The largest sports amusement park in Europe will soon open in Ghent. The 4.800-square-meter sports paradise Sparkx, featuring 50 sports attractions, has landed in the Sint-Denijs-Westrem district. During a meeting for FEC operators, director Mathieu Reinier offered a glimpse into Sparkx's ambitions: “We have only just begun. We are using the first locations in Belgium to further optimize the concept. Our long-term goal is a chain of 250 sports FECs across multiple continents.”
In May 2023, Sparkx opened the doors of its first indoor sports amusement park in Hasselt, offering 35 activities across an area of 3500 m². Since then, more than 200.000 visitors have already passed through. Families, schools, and companies alike easily find their way to the amusement park.
The arrival of the sports amusement park is also good news for employment in the region. Sparkx Gent has around 40 jobs for employees, flexi-jobbers and students. The works on the sports amusement park will start in early 2025.
“In our first 18 months, we managed to charm more than 200.000 visitors in Hasselt with the combination of sports and fun. Young and old between 5 and 95 years old (re)discover well-known and lesser-known sports disciplines in our park. In addition, experienced and less experienced athletes can play sports together. The high-tech augmented reality at various attractions makes the experience even greater. We are therefore pleased that we can start building our second park in Belgium. In addition to Ghent, we are looking forward to opening a third and fourth park in our country.”
Mathieu Renier, CEO of Sparkx
Not an exact copy of Hasselt
In addition to classic sports such as football, tennis and basketball, visitors to Sparkx can also discover other, special and spectacular sports, such as Formula 1 or paragliding, partly thanks to technology. However, Ghent will not be an exact copy of Hasselt. Almost half of the activities will be the same sports as in Hasselt, such as football, Formula 1 and parachuting. The other 25 sports are new to Belgium. The Hasselt location will also have an outdoor area of 600 m2 (compared to 4200 m2 indoors).
Mathieu Renier also explains that the Sparkx concept is still in full development: “We are the first in Europe to offer sportsainment on such an extensive scale. As a pioneer, you have to find out which activities are a success. In the meantime, we have already worn out various attractions in Hasselt that were less successful. These are then replaced by new sports. In this way, the centre is becoming better and more attractive. Incidentally, we are not only implementing these improvements in the attractions, but we are also looking at optimising the scoring system and the underlying software to measure and compare performance.”
Future plans
The ambitions are great. A global analysis of the market for sportainment has already been made, from which Europe and North America in particular emerged as promising regions. In Asia, for example, the development of Sportainment has already been further developed and larger chains are already active in the markets. A chain of Sparkx with 250 branches has been established as a point on the horizon. In the initial phase, Renier will mainly remain active in his home market. After Ghent, he sees opportunities to realise two more branches in Belgium. In the Netherlands, too, 'opportunities' are being looked at in the field of suitable real estate; preferably in the vicinity of a large city.
Throughout Europe, you see that Family Entertainment Centers (FEC) are on the rise. This makes sense because you can achieve economies of scale at these locations by bundling facilities. Sparkx is a special form of an FEC because this location focuses on sports activities. It is, as it were, a specialization within the FEC world. Visitors/participants arrive in sportswear. This can also be compared to fitness centers. Sparkx has the great advantage over fitness centers that the entertainment content is at a much higher level, which also makes it attractive for parties and group outings. Combined with an excellent healthy food service, Sparkx puts the fitness world at a great disadvantage. Visitors are happy to pay a higher entrance fee for this.
Explanation Pretwerk.nl
More information: www.sparkx.com