Left rectangle ads redesigned
Robert Ripps book
History of Tribeca Buildings
Drill Fitness is Closing
Drill Fitness will close on Nov. 15, a year after it opened at Church and Warren. From founder Winston Fisher’s email: “While there is no doubt we developed a committed fitness audience at Drill Fitness, we unfortunately could not do so in sufficient numbers to support the expense of running the place. The business model for boutique gyms has been shaken up by a rapidly growing web based membership program, and I have to acknowledge that the current Drill Fitness location is not economically viable in today’s landscape.”
13 Comments
Comment:
Medium rectangle #1 (top)
Right column rectangle ads
Mega rectangle
Restaurant guide icon
I find it VERY interesting that Winston basically blames ClassPass for this closing. It’s a great gym, sad to see it go.
This is just the start – the squeeze is on.
Extremely sad to see Drill Fitness close its doors. One of the few boutique gyms in NYC that I truly looked forward to going to. Their classes and instructors were top-notch. Hopefully they open a new location in maybe a less expensive space.
He’s keeping the door open to the possibility. Also from the email: “As for the future, I am not retreating…merely reloading. I continue to remain passionate about health and fitness and while we will no longer be able to take classes together at Drill in Tribeca, I hope to continue to cross paths with you. As a businessman and entrepreneur I will continue to look at new opportunities in the fitness world where my commitment and passion can be brought to bear.”
I walk by that place all the time and always wondered about it. They pay extra money for a ground floor space yet every window is pretty much covered up and it looked hardly lit from the outside. Didn’t look at all inviting.
A better decision might be to move it somewhere on a second floor or basement level space.
What’s gonna happen to that space now? The space is awesome
How many gyms can a neighborhood support? I say good riddance. Maybe the great discount store that was there for so many years will come back. Lotsa luck.
George, it was a Janovic paint place for years
It was a discount store before that.
Maybe your fake homeless hipster beau Brandon (who I see has vanished with the cold weather of course) will squat there LOL.
Yes, Jimmy, and before that it was a huge never-know-what-you-might-find-there discount store with a mezzanine. We are talking the seventies and early eighties here.
I’m not entirely surprised. I stepped into this place once and was greeted by the most unwelcoming staff I’ve encountered in a long time. They seemed put off by telling me about their programs, pricing, etc. There wasn’t a single customer in the place, so I’m not sure why I was such an inconvenience. I walked out never again thinking about the place and can’t imagine I’m the only one.
Lets be honest here Winston is just using the class pass as a scape goat when in fact there was an Equinox gym around the corner, Barrys boot camp at the opposite end, New York Sports Club just two blocks away and two soul cycle gyms in the same neighborhood. I think the better realistic reason for failure was the competition devouring Drill fitness’s over priced classes, tiny bathrooms and rude overworked management.
classpass hurts fitness studios and our instructors lives. To pretend otherwise is wrong. In the end it will end poorly for fitness class members too.
The smartest move Soulcycle made was staying a Premium Service and saying no to classpass.
I have run studios for years. Classpass does not work for studios. Your membership will leave you for classpass once members learn they are paying double what the others in your classes are paying. Your user base will be very angry at you. Incremental revenue is the fantasy that classpass is selling. It does not work out that way. Members abandon studios for classpass. Your loyal user base will not be happy to learn that they are paying $25 and you just sold classes to classpass at $7-$10. You will become a $7-$10 an hour studio and will compete with every other $10 studio around you on a per class basis for users. You will be owned by classpass.
——-
article against Classpass in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/fashion/classpassdeep-discounts-but-some-discontent.html?_r=1
She would rather pay full price at SoulCycle than see the studio become even more crowded. “I’m like, ‘Please don’t join ClassPass,’ ” she said.
Another explanatory article:
Why Tula Yoga Studio Is Passing On Classpass
http://blog.tulasoftware.com/posts/2015/9/9/why-tula-yoga-studio-is-passing-on-classpass
——–
Fitness Studios must not sign up with Classpass. It puts yours and everyone else’s fitness studio in danger. You cannot simply supplement your income with a little Classpass. That is the fantasy Classpass sells. Membership is critical to a Fitness Studio’s success or failure. Classpass takes this away. It is the money earned “no matter what” — the “recurring membership” that is critical to a fitness studio. Classpass takes this for itself when they take your members. A studio will need 10 regular new classpass members for every membership they lose. This is not happening and fitness studios are beginning to die. Users like Classpass just as they loved restaurant deals on Groupon. Restaurants dropped Groupon because it didnt work. Fitness studios are entering into a deal with the devil that they will not escape from because unlike a single Groupon deal… Classpass is recurring. When they take away your membership it will never come back. Classpass is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. They present themselves as a studio’s friend but really they are taking memberships away from studios. Until and unless Classpass institutes a rule to stop members leaving fitness studios to become members of classpass they are killing fitness studios. Classpass attempts to fake fitness studios out by their rule of only allow a member to go to a specific studio 3 times in a month but that only furthers the Classpass goal by getting members to go to many fitness studios belonging to nobody but Classpass. Already according to the CEO over 75% of Classpass members dropped their memberships with fitness studios to join classpass. By attempting to supplement a fitness studios income using Classpass a studio introduces classpass to all its members and teaches them to use Classpass.