Weekend done right!

HYDERABAD:  If there is anything that keeps us driven through the week, it is the joy of having a weekend. The two magical days that momentarily breaks us free from the monotony of our daily errands and gives us some breathing space from our stifled lifestyles. We usually relate these mystic days with food and movies. With so many food joints mushrooming in the city, the gastronomical journey of foodie Hyderabadis is just getting bigger and better. Well, Telugites and movies are conjoint twins. However, Hyderabad has much more to offer us during the weekends and we are not talking about the standup comedy shows or concerts. Mountain biking, skateboarding, trampoline, laser tags and much more, which doubles up as both fun-inducing and calorie burning are taking over the #weekendscenes hashtags.
 
WallRide Park, Peeran Cheruvu, Chevalla Road:
An extreme sports park offering training to kids from the age of 5 to adults up to the age of 55, WallRide Park has a skatepark (first in the state) and a pumptrack (first in the country). They allow anything with wheels and no engine, including any type of cycling, skating and skateboarding. It is open from 3pm to 10 pm and is closed on Wednesdays

The pump track allows you to strengthen basic skills and subsequently move on to safely learn harder skills like jumps etc. One can nurture their basic skills in any sport involving wheels and not engine
Says its founder, Hamza, “Following the truth that India had nothing to offer in terms of infrastructure for mountain bikers and BMXers (a growing community in India), I set out to do something about it. As the idea grew and through forming a business plan it became clear that another lacking piece of infrastructure in Hyderabad was a skate park, considering there was an already passionate community of skateboarders in the city who practiced near an abandoned railway station at Lakdikapul. I contacted “Velosolutions’ From Switzerland, after a lot of research regarding the various trail building companies around the world, it seemed they we best suited to handle the job, and the same went for HolyStoked (Bangalore) for the skatepark.”

Construction of the park started in February, 2017. “I was helped in funding by my father who at first didn’t see it as a practical idea, but over time after being shown the community and the market gap, he agreed,” says Hamza on funding the venture.

Prior to getting into this business, Hamza was working with a real estate company, here in Hyderabad. “We have held multiple events in the park since the first year including the Red Bull Pump track World championship Qualifiers in India, which was the first time action sports in India was put on a world stage and riders contested for a week stay in Europe where they would compete with riders from 22 other countries,” says Hamza.The tariffs include, `150 per hour for entry, `100 per hour for BMX rental and `50 per hour for skateboard rental. WallRide Park also offers a monthly membership for `2,500 per month and personal training for `5,000.

Lazer Ops, City Centre Mall
Lazer Ops is a laser tag arena where players suit up in high-tech equipment and partake in a laser gun battle. Each player is given their own scorecard at the end of the game with detailed stats. “Lazer Ops was started in September 2012. It was born out of frustration at the lack of quality entertainment options in Hyderabad. I had played laser tag in other countries, and was surprised that we didn’t already have it in the city. After a ton of research on equipment and business models, I pproached some family members and convinced them to fund the first arena. After our huge initial success, we managed to get on board a business firm from Saudi Arabia to partner with us for further expansion,” says its founder, Zain Azam.A ton of corporate companies are hosted each week as these teams find Lazer Ops as the perfect team building activity.“We also play host to regular tournaments and have had as many as 20 teams (of 5 people each) competing,” says Zain.

“Our equipment was always the difference. We didn’t compromise on the quality and opted for equipment all the way from Holland. We can do free-for-all games, multi-team games, vampire mode (where one super-powered player plays against all the rest). We also have power-up games where players get special features in-game such as shields, invisibility and spy-mode (where your LED colours switch to opposition team’s!),” says Zain. “With flexible packages, Lazer Ops caters to every customer’s needs individually,” he adds. Pricing starts at `199 per person for 20 minutes. Lazer Ops is open all through the week from 10 am to 11 pm. 

“We are now going through a transition where we have developed our own in-house equipment to have more flexibility with our gaming options. The name will soon be changed from Lazer Ops to Laser Shooter. We are presently at two locations in Hyderabad - City Center Mall in Banjara Hills and Zonah Neptune Mall in Jubilee Hills. We are opening our third location in the city in Begumpet within the next couple of months which will be a forest themed arena. We plan on expanding to other cities this year and are also open to franchising and selling our equipment,” says Zain on the venture’s future expansion plans.

Sky Zone Trampoline Park, Gandipet:Sky Zone Hyderabad offers indoor trampoline experience. Touted to be  India’s first trampoline park, it opened on August 14, 2017 at Gandipet. The attractions include Freestyle Jump, Foam Zone, SkySlam, SkyLadder, SkyJoust, Ultimate Dodgeball, SkyLine, Warrior Course and Warped Wall.“It is the place that invented ‘fun fitness.’ The place where people of all ages can come and discover the adventure and excitement of ‘wall to wall’ fun. It is the place to go to have a blast with your friends, family and get one of the greatest work outs ever.

Sky Zone was voted the number one ‘Out of the box’ workout,” shares Ram Talluri, CEO of the LeadIt Group of Companies which started the venture. Planning to expand to seven to ten parks in next five to seven years, Skyzone is already setting up in one of the Asia’s biggest malls, Sharat City Mall, Kothaguda and ground work has started in Whitefield, Bengaluru and Chennai.Skyzone also organised special events such as birthday parties, group events for corporates and kid activities, supervised by their professionals.Tariffs range from `900 plus taxes for an hour to `1400 plus tax for two hours per person. Skyzone is open on weekdays from 12 noon to 8 pm and on weekends from 11 am to 9 pm. 
 purnima@newindianexpress.com @iyer_purnima