UKC

Hmmm, if Tesco were to introduce an annual fee to shop at Tesco would you be pissed off? (assuming you shop at Tesco but you get the idea)

Shopper: Just this pint of milk please.
Shop: That's 70p for the milk and £4 annual fee...

I'd thought this sort of nonsense had died out at climbing walls but clearly it hasn't, still there are better walls that don't require this...

In reply to duchessofmalfi:
In Sheffield awesome walls is free membership
Foundry is £2 for life
The works is £3 or £4 for life

Don't mind paying a few quid to register as there's obviously a bit of admin to sort out but annual registration seems like money for nowt.
Go elsewhere

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

I was under the impression that having a paid membership offered insurance advantages. If that's the case, it might well be lowering the overall cost of visiting walls. I presume insurance makes up a reasonable chunk of a typical entrance fee.

In reply to Luke90:

I see no correlation between annual registration charges and lower prices (if anything the opposite) and a negative correlation between charges and quality. If anything I see **** walls without decent competition pulling this stunt. It serious discourages visiting.

In reply to Luke90:


PL insurance isn't nearly as expensive as people imagine. More likely it's just a way of topping up the income and making sure contact details (for marketing emails) are up to date.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

Are the annual charge walls all empty then?

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

Alien Rock (1 & 2) and EICA Ratho are both free membership, come to Edinburgh!

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

Don't come to Aberdeen, Transition Extreme basically the only wall charges £30 a year membership. Then still charge you £9 a go! Wouldn't be so bad if the bouldering was any good.
http://www.transition-extreme.com/climbing-wall-prices

In reply to Bulls Crack:

`Are the annual charge walls all empty then?'

Doubt it - not looked. More likely they just lack competition (for now) and are complacent.

In reply to Bulls Crack:


I think Eden Rock in Carlisle has an annual reg fee and it's the best wall in the country!

In reply to duchessofmalfi:
One of the reasons why we stopped going to 'The Pinnacle' at Northampton. It's another stealth tax.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

I stopped climbing indoors because of the costs. I found a wall that doesn't charge fees outdoors.

I'd like to see some climbing walls that charge these annual fees explain why they do it...

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

To encourage you to come back?

Don't other sorts of gym so this routinely?

Surely it simply encourages not to go there in the first place?

I frequent 4-5 walls, none of which charge annual fees.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

Apparently you think this idea is ridiculous. Use Amazon much? Blink and you will find you have subscribed to Amazon Premium.

In reply to Dogwatch:
But amazon and amazon prime are two different services and the advantages of the later are clear and coated out.
As others have said, what is the annual membership at a wall paying for? Inputting a name on a spread sheet at the first visit and then.... nothing.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

The irony is that there is surely no actual need to 're-register' someone each year. Unless of course you are charging an annual fee, in which case you need to register who has paid it. So really it's an annual fee not a annual registration fee.

In reply to Mr. Lee:

Well the current thinking is that walls should be re-registering their members every 3 years to ensure that they are signed up to the latest T&C's

In reply to Graeme Alderson:

The current thinking amongst whom?

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

your tesco anology isn't as far fetched as it appears. I'm sure many here have shopped at Go Outdoors? £5 per year 'membership' costs to get special discounted rate when in fact anything over £50 and your are saving money granted however Go Outdoors now have your email, address and phone number and despite declairing that you don't want marketing stuff, you still get it

In reply to wilkie14c:


... not if you give them bs name, email and postal addresses and hand the new card straight back to them with a request to dispose of it in an environmentally responsible way. The puzzled look you get is an added bonus

In reply to john arran:

i'm ashamed to say i am a shopper there john but not for climbing kit. the fishing dept empties my wallet and the gas is pretty cheap when you use as much i as do.
i did once use a made up name but correct address for something 'free', can't remember what it was but despite ticking the box to decline marketing offers' i still got bumff through the post address to paulo wilkardo

In reply to wilkie14c:

My excuse was that we were flying in for a wedding and camping that night - and it was far cheaper to buy a pop-up tent and give it away afterwards than to pay for a check-in bag!

In reply to john arran:

as is sometimes the way mate, did the same when i went to joshua tree, only took essentials and bought some cheap camping stuff from wallmart and gave it the thrift shop when we'd finished. anyway, i digress

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

The shop Go Outdoors has a sh*te scheme like this. Everything in the shop has two prices, the 'normal' price and the price with the discount card which is much cheaper. You have to pay for the discount card - £5 per year I believe. In other words you have to pay for them to monitor you and your shopping habits.

