About Us

Welcome

Our story

Wannabees was founded in 2011 by a young couple of Colombian entrepreneurs who wanted to keep their kids entertained with a very limited number of options available in the Australian market.

It was originally setup as an Indoor Play Centre over a 1,200 sqm space in Frenchs Forest and a few years later a second venue was open at Westfield Hornsby.

The idea was to create a fully functional city for kids where they could make believe and pretend, they have a job just like mum or dad.

Wannabees featured Police and Fire Stations, Hospital, Tv Studio, Restaurant, Bank, Post Office, Supermarket, Vet Clinic, Fashion Shop, Radio Station, Gym, School, Beauty Salon among other iconic shops in a real city. Every shop was fitted out with real look like equipment, so the kids could pretend they were doctors, police officers, dancers, fashionistas, etc.

There were structured activities like putting a pretend fire out, a fashion parade on a laser lit concert stage or an interactive session in the radio and tv studio where they could fly, swim with sharks, pat lions or interview celebrities.

Every activity was created with the aim to help increase the social, motor, linguistic and emotional skills of kids visiting Wannabees Family Play Town like it was originally named.

Parents had the opportunity to bring the kids for a play or for organised Kids Birthday Parties. Several school groups visited the Wannabees Play Town for Educational Primary School Excursions too.

Before and After School Care for primary school kids was also offered and several shopping centre activations were also organised with the Wannabees Pop Up City, which is a smaller version of the real one.

A Few Words

From the creators

Setting up and running Wannabees for a decade has been the most emotionally rewarding experience of our lives.

Wannabees is all about social interaction and fun. Unfortunately, due to the circumstances surrounding social distancing, our business model was no longer viable and we had to permanently close down both Wannabees venues.

It was an amazing ride for our customers, all our staff and our family. We’ve had the best memories and we trust that the Wannabees brand will remain in all kids’ hearts too.

We’re aware of the benefits that role play brings to the social and emotional development of kids because we have experienced it first-hand with our two own daughters. So we have decided to keep the Wannabees Pop Up city functioning for activations in shopping centres, and Primary School Incursions in Sydney.

Because of our decade long experience running Primary School Excursions, we’ve also developed several Primary School Incursion educational programs around our concept.

We love working with kids and keeping the old-fashioned role play alive and available to all schools in the greater Sydney area