leisure
Climbing halls hope for another boom after the Corona dent
An athlete climbs up the wall in a climbing gym. Photo: Felix Kästle / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
For years, new climbing halls kept opening up. Then the operators had to close for months due to two lockdowns. Now many climbers want to go high again.
After two lockdowns and collapsed revenues, the operators of climbing and bouldering halls are hoping for another boom.
The demand is already high again, said a spokeswoman for the Klever climbing hall association in Uetze in Lower Saxony. However, the halls are often not allowed to open to full capacity.
The operators survived the two closings, mainly thanks to government aid, said the spokeswoman. “As far as we can tell, the climbing gyms received every support during the lockdown. None of our members had to close. ” According to this, 55 operators of climbing and bouldering halls in Germany are organized in the association.
The climbing halls of the German Alpine Association (DAV) also suffered from the corona consequences, said DAV spokesman Markus Grübl. “A few halls are achieving the same number of visitors as they were before the pandemic, but only in relation to the comparison months. Calculated over the year, there are no entries during the closing times. ” In most halls, the numbers are still lower than before the pandemic, said Grübl. “We hope that after Corona the numbers will settle back to the pre-Corona period.”
“Vertical Pro” trade fair
Problems and opportunities in the industry will soon also be a topic in Friedrichshafen: On November 19, representatives of leisure and industrial climbers as well as equipment manufacturers will meet there for the first time for the two-day “Vertical Pro” trade fair. Above all, the areas of climbing and bouldering in the open air as well as via ferrata climbing “largely benefited” from the pandemic, according to the Federal Association of the German Sportswear Industry. “Only the climbing halls could not keep up with this development.”
Climbing and bouldering have been trend sports “since their premiere at the Olympics 2021 at the latest,” write the organizers. According to the DAV, climbing had already experienced a boom for years before the pandemic. While 20 new plants were opened in Germany in 1989, at the turn of the millennium there were already 180 per year. In 2015, 440 new climbing facilities were opened. Before Corona, the DAV assumed around 500,000 sport climbers nationwide.
But in order to teach interested people to climb, trainers are necessary – and in this area there is a shortage of staff in the climbing halls after the Corona breaks. “What I notice is that everyone is lacking coaches,” said the Klever spokeswoman. “Many have reoriented professionally during the lockdown.”