UKC

Been informed by email that the Castle are raising their prices again - that's the second time this year. This time a monthly membership is going up to £42 (up 5%).

Obviously they haven't heard there's a recession on - keep squeezing the customers guys.

In reply to boswelox:

What does £42 a month buy you ? must admit I haven't been to the Castle for a few years....

In reply to boswelox:

The Westway raised there prices nearly 15%.

I was totally gobsmacked. The thing is that for a lot of users (not all, obviously) they have a captive audience.

In reply to boswelox: £42 is I think dam good value for a wall of that calibre. Cheaper than many other places even outside London.

In reply to GrahamD:

Unlimited entry for the month. So if you go twice a week that works out as £4.74 per visit.

For that money, you get all of the route setting (eg. 12 steve mac lead routes went up last week, bouldering areas regularly reset one per week), improvements to the walls (eg. upstairs wall on RH side extended, new lead lines created late last year, catacombs revamped a month or so ago), a fair investment in new style holds introduced a month or so ago, plus the little extras like The Session for those looking to meet new partners, free informal competitions and free wifi in the cafe, personally I think it's still good value for money.

clearly prices going up is never a good thing from a customer's point of view, but with the castle IMHO you can see where your money is going and I don't think the price increases are excessive - yet.

In reply to boswelox:

Just be thankful you have a monthly pass option you should try climbing at Craggy

In reply to boswelox:

Frankly I've been baffled for a long time about why peak-time (tue wed thu evening) prices in London are as low as they are.

All the walls are so heaving during these times that I simply avoid them as a waste of time & money.

If one of the walls was more expensive but less crowded I'd almost certainly use it because I have a 9.0 - 5.0 ish sort of job & therefore no choice.
Perhaps I'm alone in that?

Seems to me that all the walls are trying to be LIDL (pile em high & sell em cheap). I'm suprised there isn't room in the market for a Waitrose.

In reply to boswelox:
thore compost bins are cheep

In reply to i.munro:

A little bit of searching has turned up this for you

http://www.thethirdspace.com/home.aspx

Wading through the site I find they have a 75 square metre wall with 'several top rope and lead climbs' no mention of how crowded it gets though.

Membership is just £118 (per month, minimum 12 months, plus undisclosed joining fee)

In reply to EddInaBox:

Sorry I failed to qualify my 'I would use it comment' with the word 'decent'.
The free wall I use midweek is better than that (I did go & look) & I strongly suspect crowding isn't a problem.
Actually there are a lot of empty-ish walls scattered around (including one 5 mins from my office) but they are empty because they are useless as training facilities being 'pretend crags'.

In reply to i.munro:


Supermarket analogy falls down a bit then.

In reply to plexiglass_nick:

I don't resent paying a fair price for using the services and people seem to be getting hung up on it 'only being £2' or £25 over the year. What's annoyed me is that they've already put their prices up once this year. If I take out a gym membership the price is fixed, they can't suddenly hike it in the middle of the year. You start feeling like a piggy bank they can tap whenever they feel like it.

I'm lucky if I make it once a week - and when I do go the place is heaving and there's no chance of doing any leading upstairs.

In reply to plexiglass_nick:

Perhaps a closer analogy would be gyms.
Where FF is at the bottom end of the market & is rammed.
If you try the other, more expensive, chains you don't get better facilities it's just that you don't have to queue (as much).

In reply to boswelox:

don't most gym memberships put you on a minimum-term contract though?

If you are attending <once a week, would you be better off with paying up front for a bulk buy of 10 or 20 visits? 20 visits should keep you going for a while and over that time you won't be hit with any price increases.

I do share your pain about the crowding and the lack of space on the upstairs lead walls at peak times. To be fair they have increased capacity on the upstears lead walls but it seems to have been met by increased demand for leading on the improved walls, so they are now more rather than less busy.

In reply to i.munro:

It's just in the last post you suggested that the reason the busy ones are busy is because they offer the best climbing/training facilities.

I also would be interested in a smaller/less popular wall with more training facilities and less of the stuff I don't use, but I suspect they don't work as a business model. Happy to be proved wrong however.

In reply to boswelox: Yeah that is quite a lot, same goes for the Westway really, I wonder how it will be before Mile End does the same? They haven't increased their prices for a while now and they were already cheaper than the rest of the London walls!

In reply to plexiglass_nick:

I'm not talking about a different sort of facility just a different sort of pricing structure.
I think you have to get the beginners, schools etc in during the day to make a viable business.

I'm just puzzled by the way the laws of supply & demand don't seem to apply here.
There is so much demand for the facilities offered by the 4 major London walls that they are crowded to the point of driving potential customers away (or at least one customer - that I know of).

I live quite locally and for those of you who only get the chance to climb there at peak times can testify that at other times the place can be really quite empty. Almost deserted.

Also the peak seems quite short. It runs from 7 till about 8.30. Other times getting on something to climb isn't much of an issue.

In reply to plexiglass_nick:

If I was in a position to get there twice a week I'd see that as a bargain for those facilities (and especially in central London). From Cambridge its a pain in the arse to get to.