I rarely shop there not least because they once tried to charge me £90 for parking in their car park for 3 hours when I was at the climbing wall. Somehow they got my address and even sent someone round to my house to try to intimidate me into to handing over the money - which of course I didn't do. Scandalous behaviour and not a good way to endear their customers.

If I shop there now I have a mate who has a card and just say I'm him. But mostly I just avoid the place.

With climbing walls it's slightly different because they want to make sure the people going in are competent to climb. But they certainly don't need to charge an annual fee for that. What would such a fee actually pay for?

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

The Climbing Hangar in Liverpool just introduced a £5 annual membership fee as well as upping their entry prices. If you're not a member the entry price is £10, if you are the entry price is £8.

Buying an annual pass still requires paying their membership fee despite the fact that it does nothing for you.

In reply to Removed User:

And it may lose them my business in 11months time. Until Awesome suffer the same insanity.

In reply to wilkie14c:

If you buy anything from Walmart the best thing to do is return it after you have finished with it. They have a very generous returns policy. It has loaned me tents, cookers, and whilst we stayed at a campsite with an electric hook up a lamp and bread maker all returned at the end of the trip.

Most recently I had a minor breakdown that was solved using their tools (carefully to preserve the tags) prior to return and refund.

All morally justified because its Walmart.......

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

Has anyone ever tried to buy something at Go Outdoors without a discount card? Staff can't understand why I don't want to pay £3 for a card when it would save me massive 20p off my purchase (or should I say cost me £2.80 extra?)!

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

The Association of British Climbing Walls

In reply to Graeme Alderson:

so how does that justify a yearly charge?
once every three years, i have to read and sign the most current T&C's. where's the cost?

In reply to Jenny C:

Ive had the opposite experience. i tried to buy £30 worth of stuff, including the cost of the car i ended up paying £12. no brainer.

In reply to Graeme Alderson:

So let's get this right:

The ABC current thinking is that customers must be made aware of the T+C every three years

_not_

The ABC says there should be an annual fee?

In reply to La benya:



I think Graeme's trying to explain it, not justify it.

In reply to La benya:

Yes discount card is worth having if you are buying big, but I really don't like their mentality of buying in bulk and trying to undermine specialist shops. Much prefer to spend my pennies at local independents who will get me the right gear and not just what they can sell for a massive markup - and am willing to pay extra for this.

In reply to Jenny C:


Thats pretty much it in any retail sector, isn't it ? Supermarkets, DIY Stores, Electrical Outlets.

I don't have a problem with GO Outdoors , mainly because they ARE my local shop.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

I agree with you in principal.

Pays for the membership cards perhaps? I am always losing mine and having it replaced.

That said I quit a gym because they wouldn't replace my membership card for free.

Awesome walls is still free to join.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:
Correct, the ABC isn't there to dictate pricing policy for walls. It is there to try and create working guidelines for H&S etc

In reply to winhill:

Thank you

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

Don't remember paying a registration fee for any wall I've ever used and I certainly don't pay any annual fees.

That said, I haven't been to a wall for about 4 years - hope my "life membership" cards haven't expired...

In reply to La benya:

As winhill says I am not trying to justify the annual charge that some walls make.

But as you ask the question "where's the cost?". Well of course there is a cost involved with processing a new form, entering the data onto the membership system, storing the forms, occasionally auditing the stored forms to make sure that we haven't lost any or that you have actually signed the form but my staff missed it because you were here on a wet Sunday with queues out of the door,

To pretend there isn't a cost involved is just wrong.

In reply to GrahamD:

Fair point. I am lucky I have a number of good independent climbing/outdoor shops locally.

Doesn't change the fact that for me a discount card isn't cost effective and (much as with Amazon and Amazon prime) their default to sell a membership scheme that will mean me paying more than I would without it. It is the way they push me to take out the card that annoys me most - why should not wanting a discount and being happy to pay RRP for the goods result in me being made to feel uncomfortable by their staff?

In reply to Jenny C:

I guess its just a matter of luck in any shop which staff you get. I couldn't really fault the helpfulness of the staff in Harlow (or the ones I've met). That isn't the same as specialist knowledge, of course !

In reply to Graeme Alderson:

"But as you ask the question "where's the cost?". Well of course there is a cost ..."

