How much did it cost to open our climbing gym?

[@BoulderingBobat]

Price is in Pounds FYI

[@BoulderingBobat]

If you want to get your hands on one of the mics we’ve used on this video, go to Everything Audio (www.everythingaudio.co.uk/dpa-2017-compact-shotgun-microphone) and use the code BOBAT to get 10% off

[@thierrylevasse494]

8:01 “No excuse for bad boulders here”. Jake Mason is probably the best head setter you can wish for. All the climbs at Hang are interesting, regardless of difficulty. Really world class.

[@cfoscoop]

it’s so funny to hear him call this a ‘small gym.’ right now the only place I can climb anywhere near me has maybe 500 square feet of bouldering, it’s literally a single corner, hang is massive in comparison 😢

[@Violianom]

Honestly. They need to fly to Japan and go to the local gyms here and not B-pump. My old home gym was 2 walls, no space to walk shoulder to shoulder and it was only slab/traverse. No space for a cave. It was in a shared space with a computer cafe and next door to a smoking room. It was disgusting, far, and affordable. The new home gym is miles better, but it's still tiny.

[@Oldmusiclover2]

The gym I go to (UK) is about the size of someone's living room, and it's possible to jump from one wall to the other. Though it is explicitly a micro gym. Hang looks vast!

[@Violianom]

Great video, but I think your idea of 'wanting it to be bigger' is funny. Your gym is absolutely massive. Not to mention a downstairs, upstairs, and several toilets. There are SO MANY gyms with one toilet, one sink, small changeroom, one floor, and/or two walls. My home gym in Japan has no washroom. It's in a shared building complex and you have to go up a floor to get to it. We have '4' walls. I can touch all the walls in under 20seconds by walking. The changeroom can fit like 4 people and even then that's crammed. Look on the green side because that's where you are!

[@jumpander]

Our bouldering gym here in Bayreuth (Germany) doesn't even have a toilet, which is very infuriating.

[@colemantrebor6574]

Compared to many other gyms in London it's small. Where I live in the Netherlands it would probably be about average, not exceptionally large or exceptionally small.

[@BoulderingBobat]

Agreed

[@Mimic_QQ]

im surprised by that becasue when i saw this gym I thought, "hmm a bit small but seems nice". Im in California and we have some large gyms with boulder, rope, lead, and weight room areas. On top of that multiple bathrooms, water stations and sauna. The benefits of large chain brand I suppose.

[@colemantrebor6574]

@@Mimic_QQ really depends on the area what is considered big or small

[@jmb9701]

I am so jealous that people living in the UK have SO much access to climbing. In Canada I have one small gym within an hour drive.

[@babsds0]

The distribution isn't even across the whole UK. There are much fewer quality climbing gyms up in Scotland and Wales afaik.

[@ArchibaldVonSkip]

Come to Montreal. We have like 15 gyms accessible.

[@timcook5117]

In fairness although London has around 40 bouldering gyms mostly on par with Hang. , it'll still somehow take over an hour to get to any of them regardless where you start from 😂

[@BradsSpace2]

London has by far the most climbing gyms of any city in the UK, with Lakeland alone having like 8 gyms with one membership, but the rest of the UK has about 1-2 gyms per city I would say

[@samchapman8348]

​@@BradsSpace2But I would say Sheffield has the best. Lol

[@nickemery3101]

As an investor in the Boardroom Wimbledon, in a very small way, I can attest to the difficulty of finding the right venue. Hang looks really great. I'll pop along next time I'm in London.

[@grh6666]

Surprised at the startup cost honestly. I thought a large commercial space in London+ Holds+Insurance+++ would be over $1 million

[@matejnovosad9152]

Same. I expected just the space to be atound the 550k

[@tobiaslueck94]

You rent the space..

[@BoulderingBobat]

Also note price is in GBP £550k = $720k and now £700k = $917k

[@t-bonevlogs1725]

I've recently moved to London so I'm very excited to pay this gym a visit!