In reply to owrehleeoh:


Totally agree. And even when it's really busy, I've never had a problem getting plenty done and thrashing myself. There is always one area or other that is markedly less busy.

London needs a Ratho. At least here it would rake it in rather than being a financial hole!

In reply to boswelox:

Perhaps a mirror is in order?

Anyway, having a recession doesn't mean lower prices, it almost always means higher prices and walls try to cope with a loss of business. The reverse is only true after some very careful planning to get to the point where they believe they can entice significantly more people by lowering their prices.

As for the prices, that's about as bare bones as you'll find ANY climbing wall in this country, let alone one in that area. Compare it to rip offs such as craggy and its a down right bargain.

In reply to Silum:

I don't think it's a bare bones price at all. Didn't I read not long ago in one of the mags that they reckoned they were getting up to 500 people a night. Ok I've never seen anything like that number, 200 -250 maybe om a very busy night, but with that sort of thru-put, a second price hike in the same year means somethings wrong. Having visited the Westway and Mile End recently i realised I was getting just as good an evening climbing for 2/3 the price.

In reply to caver:

*West Way:
Adult Monthly Pass-Per Month £47.00, Montly Pass with Direct Debit-Per Month £40.00.

*Mile End:
1 month: £35.00

*Castle:
1 month: £42

Unless your getting Mile end for £27 I dont see how your saving a third, I assume your just exaggerating to make your point, unfortunately, it's simply not true. £40's bog standard. As for needing to rise prices, well I don't go to any of these gyms but if they are continually improving their service as people say here, it makes sense.

I just think people are whining for no reason, I refuse to believe people are so concerned over a couple quid over the course of a month. Go elsewhere if it's the principle you're defending, noones forcing anyone to climb.

In reply to Silum:

Actually a comparable one month pass at the Castle is £59. You only get the equivalent of £42 a month if you buy a minimum of 3 months, so an outlay of £126. I'm not sure I want to commit to climb at one wall for 3 months just to get the better price.

In reply to boswelox: Personally, I would be delighted to pay £42 for a one month pass. I would be delighted to be able to GET a one month pass. Unfortunately my local wall is Craggy and they don't offer that option. Shame really but all the others are just too far.

In reply to Oceanrower: Surrey university are cheaper than craggy. And they're opening a new wall next year.

In reply to Oceanrower: Surrey university are cheaper than craggy. And they're opening a new wall next year.

In reply to nastyned: I heard, I think a lot of local climbers are looking forward to that.

In reply to boswelox:

Still the same 'it's only a couple of quid a month' line coming out.

They've put their prices up by 10% in less than a year. Just don't feel that's justified.

If anyone else did it people would have something to say. But the attitude here is that we should bend over and be grateful to have somewhere to climb.

I don't resent giving them the money I just expect them to treat their customers with some kind of ethics.

In reply to boswelox:

I agree with you. Ok, they do set routes/problems routinely, but 10% in a year is steep. Especially annoying is when routes are "reserved" for classes during peak times... grr.

In reply to EddInaBox:



WOW! My firm has corporate membership for this place but no one told me it has a climbing wall with self belay devices as well. The routes all look really lash though (website photos) and no campus board either . I suppose most of its customers would be on the 5's and 6's having had too many corporate lunches

In reply to boswelox:





You can only know whether its justified when you have studied their business plan and balance sheets. How much has their business rate gone up ? what about their lease cost ? has the recession hit their turnover ? what has happened to their insurance ?

Annoying as it might be, climbing walls aren't charities and must run as viable businesses.

In reply to GrahamD:

Actually, Mile End and Westway are charities.

In reply to iceaxejuggler:
And as charities it is even more important to run as viable businesses to enable them to continue their charitable work.

In reply to GrahamD:
A second unexpected price rise usually means that the company isn't achieving its budgeted income for the year. I guess the recession has hit them (and probably the other walls as well). Guess we should all do our bit by visiting them all as much as possible and keeping them viable. Hate to another price hike as a christmas present.

In reply to caver:

Perhaps they shouldn't be increasing their expenditure during a recession on an indulgent environmantal policy, when other firms are cutting back on environmental considerations to save money. Even if they do keep their internal environmental policy, are the thousands of pounds they are offering for environmental development projects coming out of my subscription? Whilst we all have our views on whether this stuff is a good idea, I'd prefer to have the choice of whether I support it financially or not.

In reply to agibb:

You do have the choice. If you don't like it don't give them your money.

In reply to catt:

Seconded - go to the Westway where consumption is rife...

In reply to iceaxejuggler:


Oops - so they are not in the sense of providing free handouts, though.

In reply to GrahamD: Which makes it very hard for the castle to compete on price.

In reply to boswelox:
Suck it up or go outdoor climbing

In reply to Mike Hunt: A pint cost me £3.10 last night which makes climbing wall prices even at the top end seem like a bargain.

In reply to Mike Hunt:

Which is to misunderstand how those two charities work, what their purposes are. But I suspect that you knew that.

In reply to Mike Hunt:

In what way. The Castle is a business and gives it's profit to its directors and shareholders. As I understand it (from their information)the Westway and Mile End use their profit to subsidise their schools and group work.