trampolinists can do tricks. They're also going to be running trampoline exercise classes and free-running courses, which aren't on trampolines but do involve running up walls.
If you get tired of bouncing around, there's also an assault course complete with foam pits, ropes and a floating ladder. There's even a podium where you can fight with gladiator-style pugil sticks, like this (except not in what appears to be some kind of bubble wrap factory):
Oxygen will be holding events including trampolining coaching, dodgeball tournaments and even PE lessons, which sounds way more fun than the bleep test. The entire space is available to rent out for all ages, although to make sure it's not absolute mayhem, most sessions will be age-specific so you won't have a load of toddlers jumping around with fully grown adults. Makes sense.
And if you're the type of person whose first thought on hearing about a room full of trampolines is 'what about health and safety?' then you can sleep easy because they've got designated 'court attendants' for each section, which operate a strict 'three strikes and you're out' policy. So behave yourself, kids.
Oxygen opens at Kendal Avenue, West Acton, on Monday July 20. Open 8am-10pm Mon-Sat; 8am-9pm Sun.
For more information and to book yourself in for a bounce, head to oxygenfreejumping.co.uk.
Photo: Rob Greig.