Go back to the pint of milk example, there is a cost involved in selling the milk, the cash transaction, the shelves, the lighting in the shop etc etc. All of that is included in the cost of the pint of milk. Annual fees are not justified or explained by trivial routine costs involved in administering entry.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

Climbing walls are businesses - they operate under the principles of supply and demand with the aim of making a profit. Their charging structure is their decision, just as you have a choice of whether or not to use that wall. You have a further option - you can take the risk that they did and start up you own wall in competition.

They don't need to justify to you why they charge an annual fee, nor does it have to be related to any effort on their part. It could for example, be their way of rewarding regular users - take away the annual fee and they would have to increase the cost per visit to make up the shortfall. Or maybe they would have to lay off some staff.

Just checked and my local squash club has an annual fee of over £200, and court fee of £6 per 40 mins. £8 for an evening a the climbing wall is a bargain in comparison, with or without an annual fee

In reply to Graeme Alderson:

But these costs must be coming down. At most places I've registered it's been all electronic, the data entered by the customer. The staff glance at the screen and pretty much hand over a barcode no questions asked.
I don't doubt there is a cost to registering new customers, but hopefully they will keep visiting and the 5 mins for registering will be paid for in installments over the next visits. I agree that for one off 'just in the area today' visits then free registration is a cost that isn't recouped.

In reply to markAut:

I don't think anybody is questioning the small admin overhead of initial registration, just that of annual renewal. At least charging a small registration fee can be justified by the small admin overhead. In my opinion a wall would be daft to insist upon hefty annual charges in order to try to lock customers in. It definitely discourages occasional visits from non-locals. Offering a 'value-added' membership, with an annual fee and associated benefits compared to those for casual users, is very different to requiring costly annual membership to use the facility even once.

In reply to john arran:

John puts this very nicely and this explains the need for justification lest people feel pissed off about it.

If I think about the number of times I've been put off from visiting a wall because of this (and then gone elsewhere) it isn't that big in absolute terms but that is only because visiting a new place is a rarity. Expressed as this fraction, "how many times am I put off compared with the number of new walls with this policy I visit" it is very high.

Personally I think these walls would, on average, be better off without these recurring fees for no benefit.

A bit like trade tariffs after brexit.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

Nail on head Chris.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:



Fixed that for you

In reply to Graeme Alderson:


It's easy to do that without charging an extortionate fee to process a simple form.

In reply to timjones:

Where do I say that a fee should be charged?

Read what Chris The Tall said about how walls generate their income.

In reply to timjones:


The fee just goes into the operating income of the wall. Individual operations of the wall aren't priced individually otherwise you would need to be charged for time at the wall and number of holds used.

Just decide whether you think that, overall, the wall is worth going to for your annual outlay and if it isn't vote with your feet.

In reply to GrahamD:

That much is obvious. What you're missing is that people 'feel like' they're being ripped off or taken advantage of when they're presented with a charge for one such specific thing and they don't think they are getting anything in return for it - such as an annual fee charged to one-time users or to full members in addition to their annual membership. It's a matter of perception, and ultimately it's a matter of keeping existing customers happy and not deterring new ones.

In reply to BrendanO:

Since when did the Ratho membership become free?

In reply to sheppy:

Free to be on their system, have a number, etc.

You CAN pay (a fortune) for the other kind of "membership" where you then DON'T pay entry fee for each visit. That's not what this thread was about.

Incidentally, I did for many yrs pay that 2nd kind of membership at Alien, nearly £400 p.a. but then no other cost, a bargain if going 2-3 times a week. My time is now split between two indoor walls (and OUTDOORS!) so it's now better for me to pay on each visit.

No annual reg fees tho. Unless Ratho have recently changed?

In reply to Chris the Tall:
Fees like this are usually charged at new walls when they open. It's a simple way of a
Wall generating cash when they start up .having spent a fortune on building the wall they need cash flow.so from a business perspective it's a critical component of surviving the first year.

So best thing to do to avoid the fee is wait for a year or so, then visit, you usually find the fee has vanished as the business is more secure.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

I think the cost or no cost & justified to charge arguments have been done, so I'll add a new spanner:

So, back a few years ago, if you had paying members of a sports facility, their subs (i.e your £8 per nights climb) were able to be exempted from VAT, meaning walls charging you £2 a year meant that they could keep the whole £8 making a significant difference to the bottom line.

My understanding is that some walls cottoned on to that, initiating the annual charge.

That VAT loophole no longer exists, or is structured in such a way that most walls can't use it.

