As temperatures rise, every Independent gym and fitness club owner knows that footfall is going to either dip, slow, or collapse depending on the month and what spin they want to put on it.
But just because some form of dip is inevitable, doesn’t mean that summer is a write-off. In fact, it is that very predictability that allows us to prepare, adapt, and attempt to address this slowdown.
So in order to avoid collapse in August, we are going to start planning now. The independent gyms that come out the other side of August with strong retention figures and a clear Q4 pipeline are the ones that started planning now.
We all know summer changes member behaviour because it changes nearly everyone’s behaviour. Daylight is plentiful, the weather is (often) quite charming. Attendance drops, routines loosen, and some members put their goals on hold because a good time is calling.
None of this should be new information, but what determines whether an independent thrives or just survives this period is the quality of the systems, communications, and timetable that were put in place ahead of time.
So without further ado, let’s take a look.
Recognising patterns through historic data
Summer attendance shifts often follow a few consistent patterns, usually based on demographic and location. Families with school-age children rearrange their weeks from mid-July as the holidays kick in, commuter-area gyms lose footfall during August when city centres empty out at the same time gyms near universities often see student members disappear home. Meanwhile, gyms in coastal areas or tourist hotspots may see different forms of pressure, including irregular usage from short-term visitors who inflate short-term numbers without contributing to retention.
The first step we’d always recommend is to pull any historic attendance data that an independent gym or fitness club has from the previous summers and identify exactly when dips started in each, then identify how severe they were, and finally whether those dips follow a consistent weekly pattern.
This data shouldn’t just be limited to who is going through the turnstiles, class attendance is an area where data-driven analysis and action can save a significant amount of time and money. Because if the data shows that specific classes start emptying out from the last week of July, make tweaking and rearranging the class schedule a priority.
The usage of historic data here shouldn’t be complicated. Any good membership management software should be able to reduce a report covering a basic breakdown of attendance by day, time, and class type across June to September at a moments notice. These reports will help tell the independent gym owner where the real pressure points are.
Agile Timetable Management Isn’t Just About Marginal Gains
A common mistake gym owners and managers make is maintaining a year-round non-seasonal timetable through summer out of a sense that cutting classes sends a bad message out to their existing members.
But stubbornly sticking to a class timetable that is out of sync with the season isn’t a hill worth dying on. The consequence any independent gym manager who does will face is paying instructors to take sessions with four attendees, which damages both the instructor’s morale and your payroll position.
Being proactive with a class timetable isn’t a sign of weakness, and once it has happened one year, your members will understand that this isn’t a sign of decline, but proactive decision making.
Reducing class frequency in slots where historical data shows low summer uptake or drop-off is a surefire way to run a tighter class schedule with less wasted time and resources. This can often be achieved by focusing on morning sessions, which tend to do better in the summer months when compared to evening slots.
Meet with instructors and class-leads to ask and ensure that they are running seasonally appropriate classes. This can double-up as a marketing mission, finding classes that your team wants to brag about and that they believe is pertinent to summer (example: something that aids getting ‘summer body ready’) is a great thing to shout about on your socials in June and July as people do their panicked prep for the holidays.
Of course, any timetable changes that you make should be communicated at least three to four weeks in advance. This is where you get to set the story, reinforce that this isn’t a scaling back due to a lack of popularity, but a seasonal measure.
Collect any comments that are made on these posts, whether positive or negative, to determine how your membership base is reacting to the changes. Members who understand your reasoning are less likely to perceive a reduced schedule as a negative.
Keep Members Engaged Without Devaluing Your Membership Or Your Brand
Independent gyms and fitness clubs under pressure in summer often reach for discounts. Flash sales and cut-price short-term memberships can fill slots and relieve some pressure, but they carry a real cost. Any members who join at a promotional rate frequently churn when those prices start to normalise, and existing members who paid full price notice when new joiners are getting a better deal.
Challenges are a low-cost engagement tool that can help with retention, community building and brand reinforcement, vital for any independent gym wanting to solidify their existing membership during a disruptive time.
Challenges will give some members a reason to keep coming during a period when their routine is likely to soften. Not only that, it creates a social element that, if done right, will strengthen their attachment to any independent gym or fitness club.
Options we’ve seen work well include:
- A class count challenge, such as completing 10 classes in 30 days, with a visible leaderboard
- A team-based challenge where members form small groups and accumulate collective attendance
- A choose-your-own-goal format where members set their own target and check in at the end of the period
- An attendance competition over a defined period, where the member who attends the most sessions wins an actual prize, no half measures!
Crafting the challenges to be well designed matters. This isn’t a matter of throwing a ten word question into ChatGPT and seeing what it blurts out.
You know your facility and your membership. The robots don’t.
A challenge that is too easy generates no real engagement. One that is too demanding puts off the members who are already attending infrequently. A 30-day format that feels achievable for someone coming in three times a week is a reasonable benchmark.
Bring a Friend months are a separate consideration, but worth considering nonetheless. It is a tried and tested method for independent gyms to fill the quiet spots, introduce new faces and strengthen the retention prospect of existing members. However, with all that said, the conversion rate from summer guest passes to long-term memberships tends to be lower than it is in autumn or January.
If you decide to run a refer a friend programme, be careful with how you word and market it. Specify that the reward, whether a free month or otherwise, applies only when a friend signs up for a membership of a defined minimum length. Without that condition, you are running a free trial programme rather than a referral scheme.
How Independent Gyms Can USE The Quiet Periods
Sometimes a hat is a hat and a quiet month is a quiet month. But reduced footfall does come with a few consolation benefits. The first being it allows access to your facility that can be difficult during peak months.
