The ‘World’s Largest Bounce House’ Is Touring America
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair.
2017 has been a year of extreme achievements: we’ve already seen records set for the largest baking soda-and-vinegar volcano, the biggest pink flamingo collection, and the most populous skinny dip. Now, into the annals of Hugest and Greatest has swelled the “Big Bounce,” aka “The World’s Biggest Bounce House,” an inflatable behemoth that is currently touring the United States and putting everything into perspective.
At 10,000 square feet, and made up of 5 separate sections that must be jigsawed together, the Big Bounce is at once the Godzilla and the Frankenstein’s Monster of bounce houses. According to WISN, it was created by “two guys from Scotland,” Craig and Grahme Furgeson. A few years ago, the Furgesons took it upon themselves to design the largest jumpable monstrosity they could. This year, with the help of a factory in Cleveland, they were finally able to build it.
Bounce houses have been around since the 1950s, when a plastics engineer named John Scurlock started working on inflatable covers for tennis courts, and discovered that his employees liked jumping on them in the off hours.
He quickly repurposed his design into a kind of two-dimensional bouncy runway for kids, which he called a “Space Walk.” In the decades since, different manufacturers have taken this basic idea and added walls, ceilings, turrets, slides, and other accessories.
Pictures and videos of the Big Bounce show a truly large bounce house—more of a bounce fiefdom, really—complete with basketball hoops, an obstacle course, an “inflatable forest,” and miniature bounce houses within the bounce house. According to WISN, it takes 28 blowers to inflate the thing.
Don’t be intimidated, though. “The Big Bounce experience can be as high energy or as low energy as you want,” the Big Bounce FAQ promises. In other words, you can bounce, or simply marvel in terror.
Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that’s only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.
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