Discussion Topics from Tomorrow’s Workout

The Bolton Whites Hotel was host to Tomorrow’s Workout trade fitness event on the 14th September 2021 and was attended by a range of suppliers, private operators, councils, leisure trusts and personal trainers.

Alliance Leisure and TA6 sent along a few of the team to listen to the speaker programme as well as meet with suppliers who were exhibiting at the conference.  Here’s a brief summary of the discussion points throughout the day.

The morning session kicked of with a simple question, what’s the word on the street?

Sarah Watts, founder and CEO of Alliance Leisure spoke about value, decarbonisation and localism, particularly in relation to the public sector.

The challenges of pivoting a franchise model to selling a club within a club was explained by Jamie Cartwright, owner of Hatton Boxing and co-founder of BOX12.  Jamie also explained the difficulties in scaling a business that is reliant on its rockstars.

Kate Landers from Creative Fitness Marketing explained about organic reach and suggested attendees check out Facebook Blueprint for training opportunities.

Mike Hind MBE, talked passionately about building a community within his club and how word-of-mouth advertising is more powerful than paid-for campaigns.

In the afternoon discussions focussed on the consumer.  Ian Mullane, founder and CEO of the AI-powered sales and retention platform Keepme kicked off by talking about the importance of health and wellness to the consumer and using wearables to personalise an experience.

Andy King, chair of GMactive and CEO of Link4Life, explained how customers had missed the connection and sense of community during lockdown.  He also referenced talk of the sector achieving a 20% penetration rate by 2030.

Lynn Wilson from Volaire Leisure explained to the group about projects in St Helens that had focussed on mental health, particularly in younger customers as part of the Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAF).