Three weeks from Saturday we will be on the Florida Gulf Coast University campus for Princesses vs. Superheroes as presenting sponsor, with our interactive sports inflatables. Gabe wrote about this event when we signed on, so I am not going to repeat all of it. What I want to do is put the current logistics in one place, because a few details have firmed up since then, and then talk about the thing organizers actually ask us on the phone.
The details as the organizers have them posted
- Date and time: Saturday, September 12, 2026, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- Location: The FGCU Water School, on the main campus in Fort Myers
- Who runs it: The FGCU Student Occupational Therapy Association, working with GIDDI
- What it funds: Adaptive Sports Day
- Our part: SWFL Amusements is presenting sponsor and is providing the interactive sports inflatables
- Tickets: $10 per person presale, $15 per person at the door, through the organizers Venmo account. Put the attendee name in the payment title.
- Required paperwork: A parent liability waiver and photo release. It is a separate form and it is not optional.
- Parking: Free event parking in FGCU Parking Garage 1 and Parking Lot 8. Free visitor event parking permits are available through FGCU Parking Services.
All of that is on the organizers link page, and that page is the version I would trust over anything I write here. If you are going, open it before you leave the house.
One thing worth saying plainly: when we first wrote about this event, the location on hand was the Library Lawn. The organizers currently list the Water School. Campus events move, and this one appears to have. Check the location link the morning of rather than driving to where it was last year.
The parking permit is the part people miss
I have set up on enough university and school campuses to know exactly where a Saturday morning goes sideways, and it is almost never the event. It is the forty minutes beforehand.
FGCU is a big campus with enforced lots. The organizers did the work of arranging free parking in Garage 1 and Lot 8 and getting a visitor permit process in place. Use it. Pull the permit the night before, not in the garage with two kids in costume in the back seat and no cell signal on level three.
Ten a.m. to one p.m. in September also means you are on campus through the warmest part of a Southwest Florida morning. Costumes plus midday sun plus a walk from the garage is a real thing. Water bottles, and park closer than you think you need to.
Why this event is on a campus and not at a park
Here is a question we get constantly, and the answer surprises people, so I am going to put it in writing.
The City of Cape Coral does not allow commercial rental companies to set up inflatables in city parks. Not with a pavilion reservation, not for a birthday, not for a nonprofit. That is the rule, and it means a whole category of event that people assume is available simply is not.
So where does everything actually happen? Private ground with an owner who can say yes. In practice that is:
- University and college campuses, like this one
- Church campuses and their parking lots
- School grounds, through the school or the booster club
- HOA common areas and clubhouse grounds
- Business lots, for grand openings and employee family days
- Private yards and driveways, which is still the bulk of what we do
If you are a volunteer organizer and you have been trying to make a public park work, stop spending time on it and go find a property owner instead. That single redirect saves more calendars than any other advice I give.
What we need from you to give a straight answer
I lay out property lines for a living, so my instinct with any event is to reduce it to the ground and the constraints on the ground. When someone calls about an event of any size — a fundraiser, a fall festival, a company picnic, a church harvest night, a graduation — there are five things I need before I can tell them anything useful.
- Surface. Grass means we can stake. Concrete or asphalt means ballast, which is heavier, slower, and takes more room around the unit. Both work. They are not the same job.
- Overhead. Power lines, gutters, shade sails, tree canopy. This is the constraint that kills more setups than square footage does, and it is the one nobody photographs when they send us a picture of the space.
- Distance to a real outlet. Every inflatable runs a blower continuously for the whole rental. Not near power. A measured distance to a specific outlet on a known circuit.
- Gate or access width. How the equipment physically gets from the truck to the spot. A 36-inch side gate changes what is possible.
- Your actual hours, plus setup and teardown. Events run long. We would rather build the buffer in at the quote stage than negotiate it on your busiest morning.
Send me those five things and I can usually tell you yes or no on the same call. That applies to a twenty-kid backyard birthday and to a six-hundred-person school festival. It is the same set of questions.
The corn maze arrives before October
Since fall events are already on the calendar, this is the right time to mention it: our giant inflatable corn maze is bought, paid for, and on the water. Arrival is late September, which puts it on the calendar for October fall festivals and Halloween events.
The specs, because they determine whether it fits your site more than anything else does:
- Footprint: 34 feet 2 inches by 33 feet 4 inches, about 1,140 square feet
- Space you actually need: roughly 43 by 48 feet of clear, level ground, which covers a 4-foot perimeter, the blower run, and crew access
- Inside: about 300 feet of corridor including dead ends, roughly the length of a football field, at 3 feet 8 inches wide
- Walls: 6 feet 3 inches through the maze, rising to 8 feet 10 inches at the corn cob entry arch
- Overhead clearance: 12 feet minimum across the whole footprint
- Capacity: 30 people at a time
- Price: $499 all day, with free delivery, setup, and teardown throughout Cape Coral
Two things about it I find genuinely interesting. First, the walls are breathable Oxford fabric rather than PVC vinyl, so air moves through them. Anyone who has put a hand on a standard inflatable in a Florida October afternoon knows why that matters. Second, at 6 feet 3 inches the walls are over the head of every child and most adults, which is the entire point of a maze and also the reason younger kids should go through with a parent.
It is a field piece, not a backyard piece. If you are a school, a church, or an HOA with an open lot or a practice field, it fits. If you have a Cape Coral back yard, it almost certainly does not, and I would rather tell you that now than after you have put down a deposit.
October dates are the ones that will go first, and we are holding them by phone right now.
Come say hello
If you are bringing kids to Princesses vs. Superheroes on the twelfth, come find us at the inflatables. I am happy to talk through whatever you have coming up, and if you have a fall event that needs a maze, that conversation is easier standing on grass than over email. Otherwise, call (239) 212-0011 and ask for Chris.
About the author
Christopher Johnson — Co-owner, SWFL Amusements LLC
Chris is co-owner of SWFL Amusements and a professional surveyor by day. He spends his working hours mapping Southwest Florida properties, which means he knows the canal-front quirks, the older Cape circuit grid, and which intersections back up during snowbird season. He proudly lives in Cape Coral, where he was born and raised.