Fitness Chain “Burned About £500,000 per Day” After Losing 12% Of Members Through Lockdown
Fitness chain PureGym suffered pre-tax losses of almost £215 million last year after the forced closure of its sites due to Government-imposed lockdowns. Large parts of the fitness industry fought to remain open during lockdowns with some gyms risking £10,000 fines by refusing to close their doors to customers. Before the second national lockdown, one gym owner said: “We should be doing everything we can to get people healthier and fitter,” adding that “gyms save the NHS”. But venues were forced to close, costing PureGym alone about £500,000 a day. The Mail has the story.
The Leeds-based company registered a massive 40% plunge in revenue during 2020 as gyms were shut for 44% of the year’s trading days. In pre-pandemic 2019, it recorded losses of around £40 million.
Despite trying to strike a note of optimism after gyms in England reopened on April 12th, Chief Executive Humphrey Cobbold called the company’s trading performance “frankly awful” and “out of hands”. The financial statement exceeds his stated fears of a £120 million loss caused by shutdowns.
PureGym reported seeing more than a million workouts completed across its 240 gyms in the first week of the roadmap as people try to shed unwanted pounds after being trapped inside for three months.
But in a statement released today, Mr Cobbold called 2020 “a very tough year” and blamed restrictions for “preventing us from trading” and causing “a severe impact on our financial performance”. He previously told the BBC that PureGym was “burning about £500,000 a day” due to “brutal” lockdowns.
“We had to run a business with zero income for extended periods, a previously unthinkable scenario,” Mr Cobbold admitted today. “We had to make major operational changes in the tightest of time frames and alter our proposition in weeks that would have taken years in normal times.” …
PureGym is one of the biggest losers of the pandemic, with Covid restrictions hammering leisure, hospitality and travel industries hardest.
Trade organisation ukactive has highlighted the impact of lockdowns on the nation’s health and the fitness industry in particular.
Polling by ukactive and ComRes suggested 42% of UK adults were sitting for at least 14 hours longer per week during lockdown.
A survey by ukactive of its members showed approximately 400 facilities had already been lost during the crisis, while lockdown had resulted in £90 million in lost membership fees each week.
January is normally a key period for new joiners and renewals and usually sees 30% growth.
Worth reading in full.
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latest data from Zoe shows no effect of the partial lifting of restrictions on the 12th April – just as there was no effect of opening the schools
lets face it – its gone. probably come back next winter but enough to cause a shutdown? I can’t think of a resurgence high enough that would make me want a lockdown – people can gauge their own risks. But I bet the government will be on a hair trigger so they can’t be accused of underreacting.
Sweden all cause mortality far below historic. They don’t have any ‘excess’ mortality for 2021.
I suspect the ‘summer wave’ our modellers are predicting just comes from the fact that they haven’t yet realised this is seasonal – something rational people noticed last April
That’s because the modellers are modellers. They aren’t epidemiologists, they aren’t virologists and they aren’t immunologists.
Maybe next time we have an epidemic caused by a virus, we could have people advising the government who know about viruses and epidemics?
If you wear a mask when exercising, you fully deserve your heart attack.
My wife is a Pure Gym member.
No one wears a mask while exercising.
95% don’t bother anymore about them when entering or moving about.
Neither does the staff.
Stop falling for the government’s propaganda and stop helping to disseminate it: change the picture.
About the only positive thing I’ve got from the lockdown is developing a home exercise routine that I’m happy with as a sustainable, time-efficient substitute for going to the gym.
Serves them bloody well right for not defending themselves, the crawling cowards.
Quite so – and ditto virtually all businesses that have been hit by the bunch of devils ‘run{/i}ning’ the country!
Actually, of all the large chains, PureGym were the only one making any sort of fuss about the closures including pushing a petition that reached over 600,000 signatures (a significant amount more than other petitions against restrictions, I’d wager).
What good did it do? None. Could they have done more? Certainly.
But compared to the deafening silence and/or embarrassing Government parroting from the likes of Gym Group, DW (gone), X4L (gone) etc. it was at least something.
You will own nothing and you will be happy. You will also be cold and you will not go to the gym. And be happy.