[Dolly]

I only heard about this when I read it in the Sheffield Telegraph.
Do you think its going to stand any chance ?
a) in a place where there are already 4 walls and loads of cellars and woodies
b) at "that" end of town
c) in a place where its 15 mins from the city centre to some of the best real rock in the country ?

I'm prepared to accept that I'm old fashioned in my view of indoor walls (ie that they're there to train on when you can't climb outside) but is there really enough demand to sustain a new facility ?

I've got no agenda at all in this - just surprised that another wall should be considered in Sheffield and at that location.

[tomtom]

The other way of looking at it is that having 4 walls demonstrates theres clearly a substantial market of punters - so open up and try and lure some of the punters away...

Why open a costa where theres already a starbucks and a cafe nero?

In some ways its more of a sure fire bet than other places...

[Dolly]

OK  - I can see the merit in that argument.
Why do you think its more of a sure fire bet than the other places though ? - because they've already established that there's a market ?

[Jaspersharpe]

Where is it going to be?

[Grubes]

according to planning application linked on the other channel S4 7QX

http://publicaccess.sheffield.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=M84H87NYFY000

got to say I am of the "is another wall really needed?" stance.

[north_country_boy]

Location. Location. Location.

Maybe they are hoping to capture the westward travelling climbers who currently travel from west of the M1 to Sheffield...can't see it encouraging centrally and western based Sheffield climbers out of town though.

Also, it doesn't look so impressive as to constitute a 'National Climbing Centre of Excellence' and as far as.....

 'We believe that our new centre will not only fulfil the requirements but surpass them by far' those requirements must be pretty sub-standard. It is certainly not going to be the equivalent of Ratho.

[dave]

There's cleary enough climbers in sheffield to make it a viable business. I'd be surprised if Pittsmoor is a hotbed of active climbers though.

Basically unless its absolutely jawdropping then I can't see it attracting the lucrative sheffield south-west bouldering market away from the Works. Fuck knows about lead/toproping market, it is only 3 mins drive from the foundry.

One thing it does have in its favour is its much easier to reach from the M1 than any of the other walls, especially the Works, and probably easier parking too. Maybe there's enough of a market in rotherham/wakefield/barnsley/donny climbers to make a killing?

[robertostallioni]

http://riverdonproperties.co.uk/River_Don_Properties.html

[battery]

I'm not quite sure which camp I'm in but I found this statement quite interesting:

Climbing potentially may become an Olympic Sport at the next Olympics and the centre
would then become the main training ground and home for competitiors.

Apart from the typo which I can't quite believe didn't get picked up, I'd love to know if they can back this statement up...

[Wood FT]

Looking at how rammed most of the walls are of an evening, whatever the temps, i'd say there is enough of a market. I'd just worry that it would spread out the customer base too far leaving them all out of pocket/profit, that said I don't know how well these places are doing etc. I'm interested as I could walk there after work but I dont feel a dying need for anything other than what Sheffield already has. Good luck to them......

[Richie Crouch]

I think it has been put forward as a sport for 2020 but doesn't get voted on till the Olympics in 2016.. Hence potentially becoming an Olympic sport in 8 years time?

[dave]

Jesus lets all pray it doesn't make the cut. The inane questions I'd have to field from family and colleauges would be reason enough. Lets not forget it take a bit longer to build new crags than it does to buil new walls.

[Dolly]

Completely agree Dave.

[Jaspersharpe]

Interesting. It's on my way home from work.

Mind you I also live one minute's drive from The Works so unless it's totally amazing I'll probably never go like Dave said.

However, I reckon it's financially viable and quite a clever location. That area has Don Valley Stadium, The English Institute of Sport etc so it will be in a decent spot to benefit as climbing increases to become more mainstream.

Worth bearing in mind as well that I think that part of Sheffield benefits from tax breaks as a regeneration area or whatever they call it now. I recently dealt with a grant application for a client in an area like this and they got 30% of the cost of the property they were buying. Massive help to start up costs as in, that's your deposit covered.

[gme]

had a conversation about this earlier. It makes total sense to me as a business. I think the market for these things has moved so far away from the original concept of being "for climbers" and are now designed and built to attract people to go climbing.

I see it only a matter of time until one of the big leisure companies moves into the market such as Virgin and builds something the same but posher. The walls in sheffield are great for climbing but pretty rank for facilities. I ocassionally take non climbing customers to the works for a bit of corporate entertaining and they cant believe that you have to pretty much change in the corner of the room and dump your bag in the pile with others.

This is not a critasism of the works but the new people coming into the sport attracted by articles in the gardian etc will gravitate to the nicer facilities with showers changing rooms and costa coffee in the corner.

I think a more corporate wall will do very well in Sheffield regardless as to whether or not the climbing is better than what we already have.

Climbing walls dont make money from the likes of us they make money from joe bloggs off the street wanting to goto the climbing wall.

