A talk on gyms 15 years ago, now, and 15 years from now. How far is the industry going to go? What can we learn from other, more mature industries? How has the end customer evolved throughout the years? How will Tokyo 2020 affect us? These are only a few of the questions that will be answered during this panel discussion.

Matt Roberts, is not only a gym owner, but also a Bank Director and loan committee member who spends every other Wednesday morning reviewing, approving or denying loans. Matt will explain the fundamentals of lending from a bankers’ perspective, and what banks love and hate in loan applications. His presentation will be followed by an open discussion.

Using his Silicon Valley entrepreneurial experience, the co-founder of the Totem Climbing gym chain Kilko Caballero once had started the journey of bank credit application and ended up with successful financial leasing solution for the climbing walls in all his gyms. He will share his approach to getting alternative financing for growth in Switzerland. Jack Doran from Portman Asset Finance started working with the climbing gyms sector in the UK two years ago. Jack will explain how asset financing works in the UK and what’s important to know for gym owners that are going to use it for the benefit of their business.

Gain knowledge about the most important things to consider when opening a new gym. Get tips on choosing the right location, developing your concept, finding the right manufacturers and suppliers, and more, but most importantly – learn about the costly challenges and mistakes that have been made in the past, and how to avoid them.

Connect your gym to the Vertical-Life platform and transform your walls into an interactive workout area. Circuits, training plans, challenges, worldwide ranking games and social features will motivate your customers to climb more frequently and improve their performance. At the same time, our software enables you to manage route setting, safety checks, climbing courses as well as your staff and work schedules. With Vertical-Life, we connect indoor and outdoor climbing by offering a premium guidebook library together with the 8a.nu route database. Join Vertical-Life and reach out to 165,000+ registered climbers.

Learn about climbing gym styles and colors, print, lighting, furniture, electronics, amenities and more. Our panelists will share details about designing a climbing facility in a new, or already existing building, allocating the gym’s different areas, and choosing the right types of walls.

A discussion about routesetter recruitment, compensation, scaling and management, the process of setting commercially, and the inevitable need for defined safety standards that minimize the risks that the industry is currently taking.

This presentation will help you understand climbing hold parameters, climbing hold surfaces and wear. Learn about the current and future manufacturing techniques used in hold making. The speaker will briefly describe Composite X’s history and innovations, and introduce its advancing distribution network and ERP system.

Learn how Real Estate Investment Trusts can reduce the real estate burden from the climbing gym owners. Our speakers Sebastian Smith, Managing Director at the US based real estate investment trust STORE Capital has already started working with the climbing gym industry recently. He will share how REITS works and how they can support the growth of the climbing gym industry.

Get acquainted with the benefits of having a retail zone in your gym, what it takes to make it successful, understanding your targets, the brand’s perspective when forming a partnership, and more. Our speakers will share their experiences, and talk about the do’s and don’ts of creating synergy between climbing and retail.

We will look at current problems in the climbing industry and make parallels with other sectors like regular gyms and studios. This pesentation will show you how the IT sector helped those industries and how it can help ours as well, what mistakes they made and how to avoid them, and different ways to automate our business process so that we can focus on what we love doing – climbing!

The speaker will talk about the background of Klimbz, how and why it was developed, its evolution, and working with gyms over the past four years. As well as the benefits to gym managers, setters and members for knowing and understanding the data within the gym and how to use it to make your gym and gym members better.

The Self Belay is an innovative alternative to a regular carabiner, with numerous additional benefits. It allows for participants to safely clip in and out of auto belays and belay lines on their own, without any assistance –children as young as five years of age can use the device on their own. This not only helps increase capacity in climbing gyms, but also decreases the facility’s number of required staff members. Join our presentation to learn all about how the Self Belay has become a game changer in climbing and adventure centers throughout the globe.

What does rehab of a climbing gym mean? What parts of the gym need rehab and when? When do you know it’s time to expand? Find out the best ways to plan the different areas of your gym so that they can easily be refurbished and expanded in the future.

An in-depth discussion that will cover the characteristics of safety mats in climbing gyms, the dilemmas that arise when choosing the right type of flooring, current safety standards, the most common types of injuries, fire safety, and more.

A look at all the aspects of operating a climbing gym – from employee management and operational costs to events and marketing. What are the challenges of recruiting staff members? What are the tricks to getting new customers to come back to your facility? What are the pros and cons of hosting an event in your gym? How do you deal with off-peak seasons? These are only a few of the questions that the Operations Insights panel will be answering.

Walltopia’s Active Entertainment division designs, manufactures and builds ropes courses, interactive climbing walls for children and young adults, obstacle courses, artificial caving systems and more. Learn about the ways in which these attractions can be incorporated into climbing gyms to bring in new customers.