UKC

I've just seen the Monthly fees for over 60's at Awsome Walls.  £35.?? a month.  That seems perfectly  reasonable to me. My local wall is £65.00 per month and I'm now thinking that it's a bit of a rip off. One off entry prices are similar.

What are the fees are your local wall? I may have to reconsider my loyalties.

Al

Well it's grim up North and we've no brass so it all has to be cheaper but Harrogate has (alas only for another few days) has been offerring  a lunchtime special  price for two and a half hours' climbing and a cuppa in the cafe for an extortionate £4.50. I think it goes up next month to £6.50 for  4 hours and a brew.

I was thinking more of the Monthly/Annual rates but thank you anyway for that.

Al

What? I'm a pensioner, lad. I can't be making  long term commitments like monthly membership

You should encourage your local wall to sign up the the MoveGB scheme. This costs about £10 per week and you have to commit to at least 2 months. But often there are discounts, a friend seems to have a deal which is only £7.50 pw. For that price you can go 7 days per week if you want. And you can go to many other sport/recreational activities too, like yoga, various gyms, crossfit, Pilates etc. on the days you don't want to go climbing.

Steve, you haven't tried to convince me to sign up to the MOVEGB scheme, why not?

Because the Wall ends up offering discounted entry fees; and MoveGB wants their cut from your sales as well.

I looked at switching my allegiance to Redpoint Worcester when it opened - but felt that the membership prices were extortionate, especially compared to the walls in Bristol - and decided I'd stick with the Warehouse. Which proved to be a good decision, since they've upped their game on route setting. 

I'm not convinced about the value of MoveGB unless you're planning on doing lots of other activities - in Bristol unlimited climbing at the three participating centres would cost me nearly £1,000 per year - which is nearly twice the amount of the most expensive centre there.

I went somewhere recently that charged £8.50 for a single session ????

£24 a month at Plymouth Climbing Hanger, or £8 a session.

So monthly is a total bargain.

Cheap; £11 for an evening of bouldering in a stupidly rammed London wall last week

I don't think the one off entrance fees are too bad, it's just that there doesn't seem to be much incentive to pay monthly or annually.  

I don't like the Warehouse, it's far too small and gets very crowded.  Indeed I'm surprised that there haven't been any incidents due to this overcrowding. The thing that really annoys me though is that they have designated children's areas but let children do what they want in the main area.  This is OK if they are actually climbing but often they are effectively just playing whilst the designated areas are empty.

Al

If it's overcrowded you could argue that it's too cheap...

(Not the only way of regulating, of course, but it is one).

One off entry fees are good because if the weather is nice "real" climbers will want to be outdoors anyway.

Or £6.50 off-peak.

It's true, I never end up getting monthly passes because even in winter if we get some good weather I won't go often enough to make it worth it and in summer I never would. Some walls will do multi-entry passes through where you can buy say a 10 use pass for the price of 9 or something which works better providing they don't expire. 

The Foundry in Sheffield dropped out of the MoveGB system, I can only assume it wasn't worth it for them. 

I can't afford to save money and buy an annual pass so use the buy 10 get 12, its better than a monthly one as its not time limited meaning if I'm outside for a month I've not lost out. 

You took the words right out of my mouth

£9 a session in Hudds now. I'm priced out - I can get a week of gym sessions for a single wall session - I won't be going indoors any more

Edit: I'm not hating on the walls BTW - I understand they have rising costs, its just that its got too high for it to be an option...

To be fair, I don't think it's any busier than other centres are on busy nights. Small and too many children running around is a different matter...

I think it's probably really good if you want to get new and more customers. But the last thing the Works needs is more climbers. It's already way too popular.

Completely agree with your comments on the Warehouse! Really annoys me when they have kids parties ringing that bell in the main wall and using the autobelays for kids groups. I know children's group are where the majority of climbing centre's income comes from, but they have several areas exclusively for kids!

Yeah, I'm not sure why. Awesome Walls reckons it works well for them though. Interestingly I find I go to Awesome Walls now much more than the Foundry these days and I'm not even on Move GB. But some of my climbing partners are so that's where we go.

I was in there one evening and one of the instructors had a group of kids performing pendulums on the Auto Belay wall effectively making 12 or so routes unavailable to others.  He was also encouraging them to scream and shout at their friends to encourage them. In all fairness to the management however they did stop him when I complained about it.

Al

£5.50 day time for old gits at Warwick Uni.

No doubt when the new 'wonderwall' opens, the prices for all will rise.