The brand’s target market is mainly 20-40 year-old professionals
Plymouth previously and knew it was under-
now there are 90, including four within a
served in terms of leisure, but has a strong base
one hour radius. Generally, though, good centres build the audience rather than take
of outdoor enthusiasts in Devon and Cornwall. This is our flagship centre and everything is design-led. We have a spacious Scandi-style café, selling locally sourced products. It is glassed off from the climbing centre, keeping the climbing
We’ve just completed our first round of private equity investment, and aim to have 10 centres by end of next year
people away and there’s now much more awareness of the sport and less concern about safety, as people don’t see it as an extreme sport anymore.
What are your future plans?
chalk dust away and making everything so much cleaner. We recruited staff for their
With climbing confirmed for the next
attitude rather than skill, and then trained
not feasible for them to climb outdoors
two Olympics, we’re confident there’s
them up to deliver our customer journey
during the working week. They like to come
plenty of growth potential – Liverpool
and nurture the right type of culture.
to our facilities to keep in shape and when
is our oldest site but has just had a
Our newest site is in Swansea, which
the weather is terrible. Then we don’t see
record three months. Despite this, we’re
launched in March. We chose this because
them for dust on the summer weekends!
designing our businesses to be resilient.
deal and the demographics are right.
How has the market changed since you launched your first site?
private equity investment, so plan to have 10
As climbing is an outdoor sport – are climbers happy to climb indoors?
I wouldn’t have predicted that climbing
will be a second one in Liverpool and we’re
would become so popular, or become
busy looking for more in the UK’s top 20 cities.
Mostly yes. Our target market is mainly 20
an Olympic sport. Our Liverpool site was
We should have six up and running by the end
to 40-year-old professionals, so it’s usually
the seventh bouldering facility in the UK,
of this year and open one a quarter next year.
our property director found an incredible
sportsmanagement.co.uk
We’ve just completed our first round of centres by the end of next year. The next site
Issue 2 2019
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