It’s not hard to find a rental company around Springfield. If you look hard enough you’ll find all sorts of companies from those on Facebook marketplace to those like Jumping Jacks with a full site and online booking system. Each kind has their place in the market. We want encourage you to choose wisely. In this article, we’d like to outline some key differences in some of these companies.
1. Are they licensed and insured?
Not all events require require a company to be licensed and insured. If nothing goes wrong, you’ll be in the clear and never know the difference. However, if a company is licensed and insured, they do everything they can to comply with state and local regulations to ensure you have the safest event possible. If you choose to rent from someone without insurance, you may check with your homeowners insurance to see if they’ll cover.
2. What quality of attractions do they have?
Missouri doesn’t have very many regulations on what is ok to rent. So many companies will buy the residential nylon inflatables and rent those out at a fraction of the price. Generally, if a bounce house is less than $100 you may be getting a residential use inflatable. These aren’t necessarily bad, however, they are not as large as the commercial inflatables you see at church and school events, which may loose some of the wow factor you may be going for.
3. Who is installing the attraction?
Some of the lower cost rentals require you to pick up and return. As their customer, you will be responsible for the safe installation of the inflatable. Installing an inflatable is not hard, but if done incorrectly could lead to improper inflation and possibly injury.
Other companies like Jumping Jacks provide trained employees to professionally install inflatables so you don’t have to worry about risks of injury during your party. What’s better, is you don’t have to have a truck or a second (or in some cases third) person to help load and unload a heavy and back breaking inflatable.
4. How long can you keep the rental?
This can vary from company to company. Some allow for 24 hour rentals, while others offer 3 and 8 hour rentals. Jumping Jacks is happy to be the only provider that allows you to keep your rentals all weekend long. When you have it that long, the price doesn’t seem so bad and your kids will have an opportunity to play every day of the weekend.
5. Is A deposit required?
Love them or hate them deposits are a popular tool in the rental industry. Most companies charge various deposits from $25 to 50% and most don’t refund that deposit. It’s a way of securing your rental due to opportunity loss if you choose to cancel and they don’t have time to rent that unit to another family or event. It’s very common and very understandable from a business side of things.
Jumping Jacks is the only company in the area that offers No-Deposit rentals. This means 2 things:
- First, we ONLY need a signed contract to confirm your rental. This signature ensures that we’ll show up and that you’ll let us know before the morning of delivery if you need to cancel.
- Second, if you need to cancel and you paid any amount for your reservation, let us know before the morning of your rental and we’ll refund any amount you’ve paid.
This allows you to plan your event without fear of loosing money if weather is bad or you have a situation come up out of your control. It allows us to stay in communication about your event and spend as little on man hours as possible so we can continue offering this service.
6. Are the inflatables clean and well maintained?
Most companies in our area take good care of their equipment and clean them on a regular bases. Most of the time, you won’t know how good the equipment is till it is set up in your yard. One way you may be able to tell a quality company is checking their google reviews. People will be honest, especially when they get a bad review.
