Gym Membership and Day Pass Prices Post Pandemic

2019: Gym climbing is fun, affordable, and inclusive! 

Post Pandemic: Gym climbing is for yuppie trust funders, and $90+ for a gym membership is strictly to keep out the riffraff.

Who pays these ridiculous prices and can rationalize it? Serious question, please let me know. Is Gym climbing your main objective, or do you pay ridiculous prices because you dont know how/can't get motivated to train on your own? 

@Gym Owners ... Don't you think having double the memberships, paying half the price, is a more viable business model? Considering most serious climbers travel and leave town on a regular, to semi regular basis, I'd say it would be. 

Matthew Jaggerswrote:

Considering most serious climbers...

Hate to break it out to ya, but large commerical climbing gyms have never catered to the "serious" climbers.

rebootwrote:

Hate to break it out to ya, but large commerical climbing gyms have never catered to the "serious" climbers.

I agree. 

Seems like there'd be different member levels, if you were into greedy capitalist sht like these non-climbing gym owners are. Climbing only- 40. Climbing+Gym- 55. Climbing+Gym+Yoga- 70. Climbing+Gym+Yoga+Lockers/Showers/Gear Discounts/PingPong/Etc- $$$

Never thought greedy gym owners would just outprice the vast majority of climbers. How could anyone new get into going to the gym and pay anywhere close to what these places want? I'd get it if they paid everyone a fair wage, and were truly being awesome employers, but considering the staggeringly low rates gym workers get paid, it makes zero sense. Setters don't even get paid well, and thats the gyms' obvious bread and butter. 

You charge what they will pay, it's the free market!

I mean, what sort of price were you expecting for Movement Dating and Fitness?

Tradgic Yogurtwrote:

I mean, what sort of price were you expecting for Movement Dating and Fitness?

Lol

Tradi, you're 100

1000, I'm just curious how this ends up. Seems like gyms are banking on the idea of a few people willing to pay astronomical prices to cover the dwindling memberships post covid. 

I live in a gym desert; no gym for 200ish miles.  Are these prices day or week or month or year? 

climber patwrote:

I live in a gym desert; no gym for 200ish miles.  Are these prices day or week or month or year? 

90/month

20-25/day

...and not nice, classy gyms, maybe moderately decent, and not modern by any means. Good setting, but the facilities are minimaly acceptable at best.

Tradibanwrote:

You charge what they will pay, it's the free market!

Exactly. Keep the dirty dirtbags on the rock where they belong, cater to the vansionites 24/7/365.

Count the adjectives, adverbs, and nouns; see how many you find!

Affordable, astronomical, awesome, classy, decent, dirtbags, greedy, inclusive, nice, ridiculous, riffraff, staggeringly, strictly, trust fund, yuppies.

Matthew Jaggerswrote:

2019: Gym climbing is fun, affordable, and inclusive! 

Post Pandemic: Gym climbing is for yuppie trust funders, and $90+ for a gym membership is strictly to keep out the riffraff.

Who pays these ridiculous prices and can rationalize it? Serious question, please let me know. Is Gym climbing your main objective, or do you pay ridiculous prices because you dont know how/can't get motivated to train on your own? 

@Gym Owners ... Don't you think having double the memberships, paying half the price, is a more viable business model? Considering most serious climbers travel and leave town on a regular, to semi regular basis, I'd say it would be. 

When you have a job, $90/month for a membership isn’t that bad.

Another benefit of not being a dirtbag. 

My last gym was $83/month and I got unlimited showers, yoga, sauna, lifting, and climbing. I think that's a great deal. I went in almost every day.

I'm an old cat now, and I just don't care to pay it. At this point, I either get outside or I don't bother. Probably why I'm rapidly becoming a has-been/never-was.

Matthew Jaggerswrote:

@Gym Owners ... Don't you think having double the memberships, paying half the price, is a more viable business model? 

Or double the current price and get 1/2 the current membership.  The fewer annoying people you have to deal with the better the business model.

Eric Engbergwrote:

Or double the current price and get 1/2 the current membership.  The fewer annoying people you have to deal with the better the business model.

Until a quarter of them stop climbing because they got into craft beers with knife throwing. Yuppies are never satisfied with the current thing. 

Matthew Jaggerswrote:

I agree. 

