Animal poop forces cancellation of world's biggest bounce house event in Oakland

The Big Bounce America's 2019 tour is held at Ellms Family Farm on Friday, June 28, 2019 in Ballston Spa, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union) The Big Bounce America's 2019 tour is held at Ellms Family Farm on Friday, June 28, 2019 in Ballston Spa, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union) Photo: Lori Van Buren Buy photo Photo: Lori Van Buren Image 1 of / 19 Caption Close Animal poop forces cancellation of world's biggest bounce house event in Oakland 1 / 19 Back to Gallery

A bounce house in your neighborhood park sounds like a great idea until you realize the result will be a bunch of shoeless children bouncing straight into piles of goose poop.

That's why Big Bounce America, the biggest bounce house in the world, recently cancelled its plans to bring its traveling inflatable fun house complex to Lowell Park in West Oakland.

As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, when an advance crew for the company inspected the park on Aug. 27 (just weeks before the bounce houses were supposed to be installed), they found it unsuitable.

"In a nutshell, we found the entire venue was covered with goose droppings," Grahame Ferguson, the company's CEO, told the Chronicle. "The park appears to be home to 50 to 60 geese."

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However, Oakland officials said that Big Bounce representatives should have inspected the park earlier, particularly before signing a $20,000 lease last year, and that they never tried to hide their goose poop.

This past weekend, last minute arrangements were made for the bounce houses to be inflated in a goose poop-free park in Fresno instead. Big Bounce hopes to return to Oakland next year in a less feces-filled spot — but for this year, would-be bouncers will have to settle for a refund on the $18-$30 advance tickets they bought.

Read the full Chronicle story here.

Madeline Wells is an SFGate editorial assistant. Email: madeline.wells@sfgate.com | Twitter: @madwells22