playbus

26 | COACH & BUS WEEK | April 7, 2015 www.coachandbusweek.com

B ased in Whittlesey, Peterborough, Playbus is located at the same site as Decker Bus, the family business that it branches from. Playbus is the brainchild of Ben and his step dad,

and with the help of his family, Ben has nurtured the business to incredible success in less than two years.

Ben gave me a warm welcome, introducing me to his mother, Anthea Head who runs Decker Bus. The Decker Bus of�ice is located next to the garage with large windows allowing Anthea to keep an eye on all of the comings and goings in the yard. The sound of engineers working on various vehicles in the yard dipped in and out of our conversation as Ben outlined his business.

Family businessDecker Bus was founded in 2008 by Tony Head with his wife, Anthea, at the helm and started with three double-deckers. The business started in Lutton, moved to Whittlesey and has been built up from then on. The combination of Tony’s expertise with garage services and Anthea’s skills as Transport Manager has created a business that runs like clockwork.

The company now has a �leet of over 20 various vehicles including standard double-deckers and coaches for schools, colleges and private hire. There are also more unique vehicles such as the party bus used for proms and parties, the Pullman Diner which is a luxury vehicle with 21 leather seats and not to forget the sleeper buses which are mainly used by Tony who does band tours and music festivals where the passengers sleep on the road. The business is varied in the type of work it gets, from the everyday school contracts to the more fun side with celebratory events.

Another branch to the Decker Bus Group is A H Commercials which is the commercial garage

side. Tony deals centrally with the third-party services, MOTs, paint jobs and bus conversions.

Anthea explained how as long as everyone works together and has the same goals, then any business, family or otherwise, can work as well as Decker Bus does. Team effort and strong communication are vital.

Asked how the business has changed over the years Anthea replied: “We have learnt a lot and are wiser for it. Our goal isn’t to get big and brash – we want to get better every day by learning from yesterday. If we can do that and keep our standards as high as they are, then we will continue happily as we are.

“I would like to keep upgrading the �leet,

OPERATOR PROFILE › PLAYBUS

As a branch from the family company Decker Bus, Playbus is a business that doesn’t play around. Playbus Manager Ben Rooney explains to Jade Smith how the business has grown through its reputation and word-of-mouth advertising

ased in Whittlesey, Peterborough, As a branch from the family company Decker Bus, ased in Whittlesey, Peterborough,

child’s playchild’s playHardly

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which is what we’re currently doing with Tony’s buying and selling. I have considered going into wedding cars, but there’s too many people doing those. If we stay in what we know and stay away from doing things that lots of other people are doing then we should be fine.”

Playbus originsBen Rooney, the Manager of Playbus explained how the business had come about: “I’d always enjoyed driving from a young age. We had a lot of private land so I was driving cars when I was 12 years old, and as soon as I could go on the road I did.

“I’d always been around buses and coaches and it was one of those things where you’re helping out a lot so you start to take an interest. I was 18 when I passed my bus test with Stagecoach and after I’d got some driving experience with them I started doing tour work for Tony. I was given my own vehicle to look after, a tri-axle double-deck coach, and I spent most of my time in Europe with all sorts of people from OAPs, school trips and stag/hen dos. It was the variety I liked.

“Two and a half years ago we started looking

around for different ideas and the Playbuses came up. We saw them on the internet so we started looking about and found one semi-converted double-decker. We bought that, brought it back to the yard, ripped it apart, painted it and put it on the road as a part-time business experiment. Then it took over our lives – it exploded practically overnight.”

Ben still helps out with the morning school runs, but once he returns to the office at 0930hrs his time is dedicated to Playbus. He does quotes, maintenance, cleaning and preparation. Weekends and school holidays are his busiest times.

“We can do up to four parties per day per vehicle – with eight being the maximum we can do in a day with both vehicles,” Ben explained.

“Through the week we do after school parties pretty much every day. Monday is my weekend, so we don’t book anything for Mondays. Every Saturday and Sunday is at least two parties. We do a mid-morning start and afternoon start. A two hour party takes us three or four hours, sometimes five hours depending on where it is. By the time it’s prepped, gone out and done the party, come back and cleaned it soon takes up the day.

