The play area KPI glossary
The handful of numbers a play area actually runs on, what each one means, the formula behind it and how to read its trend. Each entry opens with a one-sentence definition, so the page works as a glossary you can link to term by term and argue with a spreadsheet in front of you.
How to use this glossary
A KPI, a key performance indicator, is a number that tells you something honest about how your venue is doing. On a play area floor there are only a handful worth watching closely, and each answers a plain question: how full is it, how long do children stay, how much does a visit bring in, how much of what you sold gets used, and what your people cost against what you take.
Each entry below opens with a one-sentence definition, gives the formula where there is one, and says how to read the number. Terms that are not measures, such as overstay itself or a multi-visit pass, are defined in the main glossary; this page is for the numbers.
Occupancy
Occupancy is the number of children on your play floor at a given moment, or on average across a period, measured against the capacity you have set for that floor.
Formula. Live occupancy = children currently on the floor ÷ capacity. Average occupancy over a period = child-hours served ÷ (capacity × hours open).
How to read it. Watch it live during a session to keep the floor safe and comfortable, and watch its trend across days and hours to learn your real rhythm: which mornings are quiet, which afternoons fill up. Rising occupancy at your busy times is a signal about pricing and capacity; a persistent lull is a signal about promotion. Every venue's comfortable level is its own, and the shape of your week matters more than any single reading. The capacity management guide covers how to arrive at the capacity figure in the denominator, and occupancy and capacity shows the live count in context.
Average session length
Average session length is the mean time a child spends on the floor, from the moment their play timer starts to the moment it ends, across all sessions in a period.
Formula. Average session length = total minutes of all sessions in the period ÷ number of sessions.
How to read it. Session length tells you how your pricing and packages actually play out on the floor. If children leave well before the time they paid for, a shorter and slightly cheaper session may feel fairer and free your floor; if the average drifts up, your turns per day fall. Read the direction of travel rather than a fixed target, and read it alongside the session pricing method. Note that this is measured stay, not paid time: the two diverge, and the gap between them is where your extension policy and your desk habits show up.
Overstay rate
Overstay rate is the share of sessions in a period that ran past the time the family paid for.
Formula. Overstay rate = sessions that ran past their paid time ÷ all sessions in the period.
How to read it. A little overstay is part of running a warm, unhurried venue. A lot of it, consistently, is floor time you gave away, and it is worth pricing: overstay minutes multiplied by your revenue per child-hour is a real number that usually surprises the owner who calculates it for the first time. The rate over time tells you whether your time-up prompts and your desk habits keep sessions roughly to plan, and whether paid extensions are being offered when they should be. The overstay and extensions guide covers the conversation at the gate.
Turns per day
Turns per day is the number of times your floor refills in a trading day: opening hours divided by session length, discounted for the gaps between sessions.
Formula. Turns per day = (opening hours ÷ session length) × a turnover factor below one that allows for gaps and overlap.
How to read it. Multiply turns by capacity and you have the most child-visits a day can hold, which is the ceiling under every pricing decision. A venue that sells long sessions turns slowly and needs a higher price per visit; a venue that turns fast can price lower per visit and still take more in a day. Measure your real turnover factor from a few weeks of timer data rather than assuming it, and remeasure it after any change to session length. The venue capacity planner runs the arithmetic on your own opening hours.
Cost per child-hour
Cost per child-hour is what it costs you to have one child on the floor for one hour: monthly fixed costs divided by the child-hours you realistically sell, plus the variable cost of serving one child for an hour.
Formula. Cost per child-hour = (monthly fixed costs ÷ child-hours realistically sold in the month) + variable cost per child-hour.
How to read it. This is the floor under every session price: the cost multiplied by the session length is what a session costs you before margin. It falls as utilisation rises, because the fixed costs spread across more child-hours, which is why a quiet month makes every session dearer to serve. Recalculate it whenever rent, staffing or opening hours change. The session pricing guide walks through the calculation and the break-even calculator runs it.
Revenue per child
Revenue per child is your takings over a period divided by the number of children admitted in that period.
Formula. Revenue per child = total takings in the period ÷ children admitted in the period.
How to read it. This is one of the clearest signals of whether the extras around play, a snack, a pass, a party, a redeemed voucher, are adding up, or whether you are only ever selling the entry. Watching it move as you change your menu or your packages tells you what is landing. Split it by category before you act on it: a rise driven by parties says something quite different from a rise driven by the café. Compare it with your own past, not with anyone else's venue, and use the revenue per visitor calculator to do the split.
Party attach rate
Party attach rate is the share of your visits, or your customers, that also become a party booking over a period.
Formula. Party attach rate = party bookings in the period ÷ visits (or distinct customers) in the period.
