UKC

Greetings all,

I was wondering, if, from the breadth and depth of this sites members, if anyone has looked into the feasability of opening a decent indoor climbing venue in the Salisbury/ Surounding area?

I've looked at the basic business case and everything I have questioned so far has resulted in a case for a venue.

So, my Q is, have I missed something glaringing obvious?

Any thoughts or probing Q's appreciated.

In reply to iainoman:

Good luck with this.

I can assure you that the hardest part of building a climbing wall is finding a (minimum) 10 metre high building that you can get change of use on.

If you can do that, you're over half way there.

In reply to iainoman:
Someone posted about a group of people getting together to do this a year or so ago, they were after any input from local climbers so I gave them my details and never heard anything more, so it has been attempted at least, although the reason it never came to fruition could be many and varied, best of luck!

EDIT: It was a guy called Tom Bray, he called it Five Rivers Climbing wall and this was in Jan 2015. Is Five Rivers a local leisure centre or similar perhaps?

In reply to iainoman:

Here's the original post http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=606656

In reply to Dandan:

I live just out side of Salisbury & I'm pretty sure Five Rivers is a leisure centre.

No idea on the feasibility of building a climbing wall in the Salisbury area but I'd like one.

In reply to ElBarto:

FYI 'golden gecko' isn't that far away from Salisbury but it's not really angled at proper climbers. Not the worst wall I've ever been to but not great.

In reply to iainoman:

Yeah would be good to get a decent wall somewhere in this area. Not a huge fan of QE which is where I head to whenever I'm back in North Dorset. Get on it! Maybe some sort of kickstarter thing could be useful a) provide some funding b) generate interest from local climbers and c) through the rewards scheme thing for donating certain amounts, guarantee you'll get some footfall (which should in turn lead to more footfall?).

I'd be game, I know a few mates in that area that also would be game to go there. Would be interested to see you post back on the forums if this gets anywhere!

In reply to mark_wellin:


Agreed, the bouldering is pretty decent (although their top end grades are crazily stiff) but you just cant set a decent roped route with a 6m ceiling. It works fine for kids groups and noobs, the high number of autobelays was a smart move, but there is definitely scope for a half decent height climbing wall in the area for 'proper' climbers, I say go for it!

In reply to iainoman:

Depends how big a catchment area you think you need to be successful - you've got nothing much in Salisbury itself, but you've got competition from Swindon for climbers based north of Salisbury, and competition from Calshot/Project/RedSpider/etc for a lot of the climbers in the catchment area in an arc south of Salisbury. To your east, you have some space I guess but in terms of population centres I assume that by the time you get to Basingstoke they're looking inwards towards London or up towards Reading. I've no idea about the competition further west.

In reply to AJM:

I think you need to factor in the difference between roped centres and bouldering only centres though, I can only speak for my situation (my wife isn't a big bouldering fan) but quite often we will specifically want good roped routes which requires casting the net a bit wider.

Personally I think Southampton is a better location than Salisbury, if there was a good, 10m+ roped centre in Southampton, the only competition within an hours drive would be Calshot, but due to the road network, the vast majority of people would have to drive right past a wall in Southampton and then drive a further 30 minutes to get to Calshot, so why would you bother?
As harsh as it sounds, a good Southampton centre could steal a lot of Calshot's custom, along with the catchment for 45 minutes in all other directions, whilst keeping on good terms with the two big boulder centres either side (Red Spider and Project) and letting Golden Gecko keep the kids/introduction climbers.

I'd have opened one myself if it wasn't for the several hundred thousand pounds that I don't have to start it up...

In reply to Dandan:

I'll give you £5 if you let me be general manager/ chief badass

In reply to mark_wellin:


Ok but it's one or the other, you can't be both

In reply to Dandan:

People have been telling me that my whole life.