[@B1rdTheW0rd]

Really appreciate this video guys. There’s far too few videos talking about the specifics of opening a climbing gym and they are crucial to someone like myself who is considering doing this. Absolutely gorgeous climbing gym you guys have made. Would love to climb here one day.

[@phkit420]

I think gyms should stick to V grades and just try make them reflective of other gym grades In the local area

[@jonathanv6523]

I never understood the arguments for using alternative grading in bouldering gyms. "People won't be discouraged/fixated on the grade and just try any boulder" only works if you're new to the gym, a regular climber will realise what "spicy grade" they are at after a while and then be equally "discouraged" to harder "spicy grades" because they know what their limit is at. TLDR: a new grading system starts working the same as the V grades once you get used to it. "Outside grades don't translate to indoor grades" I disagree with, grading in general is subjective measure of effort required to do the climb, regardless of whether it is outdoors or indoors, and yes some moves are unlikely to exist outdoors, but the conceived effort is still applicable. No one has ever given me a good explanation of why outdoor grades do not translate. "You don't want to be compared to other gyms in terms of soft vs sandbagged setting" I have never heard of anyone avoiding a particular gym for those reasons

[@andreasabels589]

Agree! Fountainbleau grades work by estimating physical difficulty given optimal beta (because you can steal that from your friends). This is totally possibly to convert from outdoor to indoor. Sure, grades are funky for slabs, dynos or stuff that requires crazy flexibility, but that holds true in both worlds (in- and outdoors).

[@mikel.mp4]

man I miss London, Hang is really amazing and for a beginner climber you get to do a lot of interesting beginner friendly boulders. No ladders, no predictable boring stuff. Hope one day I can make a trip and include you on it.

[@radimm5936]

really nice gym altogether, congrats! the area with moon, weights and all that looks perfect

[@michael_angelo]

As someone interested in opening a gym, would have been interested in a couple more questions specifically … What is your square footage? How much was demo and build out? What are the insurance costs? What are your employee costs (hourly employees / route-setters)?

[@smol_span]

Super sick looking gym. All the best to hang 2.0 and maybe I will cross the city to come check you out soon

[@SandbagBouldering]

Hmm I need to find ways to spend more in hang… keep my gym afloat! Good job you just got Tokyo powder in!

[@BoulderingBobat]

Rep us at your local wall 😅 www.hang.co.uk/merch-gear

[@matejnovosad9152]

550k is sooo much less than I expected. I was expecting the space alone to be in that ballpark in London

[@BoulderingBobat]

Also note price is in GBP £550k = $720k and now £700k = $917k

[@Leoridor]

You wouldn’t buy the space, it’s rental agreements

[@matejnovosad9152]

@@Leoridor realized this moments after typing my comments. I think it might make sense to buy if you have the capital.

[@mattmitkov6170]

Very cool thank you!

[@stRemyMartin]

Goodluck! looks great

[@acojsx]

thanks jon and bobats crew! love the shamans! and this place has great hot choco

[@MrSooty14]

Wish more centres had this mindset, my local franchised one is more concerned about getting numbers in the door than actually improving the centre. We don’t have a training section at all bar a few hangboards which they openly admit was to open up more capacity space

[@TheLoringharvey]

Love you JP ❤

[@sp_danger1729]

What an awsome gym! Would love to go hang sometime🤟

[@elfriederich]

Thanks for sharing

[@dragomir8192]

You guys are like the UK version of the aussie Blochaus gyms!

[@Jagknorr]

Looks great! Wish i could check it out. 😢 Theres an old abandoned K-Mart i thought would be cool to convert into a bouldering gym. Even near a college! But to think something and to do it is tooootally different haha. That and i couldn’t live my life as a setter. Its fun to make your own boulders willy nilly but to HAVE to make something new on a schedule and cater it to others is very difficult. Mad props to all the commercial setters out there 👍

[@zakmorgan9320]

Wish you were closer to my gaff, by far the best setting and boulders in the city but just a little far away :(

[@MarkBoulders]

Your location looks amazing. I am curious. How much did it cost for the padded flooring?

[@arronhughes6055]

Jon is the sendsei!