“Our parties are very cost-effective, starting at £145 for a two-hour local party for 12 children with drinks, popcorn, candy floss and party bags included or the parents can hire the Playbus and provide their own party bags, drinks and snacks for up to 30 children for a two-hour party for the same price. It depends on how stress-free they want it to be.

“It’s surprising what some people will spend

on a birthday party – we’ve rolled up and there’s been so much more with it. I did a wedding last summer and she said she wanted a fairground theme so she had the slide and the bouncy castle with the bus. When we got there she literally had a fairground. There were bumper cars and everything.

“When we’re travelling outside of the 20-mile radius around Peterborough we charge the party price and add a bit more for the wages and fuel just to cover costs. We’re not in it to be greedy – but it’s a business so we’ve got to make money. It’s a fun job which is the main thing.

“I have the benefit that my parents have a set-up of buses and coaches, so I can get the vehicles in and do my own basic refurbishing and painting. I’ve got undercover storage where I can work on them even in the rain. My parents help me with everything, but I do it with them because next time I’ll know how to do it myself. For example, with repairs on bodywork I do all of that myself now apart from getting the parts in and then Tony will paint it for me.

“Tony is well-known in the industry for his maintenance. We’ve been on the side of the

motorway changing windscreens in less than 10 minutes, just to keep things going. I wouldn’t be able to do all this without my parents and the support from the rest of my family.”

FleetThe company now runs two Playbuses, as well as the vans that carry the bouncy castles, slides and quad bikes. The double-decker Playbus is a 1989 Leyland Olympian which Ben purchased from eBay.

Ben enthused: “It came from near Heathrow – Tony and I drove down one Friday night just to take a look at it. We ended up driving home in it!”

The double-decker has a Duoflex driver’s seat but doesn’t have any passenger seats, so the van is used to transport the staff. Ben tries to do parties by himself in order to save on fuel and staff costs.

The other vehicle is a 1999 Neoplan Transliner coach. It started its life as a 53-seater executive coach with a toilet and coffee machine before Ben gutted it completely. Originally a rusty orange, it’s now the Playbus bright green and covered in vinyl pictures of various children’s characters. Two seats have been left in so staff members can travel in the coach, which saves on fuel costs.

Ben took up the story: “The double-decker is an absolute dream. It does 55mph with or without the trailer. I’ve done thousands of miles in them now and it’s the same with any vehicle – you look after it and it’ll look after you. They’re a good couple of vehicles and they’ve yet to let me down.

“The vehicles have now been converted and have soft play interiors, which is foam covered in PVC material for easy cleaning. There are climbing frames, swings, slides and ball pits for the children to play with. We converted the coach’s luggage space into a ball pit. There are LED lights down there, but lots of kids prefer the pit to be dark.

“We bought all of the individual materials from soft play manufacturers. For somebody to come in and do a conversion like that for us it would have cost anything from £10,000-15,000 up to £50,000, depending on what you want to do. Ours have still cost a huge amount of money because of what we’ve put in them – they have air-conditioning so the kids don’t get too hot and CCTV so parents can keep an eye on them. They have fridges, disco gear, computers, Nintendo Wii consoles – we just try and put as much variation in there as possible. We do parties for children aged two to 10 years old and kids at either end of the spectrum won’t want to do the same things.

“When we were doing the conversion on the coach we set a deadline for it by booking

‘Weddings, Christenings, Fun Days, school fetes, nurseries – I’ll do a funeral if someone asks me to! We’ll do anything, we’re open to suggestions and we’ll price

up whatever suggestions we get’

The two-year-old Playbus business is thriving. JADE SMITH

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parties, so it had to be done in time. At first we had four months to get it done, but it was literally from scratch. We had to gut it, do the conversion, paint it, insure everything and finally get it out on the road. The week before the launch day we were here until midnight and then came back at 0600hrs – it was so busy, but my family was here and anybody who was free helped out. The launch day of the Neoplan was a Fun Day in Peterborough. We were driving it there with people still working inside, that’s how tight it was. It was a challenge, but it was fun and everyone was still smiling at the end.”

