Mezzanines can raise club yield, but only if the flow works

This month’s useful planning question for racket clubs is not how to fit one more court at any cost. It is whether a facility can put more of its vertical space to work. A mezzanine may create room for seating, viewing, food and beverage service or other social uses while preserving the main-floor court footprint. But another level is not automatically another revenue stream.

No confirmed Playgeko release or pricing change is established in the product information available for this digest. The practical shift worth attention is in facility planning: operators should assess court capacity and off-court activity together, rather than treating the social area as leftover space.

Start with the building, not the sketch

A mezzanine floor for padel can look efficient on a plan, but the usable area depends on the building and its constraints. Structural capacity, headroom, fire safety, accessibility, circulation and local approvals all need professional review before an operator counts on an upper level. A proposed layout also has to preserve the clearances and sightlines required around playing areas.

Even where the structure works, a mezzanine can create awkward routes. Players carrying equipment, staff moving supplies and spectators arriving between matches all need to get around without crowding court entrances or the front desk. Stairs and lifts take space too. Include those routes in the calculation, rather than counting only the seating or service area at the top.

For court layout planning, sketch the full customer journey: arrival, check-in, changing, play, waiting, social time and departure. Mark where queues could form during busy periods. A social zone that is attractive but hard to reach may sit empty; one placed directly across a busy circulation path may impede turnover.

Give the extra space a job

Before adding a mezzanine, decide what it should do. A viewing area can make matches easier to watch. A lounge can give players a reason to stay after a booking. A service area may support food, drinks or retail, if the club can staff and operate it. Each use has different requirements for access, storage, noise and supervision.

Do not treat all social space as productive just because customers can see it. Track whether people use it, how long they stay and whether that time leads to spending or repeat visits. A seating area that supports league nights may serve a different purpose from one designed for players waiting between casual bookings. The best layout follows the club’s actual schedule and customer mix.

Operators comparing court density with ancillary space should also test demand assumptions. More courts can increase playable inventory, but only if local demand fills the hours and staffing can support the extra activity. Our comparison of court footprint and yield in tennis-to-padel conversions covers a related constraint: usable space and demand matter more than a simple court count.

Use a metric that exposes trade-offs

Revenue per square meter is useful only when the area and revenue are defined consistently. Decide whether the denominator includes courts alone, all customer-facing space or the full facility, including circulation and back-of-house areas. Then compare like with like over a clear period. Otherwise, a redesign can appear to improve the metric simply because the measured footprint changed.

For the revenue side, separate court bookings from ancillary sales. Look at booking occupancy by time of day, average spend per visit and sales associated with league or tournament activity. Include operating costs for the extra space, such as staffing, cleaning, utilities and maintenance. A mezzanine that increases sales but also requires substantial ongoing expense may not improve the club’s net return.

Throughput is another check. Record how quickly groups move from arrival to court and from play to departure, especially during peak changeovers. If a new social area creates longer stays, that may be a benefit—but it could also intensify pressure on toilets, changing rooms, parking or the front desk. The layout has to work as a system.

Connect the physical plan to operating data

Software cannot solve a poor building layout. Playgeko’s listed tools cover court scheduling, POS, CRM, marketing automations, leagues and tournament management, alongside white-label player apps and admin mobile apps. Those functions can give operators records on bookings and sales to review alongside observations from the floor; they do not replace architectural, structural or code review.

For a club already using booking and POS records, compare activity before and after a layout change, while accounting for seasonality and promotions. Review whether social events coincide with stronger ancillary sales, whether court use shifts across time slots and whether customer flow creates new bottlenecks. A simple baseline is more useful than a confident forecast built from a floor plan alone.

The decision is not mezzanine versus courts in the abstract. It is whether a specific upper-level use improves the facility’s overall performance without compromising safe access, play or service. Plan the routes, define the revenue measure, and test the demand assumptions before committing square meters to a new purpose.