Whether it is maintenance and repainting, equipment checks, deep cleaning, or reconfiguring the layout of the gym floor, all significantly easier when your fitness facility is not at capacity.
A structured summer refresh, even if it means shutting off sections at a time rather than the whole facility, shows that your brand is still attentive and taking every chance it can to improve the member experience.
Rather than the word of mouth being ‘the gym was quiet this summer’, it can be ‘they are doing so much work down there at the moment’. Same attendance numbers, different perception.
If it becomes clear that your refresh will require the gym be completely closed for any length of time, communicate it well ahead of time with a clear reopening date while laying out what you and your team are planning to accomplish.
Members are generally tolerant of closures that result in a visible improvement. They are less tolerant of closures that happen without explanation and leave the gym looking unchanged.
This can also be a useful period for staff training, process reviews, and assessment of any systems that have been creating friction. Problems that are tolerable in a busy January become easier to address when the diary has some space.
Recovery and Wellbeing as a Summer Offer
Whether it is due to historic heatwaves, holiday or social commitments, your members may not be able to maintain their usual training volume, but some will still be interested in staying active in a lower-intensity and lower-commitment way.
Over our 30 years in the fitness industry, we have seen some independent gym owners approach this with an ‘All-or-nothing’ mindset. But the bottom line is that a member who remains engaged with your service and your facility is better than a member who doesn’t.
Independent gyms and fitness clubs that are willing to expand their recovery and wellbeing offer during summer, whether through stretch classes, mobility sessions, or more structured rest day programming, give members a different type of product to engage with at what is likely to be a disruptive time in their calendar.
It might be a wedding, a holiday, or a sporting event, Summer is a season where it is most likely your members have goals with a fixed deadline. Short-term personal training packages and goal-specific programming, marketed clearly with the season in mind have often performed well in June and early July when that motivation (or perhaps grim determination) is highest.
Striking a Balance With Summer Communication
One of the most common mistakes we have seen independent gyms and fitness clubs make over summer is what we call the ‘I’ll leave them to it” approach.
Summer is a time of disengaging, so why press the issue and risk coming across as pushy or even desperate? It is a valid concern but members who do not hear from their gym during a period when their own attendance starts to falter are likely to draw some conclusions from that silence.
We have all rolled our eyes at an ‘We Miss You!’ e-mail from a company, but when it comes to gym memberships, it is often the lesser of two evils.
But an independent gyms summer communication plan doesn’t need to consume a significant amount of time and energy. It can be as simple as refocusing the monthly newsletter to address and cover the disruption.
In addition to all the usual newsletter topics, but sure to communicate any changes to class timings, upcoming challenges and events, facility updates, community building, or any new classes that will be run. Not only does this give members a connection to the club even during weeks when they are not attending, it communicates that the gym is still populated, active, and engaging.
When communicating directly about summer absences, the framing matters. It is important to reinforce that summer is a natural change of pace for a lot of people, rather than a problem to be solved. This approach is more likely to keep members feeling positive about their membership, no-one enjoys being guilted, least of all gym members.
Gyms that treat reduced summer attendance as an emergency and communicate accordingly can accelerate the behaviour they are trying to prevent in a sort of Streisand effect.
Your Summer Performance Has Consequences
The issues we have been tackling today don’t magically disappear when the days start getting shorter. Retention through summer is not just an August problem. The members you keep engaged between June and September are the members who renew in October, who referred their friends, and who are most likely to remain members through to next year.
A gym that loses 15% of its membership every summer and rebuilds in autumn is spending more time acquiring members and less time growing their repeating revenue base. This is truly what makes retention so important in our industry.
Track churn by cohort. Members who joined in January or February (and still remain active) are reaching their next potential exit point in summer. If your data shows that first-year members are churning at a higher rate in July and August than in other months, that has to be considered a key retention intervention point, not just a seasonal pattern to accept.
The unfortunate truth is that the independent gyms and fitness clubs that fail to plan for summer are planning to fail. Summer might be a time for coasting for many, but not for us.
Independent gyms that plan for summer properly, by adjusting the services they provide, rethinking how they engage with their members, and communicating effectively do not outperform the market because they were born under a lucky star.
They outperform because the enemy of retention rates has always been inflexibility and apathy. Your challenge for this summer is to avoid both. So stay flexible, stay engaged, and, if you can, stay cool.
Here at Ashbourne Membership Management, we have been helping independent gym and fitness club owners not just survive the summer, but thrive under pressure for three decades.
Whether it is managing and chasing membership payments, installing innovative access controls, or creating, setting up and maintaining their websites, we have ensured that thousands of gym owners have been able to spend more time growing their business.
If you want to see how a company made by and for independent gym owners could help you deliver even more value to your members, don’t hesitate to book a demo with our in-house, UK based team today.
Fair Rates For Fitness
If you are reading this, you are someone who cares about the UK’s fitness industry. If so, we ask for another minute of your time as we discuss something important to all of us within the fitness industry.
Here at Ashbourne Membership Management, we have been proud to work in this dynamic, innovative sector for three decades. At time of writing the UK government has decided to increase business rates as part of the latest budget. While we are always happy to pay our way, we believe that these rates do not acknowledge the incredible benefit that independent gyms and fitness clubs bring to society.
Every party manifesto claims that they want the people of the UK to be healthier, happier, and more active. But when the time comes to match action to rhetoric, our industry is too often left out.
So, if you want to make your voice heard alongside the hundreds who have already acted, follow the link here to Fair Rates for Fitness, a campaign being championed by our partners over at the Gym Owner’s Forum.