Types of workPlaybus’ main line of work is children’s birthday parties. The business started by doing parties local to Whittlesey, parking on a private driveway or outside the child’s house. Now the business is travelling all over the country doing Fun Days, charity days and work with councils and RAF bases. The idea took off very well and now Ben books in a lot of advance work – there are no weekend spaces until August with bookings as far ahead as April 2016. Ben hates to disappoint people, but encourages them to book well in advance – one lady has booked for her son’s birthday next year.

“Weddings, Christenings, Fun Days, school fetes, nurseries – I’ll do a funeral if someone asks me to!” Ben joked. “We’ll do anything, we’re open to suggestions and we’ll price up whatever suggestions we get.”

Weddings are in high demand because Playbus keeps the children entertained while the adults are doing the speeches. A standard birthday party lasts two hours but at weddings the Playbus can be booked for four or five hours at a time.

Music festivals are another source of business – one has made a booking this year from midday to 2200hrs.

In terms of location the business is starting to branch out quite far. Ben continued: “We’re in high demand in London at the moment. There’s a wedding in Norwich that we’re going to in a couple of weeks – we’ve also done parties in Derby, and we’ve been down on the south coast.

“Big companies will pay us to turn up and let the kids play for free all day, so we can plan out the budget. Other days we will only charge a minimal charge to cover fuel and then we’ll charge the kids ourselves for £1 a go which is quite a big risk for us. It can be a whole day out for two or three of us, but we’ve never lost out yet – we’ve broken even a few times. Even the ones we break even on we get a few more parties from. Down the line we never really lose out.”

PlanningForward planning is a key part of the business. A lot of residential streets aren’t designed for a double-decker, so Ben has to research the area beforehand in order to check access. He asks customers if the dustbin lorry goes past their house – if the lorry can, a double-decker can. Dead end roads are another issue with ensuring the bus can back out again. Neighbours can be a problem as well with making sure they aren’t blocked in.

Ben provided an example: “When we go

somewhere like Cardea, the new estate in Peterborough, the deeper you go in the narrower the streets get. Our usual trick of seeing where the dustbin lorry goes doesn’t always work where they’ve started doing smaller, Transit-sized ones. With most of the smaller villages I’ll go out there in the car just to eye it all up myself. We never want to turn up to a party and get stuck with the roads.

“People will say that they know the vehicle will fit on the drive, but they’re not sure if it’ll get through the gate. I ask what size their husband’s feet are. If he’s a size nine and he can get nine footsteps across then I know I’ll fit.

“As long as we’re not blocking the road most neighbours are happy with us being there for a couple of hours, especially when they know it’s a children’s party.”

Dealing with traffic is a natural problem of the job. For a party in London that starts at 1600hrs Ben leaves Whittlesey at 10-1100hrs, despite the fact that the journey should in reality take only a couple of hours. He said he’d rather be sitting outside someone’s house two or three hours early than trying to get there with 10 minutes to spare.

Finding an electric point can also be problematic. The vehicles need to be hooked up to an electrical source for the various

machines and lights, but if Ben can’t get close to someone’s house he puts a trailer on the back that carries the generators, which can make access even more difficult.

Ben explained: “Anthea had booked me in for a party in Brixton. I went into Google Streetview to see where I was going and it was the tiniest dead-end road and then she said I needed the trailer on for the generator. Luckily, it went in, so it would come out – that’s my motto. I got there and it was fine, the people were lovely. I couldn’t get out without taking the trailer off and pushing it down the road, but they even helped me do that. Quite a lot of people will help you like that once you’ve done your bit which is great.

“We’ve turned up once and the lady misunderstood us about the power situation. She’d booked a community hall but just the car park of it. I pulled up and couldn’t plug into anything. There was a pub literally 50 yards down the road so I had a word with them and we moved everything down there. We aim to get to a party at least 15 minutes before it’s due to start as it only takes us five minutes to set up. So we only ran 10 minutes late once we moved to the pub, but as it wasn’t the kids fault we finished 10 minutes late as well. At the end of the day it’s the kids that get let down if anything

The three main vehicles of the Playbus business. JADE SMITH

Ben Rooney, Manager of Playbus with the company’s Ford Transit minibus. JADE SMITH

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goes wrong, which is not what we want.”As Playbus is a young business Ben tries to cut

costs wherever he can. The party bags are made up individually by the family rather than buying pre-made ones which can cost £3 per bag. By buying in bulk 3,000 items at a time, such as colouring books and sweets, Ben can reduce that cost to £1 per bag. With two parties a day with at least 12 children at a time, the savings soon add up.

