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 answers 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, 2009

Here is an academic paper that deals with that exact topic.
posted by restless_nomad at 1:13 PM on January 12, 2009

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, 2009

Best answer: 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, 2009

Response by poster: Right, experience not anecdotes. What was I thinking?
posted by ostranenie at 1:24 PM on January 12, 2009

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, 2009

Best answer: 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, 2009

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, 2009

Best answer: 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, 2009

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, 2009