How to read it. Parties are usually a venue's highest-value moments, so knowing how often ordinary visits convert into them tells you whether the booking is easy to reach and worth reaching for. Pick one denominator, visits or customers, and stay with it, because the two produce very different-looking rates from the same trade. If the rate climbs after you change a package or start mentioning parties at the desk, that change is working. The party pricing guide covers the package families are converting to.
Pass utilisation
Pass utilisation is the share of the visits sold on multi-visit passes that families have actually come back and used.
Formula. Pass utilisation = visits punched ÷ visits sold on passes, over the passes issued in a period or currently live.
How to read it. A pass is money taken today for visits owed later. High utilisation means families are returning and the pass is building a habit; low utilisation may mean the pass is too generous, too hard to remember, or simply not landing. Read the pattern over time rather than any single figure, and remember that every unpunched visit is a service you still owe. The passes and memberships guide covers pass design and the deferred-revenue caution, and the membership ROI calculator puts a utilisation figure through the pricing arithmetic.
Loyalty redemption
Loyalty redemption is the rate at which loyalty stamps that were earned are later redeemed for their reward.
Formula. Loyalty redemption = rewards redeemed ÷ rewards earned in the period.
How to read it. Stamps earned tell you how many visits are being rewarded; stamps redeemed tell you whether the reward is actually pulling families back. A scheme where stamps pile up but rarely turn into a redemption is decoration rather than loyalty, and usually means the reward is too far away or too small to walk back for. Watch both sides move over time.
No-show rate
No-show rate is the share of booked parties in a period that never turned up.
Formula. No-show rate = booked parties that did not arrive ÷ all booked parties in the period.
How to read it. No-shows cost you a slot you could have given someone else, plus the prep you put in. The rate over time tells you whether your deposits and your reminders are doing their job; the two levers are the deposit, which makes walking away expensive, and the reminder, which makes forgetting hard. If it falls after you tighten one of them, you have your answer. Judge it against the direction yours is heading rather than any published figure, and read the party pricing guide for the deposit side.
Labour cost percentage
Labour cost percentage is your wage cost across a period expressed as a share of the revenue you took in the same period.
Formula. Labour cost percentage = total wage cost in the period ÷ total revenue in the period × 100.
To take the same wage cost down to an hour or a child-hour instead of a month, use the staff cost calculator.
How to read it. This is the number that keeps a good day from quietly costing you money. It rises when you are overstaffed for the traffic and falls when a shift is tightly matched to a busy floor, so reading it alongside occupancy is what makes it useful. Read it by day of the week rather than by month: a healthy monthly figure routinely hides a Tuesday that loses money and a Saturday that carries it. The aim is not a magic percentage; it is understanding your own pattern well enough to roster against it, which is a decision you make next week rather than a number you read afterwards.
Reading them together
No single one of these numbers runs a venue; they make sense as a set. Occupancy, session length, overstay and turns describe the floor; cost per child-hour, revenue per child, party attach, pass utilisation and loyalty describe what a visit costs and what it is worth; no-show and labour cost describe what leaks away. Read together, they tell you where a quiet week actually came from: thin traffic, weak extras, or a shift that cost more than it earned.
Pick the metric that matches the decision in front of you, learn its normal over a few weeks, and improve against your own baseline. What makes that possible is having the underlying activity recorded once, as it happens: PlayAreaOS puts timers, POS sales, bookings, passes, loyalty, rota and payroll on one set of records, keeps the live figures on dashboard tiles and per-module reports, and exports the sales figures to CSV for the weeks you would rather work them in a spreadsheet. For the terms behind the numbers, the glossary defines each one.
Questions
Can a small team actually learn this?
Yes, because most of these numbers are a by-product of serving families rather than a job of their own. A desk that starts a timer, rings the sale and closes the shift has already produced occupancy, sessions, minutes and takings without anybody counting anything. The reading is the skill, and it takes about ten minutes a morning.
What is a good occupancy rate?
There isn't a single right answer. A healthy occupancy depends on your space, your pricing and your market, so the level that means full and happy for one venue can mean overcrowded or quiet for another. What matters is your own trend: watch how today compares with your normal, and whether the changes you make move it the way you want.
Can I bring the history I already have into PlayAreaOS?
Your customer and product lists come across from a CSV export of your old POS or spreadsheets, and your opening positions for stock, finance and payroll go in on the day you move, so the trend starts from real figures rather than zero. Keep your old reports for the seasons before the move; a baseline you can still read is worth having. The switching guide covers the steps.
Which number should I watch first?
Start with the one tied to the decision in front of you. If you are worried about crowding or safety, watch occupancy and overstay. If you are weighing prices or staffing, watch revenue per child and labour cost. Pick one, learn what is normal for your venue over a few weeks, then add the next.