Seems like there'd be different member levels, if you were into greedy capitalist sht like these non-climbing gym owners are. Climbing only- 40. Climbing+Gym- 55. Climbing+Gym+Yoga- 70. Climbing+Gym+Yoga+Lockers/Showers/Gear Discounts/PingPong/Etc- $$$

Never thought greedy gym owners would just outprice the vast majority of climbers. How could anyone new get into going to the gym and pay anywhere close to what these places want? I'd get it if they paid everyone a fair wage, and were truly being awesome employers, but considering the staggeringly low rates gym workers get paid, it makes zero sense. Setters don't even get paid well, and thats the gyms' obvious bread and butter. 

You have any data to back this up? Maybe something from the CWA? Dunno anything about your gym but ours raised prices to keep good setters from being poached and offer them insurance, meanwhile a pricey, "non-profit" gym across town that relies on "volunteers" hemorrhages talent. And the "bread and butter" you refer to ain't the climbers, it's the kids parties, camps, and teams - and running those requires more than the setters. That's where the real dough is made. 

Matthew Jaggerswrote:

I agree. 

Seems like there'd be different member levels, if you were into greedy capitalist sht like these non-climbing gym owners are. Climbing only- 40. Climbing+Gym- 55. Climbing+Gym+Yoga- 70. Climbing+Gym+Yoga+Lockers/Showers/Gear Discounts/PingPong/Etc- $$$

Some gyms do offer this kind of pricing structure but not that low anymore, the hard part about it is keeping everyone in their "zone". Unless you specifically build the gym for that kind of setup it's not worth offering tiered memberships.

Never thought greedy gym owners would just outprice the vast majority of climbers. How could anyone new get into going to the gym and pay anywhere close to what these places want? I'd get it if they paid everyone a fair wage, and were truly being awesome employers, but considering the staggeringly low rates gym workers get paid, it makes zero sense. Setters don't even get paid well, and thats the gyms' obvious bread and butter. 

Gyms don't care about "climbers", they don't bring sales, it's all about getting new people into climbing. 

Lots of gyms pay quite well for their unskilled labor and frankly people new to climbing don't know what good setting is so routesetters don't need to be very good anyway.

Anyone can set a route, it's not hard, some people have the vision for it and some don't. The real problem in routesetting is the gatekeepers who think you need some kind of certification to do it. 

Tradibanwrote:

Anyone can set a route, it's not hard, some people have the vision for it and some don't. The real problem in routesetting is the gatekeepers who think you need some kind of certification to do it. 

Anyone can but without proper training anyone who climbs 10+ knows how shitty the setting is, there is no hiding it. The worst is when the setters are all bro-brahs that only care enough about the harder lines being fun and dont give a crap about the easier lines. When all the lines are left, right, left, right etc. it becomes boring. Boring makes people turn to craft beers and axe throwing!

M Mwrote:

Anyone can but without proper training anyone who climbs 10+ knows how shitty the setting is, there is no hiding it. The worst is when the setters are all bro-brahs that only care enough about the harder lines being fun and dont give a crap about the easier lines. When all the lines are left, right, left, right etc. it becomes boring. Boring makes people turn to craft beers and axe throwing!

10+ climbers are usually too cheap to pay for membership anyway, always vying for employment, tradeout, or discount.

Climbing gyms that include climbing, weights, and yoga for ~$100 are a value for the non-dirtbag.  Hear me out:

Yoga memberships alone can be more than $100/month. Weight lifting gyms are what $25-50/month? And as mentioned, climbing-only gyms are $40-50. In other words, having a membership to these types of gyms can be $200/month.

Another way to frame this: One can easily spend $100/month on eating out, alcohol, and other activities (movies, etc). If the gym is being used by the person, then technically it forces them to save a bit of money. That was the case for me in San Francisco.
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The question does remain:  Will gyms lower rates because of the bear market, inflation, and looming recession?  In my travels, Idyllwild and Moab were "empty" during the most recent holidays indicating people are not traveling as much.

Gumby Kingwrote:

Yoga memberships alone can be more than $100/month. Weight lifting gyms are what $25-50/month? And as mentioned, climbing-only gyms are $40-50. In other words, having a membership to these types of gyms can be $200/month.

Just b/c a buffet offers 10 different entrees doesn't mean you can suddenly stuff down 10x the food in a sitting. The marginal utility of more options is almost never additive, though that is the MO of large commercial gyms: the illusion that you'd utilize all it offers, when in reality a smaller, less expensive facility would suffice for the most part. Not that I don't enjoy a large, state-of-the-art facility now & then.