BETA x Rise Above: Climbing Gym Data and What Actions to Take #1 -- The Seasonality Myth
Updated: 3 hours ago
A couple of weeks ago, Rise Above Consulting attended the Association of British Climbing Walls (ABC Walls) annual summit. In 2024, I gave a keynote address there entitled "Sales is not a Dirty Word" to a packed room of UK climbing gym owners and operators. What followed was hours of conversations from eager gym managers and owners about how to increase their revenue. I got home and Rise Above took on many UK clients, and even more free discovery calls centered around how to think more strategically about revenue.
Fast forward to 2026 and Rise Above returned to the ABC Summit and we sat down with a dozen or more operators this year and unlike in 2024, almost all of them opened up their laptops to show us reports, charts, spreadsheets and documents of the data they were looking at. This is a huge step in the right direction and I was really impressed with how well many were thinking about what data to look at and why.
The Best Talk at the Summit
Rise Above sat in many talks, seminars and unplanned discussions over the course of the summit, and hands down far and away the best one was led by the Founder and CEO of BETA, Miura Hawkins. You might remember a blog we posted a few years back about climbing gym software where we mentioned that BETA is the best option around. Well, Miura proved why in this talk.
The talk lead by Miura centered around data. Specifically, aggregated data from dozens of UK gyms. In it, Miura laid out some VERY interesting trends (or lack there of) and an incredible hypothesis about "community" - the most overused phrase in the climbing gym industry.
Miura is writing an entire blog series about her data findings, and we've agreed to write a connected series of blogs here at Rise Above. BETA's blogs will focus on the data and the insights. and as always, Rise Above's companion blogs will be about what to do with those insights.Read the BETA blogs here |
BETA's Hypothesis #1: Seasonality is a myth
Miura led off her talk by asking gym owners and managers what month they thought were the best and worst months for climbing gym performance. The answers were all over the calendar, with folks guessing that the worst months would be June, July or December and that the best months could be anything from January to August.
What Miura showed was much more nuanced and surprised even industry veterans in the room.
Her data revealed that while some gyms were having their worst month, others were having their best. And the other way around. What the climbing gym data showed was that the deviation from the median each month was also drastic, showing that really, a gym performs as well as it wants to in any given month.
What Should a Gym Do to Avoid Seasonality?
If we take the climbing gym data at face value, it would appear that really a gym can perform well in almost any month of the year. So why do we all claim that the summer sucks? Or the winter sucks? (Weirdly I have heard both, in the same region). We chalk it all up to weather as if running a climbing gym is the same as making an attempt on our project outside.
I would have to agree with what Miura says. We can re-think seasonality. Our businesses do not have to suffer based on weather or season or college semesters.
So, what can you do to avoid slumps? The short answer: leverage your data to build an actionable plan to backfill slumps. I'll give a few common examples in our industry, and some solutions you can implement:
"All the college kids are gone for the summer, so we get hundreds of membership freeze or cancellation requests and our day pass revenue suffers"
OK, I buy this one. I used to run a gym in Gainesville, FL where the entire town effectively runs around the schedule of the University of Florida. But it doesn't have to be this way. Just about any college town has an entire massive baked-in contingent of customers outside of college kids. Parents, youth, and more who are permanent residents. Rise Above's recommendation:
Build a strong youth programs suite to attract families, kids and young folks to your gym: birthday parties, after school and other drop-off programs and summer camps. Marketed well these programs can produce not only meaningful revenue (many Rise Above clients have Youth as their #2 rev stream after membership, even ahead of day use!) but can also have significant lifetime value and feed into more advanced long term programs like climbing teams and more. HOT TAKE: Don't want to run youth programs? Then please don't tell me on our discovery call how your gym is all about community.
Look at your data, what does it tell you? Understand who comes to your gym today, and who doesn't. How does this match up with the demographic and available customer types in your market? Do you have good targeted messaging and marketing along with the right program/offering to bring in other people besides college students? Run reports on age and day use and check in type. Do some market research to understand who is in your market and develop programming for them. Just because college kids are the low hanging fruit doesn't mean there isn't other fruit to be found.
"The weather is [insert good, bad, amazing, cold, hot, wet, dry, gorgeous, perfect for climbing outside. etc we have heard it all]"
I get it. I ran gyms in New England for years and let me tell ya, there is NOTHING like fall in New England. Rise Above has clients all over the world, in places where it's too hot to be outside in June, in places where it's too wet in October, too cold in January, etc etc. And we have built winning strategies to keep foot traffic and revenue steady throughout the year. The bottom line is, you need to give people a reason to come to your business, especially when the weather is highly enticing to stay outside. Here are some examples:
Programming is the winner here, almost every time. Bouldering Leagues are a common one nowadays, but there are many good options. The goal is to give people a reason to come to your gym even when the weather is perfect for being outdoors. Events, programs, courses and more can all be great ways to offset the pull of the outdoors. BUT. We see too many gyms offering events with no understanding of how to connect those check-ins to their sales funnel/membership retention efforts. If you give them a reason to come to the gym, you have to have a way to track and reward that behavior so that it impacts your bottom line when you need it most. If a member comes for your Summer bouldering series and also gets additional benefits (restorative stretching and yoga/recovery...food and vendors....post climbing meals and hangouts, etc...), now they are more likely to keep their membership year 'round!
Again here, youth win. Are all your more mature audience members out doing stuff because it's that holy-grail weather outside? Families and parents are looking for things to do, and as we know, climbing is an amazing full-family activity. Something no trampoline park or other youth activity can replicate. Leverage it.
Affinity groups: finding local affinity groups and giving them a space to gather is a huge win for community and for filling dead time. One of the most successful affinity groups I have EVER seen had literally nothing to do with climbing. I allowed a member who was very into MAGIC: The Gathering to host game days/nights, and it blew up! Huge turn outs. Tons of people playing nerdy card games and trying climbing, it was awesome.
"I operate in a heavily tourism-based area. When it's not tourist season, we suffer"
Good on you for taking the dive into a market like this. It's not easy. Again, we strongly suggest making sure you understand your demographic and your user data. Who is coming to your gym? Who isn't that should be? Here is what might work:
Who are the locals? What do they love and care about? And what can you offer them? Is it youth programming? Is it an affinity group? Is it lessons on how to maximize revenue at the Air BnB they run during peak tourist season? Whatever it is, find out, and see if there's something you can offer. I've seen affinity groups work well here. I've also seen "First visit free" work well to get people in the door who otherwise might not try (just make sure you have a strong follow up process to get them to come back). Discounting can work as well on memberships and punch passes etc just be very careful with this.
SO IS SEASONALITY A MYTH?
The theme here is clear. You cannot wing it anymore and hope for the best. 2025 and 2026 have been BRUTAL for our industry with. more gyms closing than I can remember in any period prior.
You have to know your data. You have to know your customers, and you have to plan proactively to combat any version of seasonality that may exist in your business. Interested in discussing a plan together? We would love to talk.
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