America’s fastest growing immersive play brand are bringing their experiential play products to the UK and want to expand their partnerships across the industry. It’s been a staggering 35 years since a real Kidults brand has been launched in the UK and GelBlaster is set to take the country by storm.
The brand has already inked a two-year partnership with Europe’s largest permanent paintball site OKPB in Cannock and GelBlaster have announced sponsorship of the European Pro paintball team. https://www.thelucky15s.co.uk/
The Lucky 15’s squad will form the backbone of the strategy to immediately build GelBlaster as a Play-Sport in the UK and become the world’s first Pro Gel Blaster team. GelBlaster have an additional 260 experiential and immersive play sites coming on board with structured game play and formats already in place and a UK wide network of clubs in each location.
OKPB hosted the first influencer event on 11th August with a group of 20 content creators and social influencers that was a huge success. They are now ready to roll, at speed with multiple content creator events and even partner away days with their retail partners and customer facing staff.
We have engaged with foam dart, laser tag, SplatBall, Airsoft and Paintball locations in the UK and shared the opportunity for GelBlaster to be a ‘feeder’ sport for Airsoft and Paintball. Even at point blank range GelBlaster impact is about the same as an elastic band pinging in the wrist which means the target market for the product is 14+ falling firmly into the Kidult category.
Steven May, Gel Blasters UK Country Manager said “There hasn’t been a Kidult brand launch in the UK for a staggering 35 years since a foam dart blaster was created for kids. The toy industry was crying out for something and with the dominance of social media we seized the moment. Our philosophy is to get kids out of their gaming chairs, away from their phones and tablets and playing video game type formats for real, in the real world. This really is a totally immersive experience and brings instant smiles to every player’s face, no matter what their age.”
Working with Ainsley and his Lucky 15’s team, we have developed game play formats that are based around a 30m x 15m GelBlaster inflatable or permanent arena so that we can immediately build a Sport from the ground up and create something that engages kidults outside, with movement, skill and exercise.
GelBlaster is a water based gellet blaster that blasts Gellets that are 93% water and 7% starch polymer. It breaks up upon impact and the Gellets evaporate within about 45 minutes leaving no stains, no mess to clear up after and they are eco-friendly, especially good for parents and indoor play sites. The range starts with Surge – handheld blaster, the Depot Hydration System and Electric Green Gellets in packs of 10,000 for just £6.99, that’s enough for an hours play for 4 people. In September we will have Orange and Blue gellets together with our glow-in-the-dark range called StarFire, a StarFire Surge handheld blaster, glow-in-the-dark StarFire Gellets and the rifle style XL Day n Night Blaster.
GelBlaster started life as a Crowdfunded product and grew from zero to $77 million in just 20 months. They created a huge social media presence by partnering with global Boxing legend Floyd Mayweather and then social influencer David Dobrick racking up over 2 billion views on their YouTube creator videos alone.
In the UK the brand had a staggering 92% brand/product awareness in it’s target consumer category of 8-18-year-old Kidults.
The brand has now established a firm foothold in the UK with retail partnerships with Argos, Currys, Toymaster, ToyTown, WHSmith and more. They are now looking to bring to life the GelBlaster experience across UK Theme Parks, family attractions, holiday parks and mobile play providers.