They pay...but they never show up.

January 12, 2009 12:54 PM

You manage a gym. How many of your members never, ever go?

I'm wondering what the statistic is for people who sign up, go for maybe a week or a month, then stop (but keep paying, hoping they'll someday go). Then, at the end of the membership period, they cancel and breathe a sigh of relief that they're no longer paying for their "useless" gym membership.

Personal anecdotes only, please.

posted by ostranenie to health & fitness (10 comments total)

I think the OP means personal experience; that is, as a gym manager, how many people don't show up? Which may or may not be indicative of overall statistics of all gyms in the world, but it may give a glimpse. ANYWAY I'm not a gym manager.
posted by trotter at 1:09 PM on January 12

Here is an academic paper that deals with that exact topic.
posted by restless_nomad at 1:13 PM on January 12

Ack, obviously stopped reading halfway through in my excitement. Nevertheless, you may find actual data interesting.
posted by restless_nomad at 1:14 PM on January 12

Local anecdote for Upstate NY dealing with the barrage of New Years Resolution gym memberships. 85% of January new-members are no-shows by February. The gym referenced in the article has a 2-year membership contract.
posted by coryinabox at 1:23 PM on January 12

Right, experience not anecdotes. What was I thinking?
posted by ostranenie at 1:24 PM on January 12

IANA gym manager, but I am a regular gym-goer, and every January my gym is clotted with resolutioners eagerly trying to Get In Shape - at least twice the normal crowd, possibly three times as many. By mid-February, the pack is thinned. Of course, I have no idea how many of them have paid for a year/month/day pass.

I imagine this number varies depending on the pricing and membership policies of individual gyms.
posted by Metroid Baby at 1:28 PM on January 12

Mr. Echo (my fiance, not the guy from LOST) used to help manage membership stuff at a gym, and he guesses it was probably about half.
posted by echo0720 at 5:51 PM on January 12

My company will refund my gym membership based on attendence.

About half the time, the card scan is broken and they just open the gate. Officially, I go about half as often as I really do.

My old gym had a paper sign in, and almost no one signed in. I have no idea how the kept track. It's possible I occassionally went to the gym for a few years after I stopped paying...

What Meroid says is true, though, I don't even go to Yoga during January. No room.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 6:08 PM on January 12

I used to work at a gym in a metropolitan area of around 200k people.

We sold an obscene amount of memberships were I never saw the person again. Most of the time we had deals where they could pay for the whole year in advance and get a decent discount and most did.

In fact despite the thousands of memberships we sold... our core group of regulars was only a fraction of that. The gym industry really depends on the paying no shows.
posted by JFitzpatrick at 10:54 PM on January 12

Looking forward, my gym may be running into recessionary troubles with its annual January turnout. Usually there are two or three new members in the early morning hours; this year, it's just us regulars. I wouldn't be surprised if many people look at a new gym membership as a luxury that can be dumped in hard times.
posted by Gordion Knott at 2:07 AM on January 13