SkyJump to reach the Stratosphere

Steve Weidmann says his deal with the Stratosphere Hotel in Las Vegas should offer him a foot in the door with the wider US market. Photo / Dean Purcell

The New Zealander behind the SkyJump attraction at the Auckland Sky Tower has high hopes for a new jump in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Founder and managing director Steve Weidmann says he has had a record year with an estimated 10,000 jumps from Auckland's Sky Tower.

Now he has signed a deal with the Stratosphere Las Vegas Hotel and Casino to provide the SkyJump.

The jump from the Stratosphere building is 265m compared with 195m at the Sky Tower, he said. It was due to start in April.

Weidmann - an engineer who started the Sky Tower jump in 2001 - said it would be the fourth operation. He was optimistic it would open the door to the North American market.

There are currently two other SkyJump operations outside of Auckland.

One is based at the Macau Tower - a sister building to the Sky Tower - set up in 2004, and one in South Korea launched in 2006.

"We are looking at the possibility of setting it up with other partnership operations and have had inquiries from Canada, Australia, Mexico, the Philippines and Singapore," Weidmann said.

Expansion for the concept so far had been without any marketing effort.

He expected that the presence of SkyJump in Las Vegas would lead to approaches from other markets.

He said SkyJump would manufacture equipment for the Las Vegas operation and have an ongoing role with maintenance and training. He had been negotiating during the past three years and was optimistic that the sale to the Stratosphere will lead to more contracts in the US.

"Vegas is the pinnacle of getting into the US market. It is the fun town and the American market is extremely hard."