Ben added: “We’re not even two years old yet so we are still a new business and there are a lot of outgoings – maintenance and insurance are a massive part of our costs, which is why we try and do as much as possible ourselves before we try and get anyone in to do it for us. We’ll save every penny we can which is why we can go out so cheap. There are other Playbuses around the country but they tend to not even start the engines for less than a couple of

hundred pounds. They’re probably only out on the weekends and a couple of times a week due to their prices. We would rather be as cheap as we can and be out all the time. It keeps everyone happy and keeps the money turning.”

StaffAnother way Ben saves money is by doing as much of the work in the business as he can. The business is currently funding itself, but it still needs to find its feet and has had some financial support from Tony and Anthea.

“While there’s still bills to be paid and money to be paid back, I’ll do as much work as I can myself to save on wage costs,” Ben said.

“In time we’ll have a team of people and they’ll be working full-time so I can take a step back, but at the moment I enjoy doing it all.

“I wouldn’t ask somebody to do something if I wouldn’t do it myself – that’s how my parents

have brought me up because they’re the same. Tony mucks in with the lads in the garage, Anthea sits in the office and runs it with the girls and I go out on the parties, do the cleaning – everything that the rest of the lads would do, I do.

“It’s not a job for everybody so we have to be very picky with who works for us. There are only two drivers we use for Playbus, one frequently and one as a backup. Both Playbus drivers are CRB cleared and First Aid trained. Driving the bus is the easy part – we need people who are okay with kids and they need a lot of patience. I won’t just throw anybody at it because Playbus is all about reputation and I wouldn’t want anything bad to be said about the company.”

AdvertisingPlaybus relies on self-generated advertising to get its name out. The vehicles themselves are an effective advert with their bright colours and contact information on the sides. Simply driving around can generate interest, as Ben recalled: “I’ll drive down the motorway and people will pull up beside me and take pictures.

“One time I was going down to Stevenage for a party one morning. I was really early so I’d pulled up in a lay-by to do some odd jobs – I had people calling me saying they saw me in the lay-by asking for more information.”

Word-of-mouth is another way Ben gets his business known. Ben explained: “When we first started it was quite a unique business and people were wary about what it was, but after a few people had seen it things picked up.

“Our biggest advertisement is word-of-mouth because with kids parties the parents are the advertising. With anything to do with kids you only need one bad comment thrown around by one person and you’ve then lost another 10-20 people to get work from. We have quite a high reputation now, within two years a lot of people now know us. The birthday parties give other people ideas, for example a nursery school teacher may see us and think we’re a good idea for her school.

“A lot of the travelling ties in with that, where a party that’s happened in Peterborough might have a family member visiting from London who then wants to book us. It takes the idea to their area. It’s a knock-on effect.

“We do a lot of repeat work – we’ve done four or five parties for one child before, or for the siblings of one child. There’s a family in Derby that we’ve been up to three times now. The first time was a christening and we went up with the bus, the second and third times were birthday parties for each of the kids – we took the coach up the last time to give them some variety and we took the bouncy castle and slide up for free just to say thank you.

“The running costs of the vehicles are the main charge – buses and coaches don’t do many miles to the gallon! We try and throw as much in as we can to make it cost-effective for a party.”

Perks and challenges Such a business must have some unique perks and challenges that come with it. Asked what

‘There are other Playbuses around the country but they tend to not even start the engines for less than a couple of hundred pounds’

The soft play interiors of the Playbuses are colourful and attractive to children. JADE SMITH

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his favourite aspect of the business was, Ben replied: “All of it! I’ve eaten so much birthday cake you wouldn’t believe.”