[@belmany]

What is that "milker" machine at 11:10 ? I've never seen one before

[@grampsz.]

Ski-erg - cardio machine

[@nailniall]

Looks like a ski erg or ski trainer

[@guest1754]

What does "The Milker" do?

[@jerkronnols434]

It's really a machine for cross country ski training. Very common in Scandinavian countries. Surprised to see it at Hang! But I guess it is really good for general cardio training, particularly activating your lats and triceps which makes sense for climbing.

[@Exi01]

Are the Partridges related?

[@BoulderingBobat]

@@Exi01 only in their passion for climbing 🤣 but by blood no.

[@syko3298]

Is he high? 😂 Congrats on the reopening tho!

[@BoulderingBobat]

He's a new dad lol just tired af

[@G-ov1jz]

What happened to JP?

[@spacemole]

I do find gyms without grades annoying. Who cares if your soft or hard. People go for what they think there at and go up or down accordingly. I hope you atleast have them graded even if this is information you habe to look up.

[@axelganymede]

"Over 18's only" 😫

[@atomic7680]

This is a big gym no? 😂 Bigger than most gyms in NL

[@homemsapo]

System idea is great, since there's no correlation to real rock! Tracking progression is a great aim

[@matejnovosad9152]

I know what he wanted to convey but what he said is simply not true. If you climb v10 indoors you can easily climb v6 outdoors no matter the gym.

[@Crazyoldman84]

Different system sucks

[@homemsapo]

Boards, commercial gyms and real rock grades are not related. It's more honest to have your own system then giving costumers the false feeling of being a V whatever climber... But I get that many gyms these days Will put numbers to boost the ego and keep people Climbing more often with a false sense of reward. Therefore I admire their atitude

[@Crazyoldman84]

@@homemsapo but everyone knows the how it works. If you're a v7 indoors then it only counts indoors. A new system makes no sense at all.

[@BoulderingBobat]

Fell like u are proving our point lol. You're saying the grade has no relation to outdoors sooo.... make sense to then not use the outdoor grading lol? We use grading indoors just to give a hint to the customer what difficulty it is. We would rathe have it all ungraded but for insurance reasons that's not allowed

[@Drinkyoghurt]

No offense, just venting, but I hate how expensive indoor climbing has gotten over the years. It's much more expensive than a regular gym membership by 2-5x easily! I used to boulder for 5 years indoors, before it took off and got hyped, and I cancelled my membership last year because it was becoming unaffordable (70 euros a month and I can't visit as much as previously). Routesetters are getting paid peanuts for the work they do. Again, not hating on your gym in particular, I know how expensive rent, holds, walls, design, mats etc. can get, but still sad to see it turn into a yuppie sport.

[@jorji_]

yeh to bar the sport socioeconomically from people sucks. but it also doubly sucks that it’s not the rentee’s fault most of the time. renting any sort of property is simply ridiculous. heard something recently that the price of a meal at a mom and pop food joint over the last 30 years had only increased by 20% whilst the price of rent had increased by like 400%

[@tomholland5171]

Is the guy at 12:15 ok?

[@BoulderingBobat]

🤣

[@OrionDuCros]

Anyone tell me how much so I don't have to watch the whole video?

[@Strang3M]

about £550k. He thinks with inflation it would be about £700k today.

[@OrionDuCros]

@@Strang3M no way you need that much for a small gym

[@Crazyoldman84]

Hate the idea of a different grading system. 😒

[@dzBoardClimbs]

really interesting video! What did the process look like to attract new members? Did you advertise on instagram? Do founding membership deals? How much did the youtube channel help attract new members?

[@rampel1]

I think with their popularity on youtube and massive local following they got a big staring promo on youtube and bobat social media

[@dannythwaites1318]

I think it was Jake on the careless talk podcast said that the KZbin channel was a massive help

[@SF-br8bu]

What percentage of their subscribers do you think live in or near hounslow though 😂

[@BoulderingBobat]

In the week its mostly locals. Weekend we get more subscribers coming down (cos ur right they don't live in Hounslow)