[tomtom]

OK  - I can see the merit in that argument.
Why do you think its more of a sure fire bet than the other places though ? - because they've already established that there's a market ?

Yup.

Quite canny I think - lets say there are 500 people who use each wall each week (a complete stab in the dark..) thats 2000 punters... if you open an alternative, then if you split that 5 ways its at least 400... and you may well be able to drive one of the others out of business etc... or offer a better product etc.. have better coffee.. more DFBWGC etc..

Don't you love capitalism eh!

[Dolly]

Agree with all your post Gav.

[dave]

Agree with all your post Gav.

Ditto that.

[T_B]

Yep. Plus I see they have 71 car parking spaces. That's about 50 more than the Foundry.

[Bonjoy]

Agree with all your post Gav.

Ditto that.

So do I. Depressing isn't it.

I remember when the Works was being built there was plenty of doubt among climbers as to its viability given the number of walls and customers in Sheffield. It might look like a no-brainer of a good business idea now, but at the time people thought they were really sticking their necks out. Obviously it turned out to be the first wall which proved that the right kind of facility can generate a large proportion of its user base from scratch.

[SA Chris]

I see it only a matter of time until one of the big leisure companies moves into the market such as Virgin and builds something the same but posher.

Like this in Sandton (the posh bit of Johannesburg)

http://www.rockfit.co.za/

I think if there is anything like a chance it will "go olympic" this is inevitable.

[shark]

Agree with all your post Gav.

Ditto that.

So do I. Depressing isn't it.

I don't find it depressing. Indoor climbing is developing its own scene.

[Muenchener]

Munich is maybe somewhat similar to Sheffield in that is the climbing capital of the country, although bigger - population of the metropolitan area is somehwere over a million, versus 600,000 for Sheffield if wikipedia is to be believed. Also different in that it's lacking good climbing right on the doorstep: Kochel and Altmühltal, the nearest decent climbing areas, are an hour or more away. And probably more affluent. But anyway. Somewhat similar in being medium sized cities with a high concentration of climbers.

Munich has three good, decent sized mainly routes climbing walls in or near the city, plus a large dedicated bouldering wall. Plus some older / smaller / more obscure facilities of which I can think of at least five off the top of my head. Plus another big routes wall and another big bouldering wall planned or under construction. All of the ones I go to regularly are packed out on weekday evenings, and I don't doubt for a moment that the new ones will be too. And on rainy weekends, although less so on fine weekends, perhaps suggesting that a significant fraction of the clientele are actual climbers.

Of the four better, larger, actually existing walls btw. two are owned by the DAV - although the day to day operations are franchised out to a commercial company - and two are private commercial ventures.

Otoh I've been to a couple of big commercial walls in northern Germany, far away from any decent climbing areas and clearly aimed at the "indoor climbing" leisure market, that were empty echoing ghost towns and felt pretty doomed as business ventures. So perhaps one does need the local base of actual climbers to kickstart such things.

[Bonjoy]

Agree with all your post Gav.

Ditto that.

So do I. Depressing isn't it.

I don't find it depressing. Indoor climbing is developing its own scene.

What Gav describes is a dumbed down corporatized simulacrum of climbing. Is it selfish, elitist, misanthropic and discriminatory to prefer that climbing is less accessible to idiots? Yes probably. Call me a selfish, elitist, discriminating, depressed misanthrope.

[Paul B]

had a conversation about this earlier. It makes total sense to me as a business. I think the market for these things has moved so far away from the original concept of being "for climbers" and are now designed and built to attract people to go climbing.

When the works was announced I was more convinced that one of the other walls (namely the Edge) was doomed, but I was clearly wrong. Do people think that its as easy to generate a completely new user base for roped climbing as bouldering? You can start bouldering with minimal tuition and it suits a very social atmosphere, I'd say that's less true when you actually need to belay (and know how to).

I see it only a matter of time until one of the big leisure companies moves into the market such as Virgin and builds something the same but posher. The walls in sheffield are great for climbing but pretty rank for facilities. I ocassionally take non climbing customers to the works for a bit of corporate entertaining and they cant believe that you have to pretty much change in the corner of the room and dump your bag in the pile with others.

From what I know and have heard of Awesome walls I'd be surprised if the proposed wall is realistically heading in that direction, rather than just making some bold statements? If they're going to generate a new user base then fine, if not they may have to work harder than the other examples.

Climbing walls dont make money from the likes of us they make money from joe bloggs off the street wanting to goto the climbing wall.

Do you think this is true even for the Foundry? If you end up there when the conditions are good the place is far from busy.

Regardless of whether it is or not it'd be great if any new venture could cater for both ends of the spectrum from the offset. I can understand why, but still find it odd that private training facilities (School, Mill) offer better training possibilities than the largest commercial walls.