Ben’s favourite day so far was the Stanground Fun Day which took place in the Peterborough suburb of that name. It was a Playbus Fun Day which turned out to be more time-consuming and complicated than first imagined.

Ben took over the story: “You’d think that getting a few buses and bouncy castles into a field would be an easy set-up, but it turned into its own project. It was a brilliant day but very demanding – a lot went into it. Obviously, we’ve got our own Playbuses and inflatables yet we still spent a four-figure sum on setting everything up.

“A lot of the Decker Bus vehicles were out that day – the fish and chip shop bus, Luxury Diner, Sleeper buses – all the novelty and entertainment vehicles. We were using them as stations, for instance the Partybus had staff with a drinks license so that was serving alcohol. The Sleeper bus was a First Aid and Lost and Found hub.

“It was enjoyable and we’ve gone for it again this year on August 1. We’ve learnt from the mistakes we made last year for example, the Partybus was cleaned out while it was there and then it went off on a job that night, whereas we know this year nothing is going out the night of the Fun Day and the next day we’re all having off!

“The event was busy all day – we must have had thousands of people turn up. We turned up at 0700hrs to set everything up and the event itself ran from 13-1800hrs.

“Some of the fairs you see charge £2-5 for a go on each ride. We try to do £1 a go for everything. The way we see it is the kids will stay for longer, we’ll still get £2-3 from that child but they’ll get to do more things. The parents can see it’s a better day out and we’re getting a good reputation for providing relatively cheap entertainment. Fun Days are good advertising for us.”

Asked what his least favourite day has been, Ben struggled for an answer. He emphasised that this was a job he loved.

“The worst we’ve had is not getting quite as near to the house as we want to or a generator not working, but they’re quick fixes,” Ben answered. “If the generator runs out of fuel

I’ll get some delivered or we’ll find some electric to tap into, but it’ll never stop us. Both Playbuses are fitted with power inverters so if the generator goes we can leave the engine on until the power situation is sorted. There’s not a lot that’ll stop us and if there is we’ll find a way around it.

“This is a job where you have to love children – thankfully I do! If you keep them busy then they’re happy. The kids go wild – and you just get in and go bonkers with them for two hours.”

The futureSo what plans are there for Playbus in the

future? Ben is optimistic, rightly so. He plans to branch out and have Playbuses dotted all over the country. Of course, there are other playbuses around but he’d like to go to areas where there aren’t any. That would allow him to charge better rates for those areas – at the moment a party in London or Brighton can go up to £400, but once a vehicle is based in that area the price could be reduced to around £150.

Ben continued: “We started out with one double-decker as a part-time weekend project and now it’s a thriving business

that’s changed my whole

focus but the bottom line is I wouldn’t have done it without the support of my family.

“That’s what’s keeping it going – I wouldn’t be able to cope without my mum and sister in the office and my dad helping me out. He’s chased me down the motorway to bring me batteries before. Then while we were doing the party he got the pieces we needed to fix the bus, came back and fixed it underneath while we were working ready for the off again. It’s all about teamwork here.”

Asked for any advice he would give to anyone wanting to start a similar business Ben replied: “You need to be bonkers!

“With any kids, you’ll get some that get their own way with everything, and you’ll get those that are grateful for anything. You need to be able to meet in the middle to please everybody.

“It’s very challenging sometimes and very easy-going other times – we do such a variety of things so we just learn to get on with it. Anthea went somewhere one weekend and there was no way of getting in because of how low the trees were.

“The party organisers got on the roof of the bus with their saws and started chopping the trees out of the way – mum could hear the little footsteps on the roof and was directing them were they needed to chop more branches down.

“They were just being so helpful because they wanted the party. It’s all for the kids. I’ve got kids and would never want them to be let down like that – that’s how I see it for everyone else’s kids, I wouldn’t want to be the one to let them down.” n

Each vehicle has a sound system and devices for party food. JADE SMITH

‘We started out with one double-decker as a part-time weekend project and now it’s a thriving business that’s

changed my whole focus but the bottom line is I wouldn’t have done it without the support of my family’

The double-decker is equipped with CCTV. JADE SMITH

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