Climbing gym prices seem steep. That’s also one reason people think the sport is gentrifying. Most charge between €400 and €600 for an annual membership. That doesn’t surprise me. In fact, it just confirms what we were already saying 50 years ago: Climbing is a rich person’s sport.
The Price of Status
Commercial gym climbing today is inseparable from the sport’s history. A handful of builders gave climbers a way to climb in cities by inventing artificial walls. That same invention would also make “official” climbing competitions possible. Once these purpose-built facilities proved profitable, climbing-wall builders began opening gyms in large numbers, despite high real estate costs and the number of employees needed to run them.
The new commercial climbing scene has made social status part of the package. And that status comes at a steep price for people who can’t really afford it.
In other words, no matter how upscale the gym was meant to be, turning a profit seemed like a sure thing: In a space the size of two tennis courts, a developer could give 40 people a place to spend their free time. We’d just “created” a stand-alone sport that kept people coming back. Gyms welcomed educated, well-off customers who had been climbing outdoors… These well-educated customers also have plenty of free time. That’s why so many teachers and students climb. And as everyone knows, time is money.
Beyond the relatively high cost of simply getting into a gym—€10 to €20 a visit—climbing gets staggeringly expensive when you add the unnecessary expense of social and cultural status. That expense comes from the image of climbing and climbers that businesses sell us. Climbing gyms with a “cozy vibe” offer all sorts of creature comforts that seem free but, of course, aren’t. Do the math: How much did that cookie and those coffees before or after your session cost you? And I’m not even talking about the post-shower craft beer… Cutting out the extras seems like one way to climb for less. But gym developers have no interest in that, since they target people with the motivation and spending power to buy into this commercialized version of climbing.
A New Era: Climbing Reinvented
Who are these people? Many are young and “connected” to the whole world. My sense is that the plastic holds in commercial gyms let young people practice a “reinvented” version of climbing. These days, it’s common to head to a climbing gym for fun, just as you’d go bowling with friends. Or, more to the point, people go to a climbing gym the way they’d go to a weight room: to work on their physiques. They use their own body weight instead of dumbbells, hanging from holds arranged to force them into explosive, twisting moves that promote balanced muscle development. I’m barely exaggerating. In any case, indoor climbing is no longer the fallback it once was, just a way to train or discover the sport. Nor is the gym wall simply a substitute for the real rock missing from cities. Indoor climbing is a sport in its own right, drawing hundreds of thousands of climbers in France…
There are many ways to be a climber, and none is more authentic than the others. They’re just different.
The new commercial climbing scene has made social status part of the package. And that status comes at a steep price for people who can’t really afford it. Still, I also know that climbing doesn’t require you to adopt the in-crowd’s English-heavy jargon, dress the way brands tell you to, or buy all the bulky, largely useless accessories being sold to us… So it’s a mistake to think that affluent newcomers are appropriating climbing’s customs, language, and way of life, as though the sport’s culture once belonged to a somewhat rebellious older generation. That’s a charming, romanticized picture of the past. There are many ways to be a climber, and none is more authentic than the others. They’re just different.
The Cost of Addiction
But in the end, is a commercial gym the most expensive way to climb? Put another way: If you live in a big city, can you climb for free or on the cheap and get as much out of it as you would at a commercial gym? Because outdoor climbing areas are free to access, it’s tempting to assume climbing outside costs a lot less. That seems to make sense. After all, the key difference between indoor and outdoor climbing is that indoor climbing takes place in a space built specifically for it, requiring a hefty upfront investment. But run the numbers on climbing outdoors, and you get a very different picture.
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I encourage you to do what I’ve done here and add up what your passion for climbing really costs. I belong to a “working-class” climbing club, and I bring in €2,100 a month. I mostly climb outdoors, though I like to visit a climbing gym now and then for some bouldering or roped climbing. I live in Essonne, so, like many climbers, I head to Fontainebleau for bouldering. I also occasionally visit sport crags—cliffs with fixed bolts for safety—elsewhere in France, some nearby and others farther away. All places where I can climb for free! And yet I spend about €550 a year on gas just to boulder outdoors. I spend another roughly €800 a year climbing at French crags—and that doesn’t include my summer climbing, which I count as vacation expenses. On top of that, I often go climbing in Greece or Spain, among other popular destinations, where a week of climbing costs me as much as an annual gym membership. And that’s not counting specialized gear I have to replace from time to time, or climbing shoes. All told, I spend roughly a month’s pay each year, and I’ve been doing that for a very long time.
Surprised? I’m not much different from most of my friends. Some say they spend €4,000 a year on all their sports activities—and that still doesn’t include the ropes the club pays for. Of course, not everyone can keep up with the wealthiest members of these “working-class” clubs. But on the whole, you won’t find many low-wage earners in them. Given all that, let’s be clear: No, commercial climbing gyms, many of them excellent, aren’t all that expensive. Not when you consider the extra services they offer or how the costs of climbing outdoors add up, trip by trip. What we need to recognize is that, like so many cultural, artistic, and athletic pursuits, climbing demands a lot of time and money once it becomes a passion. Call it the cost of addiction.
