[roblaird]

Hi all,

I've been thinking about setting up a bouldering wall for a while, and I may be able to get some financial help from my climbing club.

What would you say is the minimum sq ft/m that would be worthwhile? It would be 5-10 minutes outside a big city that has no local climbing (nearest one is 30-40 minutes). At a guess, maybe max of 20-30 people at any one time.

Costs?

I've not had a good look yet, but obviously there's the property costs, materials for the wall, insurance. What other 'big' costs would I need to be aware of?

It's still only an idea at the moment, but I wanted to put a few things down on paper and work out whether it would be worthwhile.

Cheers

Rob

[Adam Lincoln]

Matting.
Holds.
Setting.
Staffing.

Not may big cities don't have a wall now. Be interesting to hear where you are doing this. Have to ask why it hasn't already been done.

[T_B]

I wonder how many fitness gyms there are now in Sheffield compared to five years ago? At least twice as many.

Most big cities will have 5 or 6 bouldering centres (incorporating ninja warrior style stuff) in a few years' time. Just you wait and see!

[jwi]

Toulouse isn't a particularly large city (approx. a million inhabitants) and there are 4 commercial bouldering gyms and 2 gyms with rope + bouldering. Then there are a number of gyms only accessible to students, and a few more gyms not open to the general public.

[Oldmanmatt]

I wonder how many fitness gyms there are now in Sheffield compared to five years ago? At least twice as many.

Most big cities will have 5 or 6 bouldering centres (incorporating ninja warrior style stuff) in a few years' time. Just you wait and see!

It's incredibly popular, a bit of a laugh and sneaks in power endurance while they're not looking...

Seriously, a regular is training for Ninja Warrior UK and I fancied it myself; so I built it.
Start up the rope, ring swing to opposite wall, climb wall, fingertip (34mm) traverse along beam back to start, drop down to rings  and back to third ring from left. Campusy dyno thing to a Lapis ball on a chain, to a set of Lapis ball swings to back wall. Swing on to Monkey bars and back out to beam. Back along outside of monkey bars on the 35* sloper traverse, cross  to the righthand beam and fingertip traverse (25mm) back to rope and descend to finish.

No one has finished it yet. The 35* sloper traverse stopping all so far.



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[roblaird]

The population is around 200,000 so not that big compared to others. I feel that it's not big enough for any major climbing wall companies to consider setting up here, and the county council have a reasonably sized wall about 45 minutes away.

The problem all the nearest walls have is the lack of bouldering and training (no campus boards or fingerboards, only small bouldering areas) so I feel there is a gap in the market if I can find the right place! It needs to be big enough to make it worthwhile, without being too expensive 😀.

[Paul B]

The problem all the nearest walls have is the lack of bouldering and training (no campus boards or fingerboards, only small bouldering areas) so I feel there is a gap in the market if I can find the right place! It needs to be big enough to make it worthwhile, without being too expensive 😀.

I'm sure (/hope/believe) this will change in the future but from what I see (and was told repeatedly whilst in Sheffield), walls don't make a lot from people wanting training facilities.

[Oldmanmatt]

The problem all the nearest walls have is the lack of bouldering and training (no campus boards or fingerboards, only small bouldering areas) so I feel there is a gap in the market if I can find the right place! It needs to be big enough to make it worthwhile, without being too expensive [emoji3].

I'm sure (/hope/believe) this will change in the future but from what I see (and was told repeatedly whilst in Sheffield), walls don't make a lot from people wanting training facilities.

This is true, unfortunately. We make most from "normal" climbers, followed by Schools/groups and then training. But it's closer than it was and improving (over the last 4 years). If it continues to grow at the current rate, it will be the main source by mid 2018. That's a big "if" of course.

Matting is the biggest single expense in set up. That will tell you how big you can go, because it depends on how deep your pockets are. Bigger is better, though you can be clever with overlapping fall zones if you try.
We have a similar population here, it's only just enough and boosted by tourists in the summer (so our summer is better than most walls). So, it might be marginal, unless you have some higher ed establishment in your catchment?


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[roblaird]

It's good to know that people seem to be taking more interest in training, and we do have a pretty big Uni nearby so hopefully that will help.

Need to start looking at the money side of things, because it's not worth starting it if I can't afford to finish...

[roblaird]

Oldmanmatt, if you don't mind me asking, roughly how big is your wall (floorspace)

[Oldmanmatt]

~200m^2 of matting. Plus cafe space etc.


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[roblaird]

Cheers, that gives me a rough idea. Now to look at buildings....

[Oldmanmatt]

Cheers, that gives me a rough idea. Now to look at buildings....

Ah, I should have added "too small". I'd be happy with +50%, but I'd be ecstatic at +100%...
Not enough room for a good comp.

Or half the features and Gizzits I want to build.


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[roblaird]

Ok, definitely like to do competitions in the future, ok bigger building needed!