Nerf Experience, Like Paintball with Nerf, Coming to Marina Square in 2019


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Last Updated on 2018-12-16 , 8:53 am

I won’t blame you if you’ve not heard of Nerf.

Old people like us grew up with any toy gun we could get our hands on, and they’re usually the cheapest and flimsiest. Little did many of us realize that as we grew older, we get to hold a real one as we cut our hair bald.

Nerf guns, or more commonly known as Nerf Blasters, are toy guns made to fire foam darts (most common), discs or foam balls.

Image: Faizal Ramli / Shutterstock.com

Now, that doesn’t seem very exciting but read this: there are Nerf enthusiasts who organizes Nerf events (yes, even in Singapore), and the sales for these so-called toys are at about USD$400 million a year.

They’re so popular, we even have them in the office as props, thought we colour them black so it’ll look realistic in our videos. Here’s one where you can see them in action (the sound of “cocking” is made organically by the guns):

And they don’t come cheap: the rifle you see in our video cost about $40 a piece, and the pistol around $20 a piece. I remember my toys used to cost less than $10 but anyways.

What I’m trying to say is that Nerf blasters are hot.

Come 2019, it’s going to get even hotter.

Nerf Entertainment Centre to be Opened in Marina Square in the Second Half of 2019

In an announcement that no one would have predicted (who else still goes to shopping malls?), Hasbro, the owner of the Nerf brand, is going to launch a Nerf family entertainment centre in the ground level of Marina Square.

Spanning 18,000 square feet, which is about 18 five-room HDB flats, it will have multiple activity zones that aim to encourage active play, teamwork and more. The exact details of the centre aren’t revealed, though.

Though it seems to look something like that:

The chief executive officer of Marina Square (hello, if you reading this, can make more car parks lots?) has this to say: “Marina Square is positioned as a family mall in the city. The injection of the Nerf experiences fits our overall positioning and strategy to provide more activity-based experiences for the whole family…We believe the concept will be a great draw for both locals and tourists, creating much life and energy in the Marina Centre precinct.”

The project is a collaboration between Hasbro and Kingsmen, and the CEO of Kingsmen has this to add: “The Nerf experience is designed to be a year round family destination, and Marina Square is an excellent launchpad for this exciting new attraction… a world’s first…Our goal is to create a brand of unique participative experiences that guests of any age can enjoy and will want to return to. With families constantly on the lookout for things to do together, we are confident that our offering of adrenaline-filled fun, coupled with enriching experiences, will be a hit.”

Yeah, because it’s a first, you won’t know what to expect.

But having Nerf blasters in the office, we can say that it’s a lot of fun, much like paintball. It’s not exactly very painful when the foam dart hits you, and the experience of “cocking” the rifle is rather realistic.


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So if it’s going to be a paintball in Marina Square, I’m all in for it.

After all…don’t need to clean rifle after that, right? #lifeofannsman