Modern commercial bungy has a birthday. On 12 November 1988, AJ Hackett and Henry van Asch opened a public site on the Kawarau Bridge near Queenstown. Paying customers. Year-round ambition. Not a one-off stunt for cameras.[1][2]
That origin story gets romanticized. The useful part is what they had to invent: ropes, rigging, site choice, and a product people would queue for.
What the first commercial product looked like
Kawarau is a 43 m bridge jump over river—high enough to scare, short enough to run as a tourism product. Early price point on company history pages: about NZ$75 to jump when the site opened.[1]
BBC Witness History frames the same arc: hobbyists develop systems, pick a bridge, sell safe freefall to the public, and help lock Queenstown’s adventure-capital reputation.[2]
What founders actually solve
- Cord and connection systems that can be inspected and retired
- Weight bands and harness fit for strangers, not athletes
- Weather and river-level rules
- Staff who can refuse a jump without folding under peer pressure
- Land access, insurance, and local politics
A cool platform photo is the easy part. Repeatable ops are the company.
How the model scaled
Hackett’s network later spread to higher products (Nevis gorge systems), urban towers (Macau), and other countries. Height records and guide-cable systems became marketing and engineering problems at once.[3][4]
Other regions built parallel brands—bridge specialists like Face Adrenalin at Bloukrans (216 m commercial bridge bungy claims)—same sport, local regulation and terrain.[5]
If you are fantasizing about starting one
You need more than elastic and a cliff. You need engineering review, insurance that exists in your jurisdiction, trained staff pipelines, and a site that will not poison the local community. Adventure tourism networks exist because this is an industry, not a garage hobby at height.[6]
Most "I could open a bungy" ideas should become "I could work a season and learn how refusals work on a busy Saturday."
Bottom line: commercial bungy started as engineered tourism, not pure stunt culture. Copy the ops discipline, not just the jump shot.
Sources
- AJ Hackett Bungy NZ — About us (Kawarau commercial opening 1988)
- BBC Witness History — first commercial bungee site, Queenstown 1988
- Skypark Global — timeline (Kawarau 12 Nov 1988)
- Skypark Macau — highest commercial building bungy claim
- Bloukrans Bungy / Face Adrenalin — 216 m bridge bungy
- Adventure Travel Trade Association
Image credits
- Photo: Llorenzi / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
- Photo: GoToVan from Vancouver, Canada / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)