How to Plan a Corporate Field Day in Chicagoland

Planning a corporate field day or company picnic in the Chicago area works best when you start from your headcount and work backward. A team of 40 has very different needs than an all-hands of 400, and the number of attractions, the lane count on each obstacle course, and the staffing of your registration table all flex with that figure. We recommend booking four to six weeks out for summer Saturdays and at least two to three weeks out for a weekday outing, because June through August is our busiest stretch and the most popular competition units reserve first. A deposit reserves your date and the balance is simply due on delivery, so locking in early costs you nothing extra and protects your preferred timing.

Matching units to your crowd size

For mixed-age family days, pair a water slide or two with a combo unit so kids and parents have parallel zones. For an adults-heavy team-building bracket, lean into head-to-head interactive competition games — gladiator joust, wrecking ball, and last-man-standing reliably draw a crowd and create natural tournament heats. As a rough planning rule, a single high-throughput attraction keeps roughly 60 to 80 people engaged on a rotation, so a 300-person event typically runs four to five units plus a quieter zone. One coordinator manages delivery windows and timing across every unit, which keeps a multi-attraction footprint from becoming a logistics headache for your HR or events team.

Timing your day

Our standard rental is a 6-hour block, which comfortably covers a half-day program with lunch, an opening session, and an afternoon of competition. We deliver, set up, and tear down around your schedule, so the inflatables are live before your first guest arrives and gone by the time your venue closes.

Permits, Logistics & Weather for Chicago Company Events

Venue choice shapes almost every logistics decision for a Chicagoland corporate event. Many companies host on a park-district field, a forest-preserve grove, or a leased corporate campus lawn, and each carries its own paperwork. Most park districts and the forest preserves require a certificate of insurance naming them as additional insured before they will permit inflatables on their grounds; we are fully insured and provide that COI, with a $45 fee for the park-district or forest-preserve certificate. Build a little lead time into your permit application, since some preserve sites also cap vehicle access or require a reservation for the picnic grove itself. If you are using a hotel or banquet venue, ask their events manager early whether they need the COI on file too.

Power, surfaces, and anchoring

Grass sites are the simplest because units stake directly into the ground. On parking lots, plazas, or other hard surfaces — common at office-park outings — we use sandbag anchoring so the attractions stay secure without stakes. Many park and preserve locations have no nearby outlet, so we bring generators to keep blowers running all day; just let us know your power situation when you book and we will plan accordingly. Every unit arrives sanitized before the rental and is Illinois state-inspected, which matters when an HR team needs to vouch for safety to leadership.

Season and weather

Late May through September is prime corporate-event season here, and the warmest weeks book fastest. Chicago weather can turn, so we keep a flexible weather policy: if the forecast looks bad, call before 7am on your event day and you can reschedule, take a year-long credit, or get a refund. That flexibility lets you commit to a date without gambling your whole budget on the sky. With 15+ years in the market, 1,000+ five-star reviews, and a 4.9-star rating, we are a low-risk partner for a high-visibility company event. Explore the full lineup on our event rentals hub, then call and we will help you right-size the package to your headcount and venue.

Chicagoland’s go-to for corporate field day

Bounce Houses R Us has delivered clean, safe corporate field day across Chicago and the suburbs for 15+ years. Every unit is Illinois state-inspected, fully insured, and sanitized before every rental — with on-time delivery and a COI for any venue. Corporate Field Day start at $195 for a 6-hour rental.

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