In the event of a wall who used that loophole, there will be a line on their accounts, saying annual membership fees, £xx,xxx. Any board of directors will likely have thought, well, we've just lost the VAT portion, so I think I'll keep that coming in to offset not having to put my prices up so much.

Other walls who weren't able to take advantage of that, still had it as a way of making a regular predictable annual income and providing a metric - people who have paid for an annual membership gives a more reliable regular climbers figure than the 50,000 people on the books of most larger walls these days, you can now of course provide something similar with the right reporting from a basic wall database. There's also some who use it as a way to charge more to one off visitors, simply because it's a different market and the aims for the wall are different when dealing with visitors or locals.

Interestingly when opening my wall I sent our business plan (version 9 if I remember rightly) around a few folk, and was given a strong recommendation to introduce an annual registration charge by a number of them.

We decided not to, as wisdom outside the world of climbing walls suggests reducing friction in the sign up cycle increases sign ups which is obviously good news, and with our wall being in a location visited by lots of climbers once or twice we didn't want to penalise visitors.

There are obviously other reasons for it - whether the charge is implemented or not is obviously the decision of the wall, the only one I find strange is the introduction of an annual charge in an existing wall that didn't previously have one, my assumptions for this are lots of walls have been moving to IT systems with a higher overhead charge, which is much more tangible in the accounts than countless hours of staff filling out forms while also making lattes and managing the desks, they may be trying to offset that with a charge to cover the cost of maintaining a slick entry system, alternatively they could be looking at a way to delay price increases in the fear that this will reduce regularity or retention of members.

I think, and have done for a while, that ideas like it and other none customer focused changes, charges and policies in walls are down to wall managers not necessarily questioning what has gone before, or having goals/focus/mission-statements that don't put the customer first as an organisation. It will be very interesting to see what happens over the coming years as we start to reach 'perceived wall saturation' with the current business model adopted by many walls.

In reply to 65m moderate millington:

That is an interesting perspective - I could buy the club / VAT loophole as a historical reason.

It is my experience that walls that currently charge annual fees:

- tend not to have competition (although plenty of walls without competition don't charge these fees)
- tend to be shit in a variety of different ways (sometimes old, tired, complacent and not bothering, sometimes deskilled and overly rule bound, often not proper walls not run by climbers, "extreme" experiences rather than proper gyms)
- lose trade - I've certainly bypassed walls conforming to this

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

I must be in the minority of people that don't mind paying an annual membership fee at walls. At the end of the day, if entry fees cover overheads (heat, light, insurance etc) then the memberships can be used for new holds, route/problem setting, competition organisation and any future plans - in short, the things that people gripe about if walls don't have. Two of the walls I climb at regularly have a £5 annual fee. Would I donate a fiver if the wall asked for donations towards new volumes? Probably. Would most other people? Probably not.

In reply to Anth:


At the end of the day if a wall can't budget to ensure that entry fees cover maintainance and development then a £5 annual membership fee isn't going to solve their problems.

As for competitions, maybe the entry fees should cover the costs?

In reply to duchessofmalfi:
I totally agree with your OP.

Another issue I had was with a local, council run, sports centre who wanted to charge a fee to establish that I was competent before being allowed to use their small wall. Fine. But then told I still couldn't use it if an instructor wasn't present, even after passing that assessment.

In reply to timjones:

Unfortunately I've only been into climbing/bouldering for a couple of years so it may be down to a "generational difference" in thinking, so-to-speak, with those who've used walls since the year dot not being keen on extra fees and those newer to the sport (who may be used to gym fees and don't care about climbing on rock) being more happy to pay a fiver out once a year. Personally coming from a martial arts background, I'm simply used to membership fees at the start of the year to cover insurance and governing body costs and in some organisations they can be a heck of a lot more than what walls charge.

In reply to Anth:

The problem is that those walls that do charge tend to do so in a haphazard manner with little transparency. It's just an addition to the usual entry fee that catches you unawares at a seemingly random point each year. It's never been explained whether it's a annual fee regardless of whether you visit or it runs for a whole 12 months from the point of payment at any of the walls that I use.

On a personal level it's at least a 40 minute drive to get to a climbing wall for me and I tend to visit a number of different walls for variety. it makes far more sense to have a standard entry fee without "annual" fees at seemingly random intervals.

I'd also say that it is most definitely not generational, it used to be far more common, some older walls have seen the light and stopped charging annual fees but sadly most of the newer walls that are opening don't seem quite so enlightened