Appleton, Green Bay, and Sheboygan WI Climbers

I have a few friends that are opening an "Adventure Park" in Manitowoc WI.  I'm pretty excited about this as the current plans have a lot of fun features.  There will be a crossfit gym, ninja warrior training course, arcade, climbing gym, etc.  I am looking to gauge interest in the climbing gym to help get an idea for what features people will be looking for.  They are well on their way to renovating the space but have not started to build the walls yet.  The current plan is for a small bouldering area, a top rope section on the outer walls, and some free standing towers in the middle.  The free standing towers will be more geared toward kids.  They are currently looking into sport climbing as well.  

The space is 50 x 50 with walls that are roughly 34 feet tall (2,500 sq/ft).  There will be roughly 2500 - 3000 sq/ft of wall space.  Below are a few questions for the local community.  Let me know what suggestions you have and I will pass them along.      

1) Who from the surrounding areas (Sheboygan, Green Bay, Appleton) would be interested in a climbing gym in the Manitowoc area?  Would you use it on a regular basis.  

2) How important is lead / sport climbing to you?  Will you use the gym if it's limited to top rope, auto belay, and bouldering or would you take the extra time and drive down to Ad Rock?

3) What is a reasonable cost for a day pass?

4) What are the "must have" features that will keep you coming back.  

Any interest and feedback is appreciate.  At this point the owners / builders are open to ideas and suggestions.  This is an opportunity to help design a facility you will enjoy using.

Was really hoping for a little more action than this lol. 

Was talking about this with a friend, yesterday in fact.  The Fox valley ought to be able to support a climbing gym - I have less of a sense of the population along the Lake shore.

Doug, would you and your friends make the drive to Manitowoc to climb in a nice gym?  Manitowoc is not likely large enough to support a gym so would need a fairly consistent customer base from the surrounding area. 

From Madison, I’ve gone to Milwaukee twice.  Have never been to any Chicago gyms.  Before there was a public gym in Madison, we would occasionally drive down to La Salle/Peru to use a gym there, probably did that twice.

A few of the people I climb with will drive as much as an hour to use a gym with their friends - I think it has as much to do with the community you are connected to as anything.

But I’m not really your market - I learned to climb in the 70s, before there were gyms or sport climbing.  In fact, before there was even a guidebook to our area (the RRG).  I recognize that climbing is no longer an outdoor sport, but I’m an outdoor guy.  To me, gyms supplement rock, and if there were no outdoor opportunities around here I’d take up some other outdoor pursuit.

Thanks for the response Doug. At first I was thinking you were from the Fox Valley are. 

I grew up in the Fox Valley but now live in Nashville TN. From the people I've met at the gym in Nashville most drive less than 30 minutes to the gym. There are at least two people that drive over two hours but they only come one day a week. Manitowoc I'd give it a try while I was home and my only other option was traversing around High Cliff State Park. In the winter if there was snow falling I might think twice about it though.

2- I'd prefer there be some lead climbing, seems like once there were top rope routes adding some bolts for lead climbing wouldn't be too hard.
3- I travel a lot for work I've paid anywhere from $10-$30 for a day pass. I like when gyms do a full price first visit and a voucher for half off your next visit with in a few days.
4-Showers, if I'm driving an hour to climb I'd like to take a shower before getting back in the car for an hour.

I'd try and talk to the other gyms in the area, see if they will share the info for the guests with you. Even just the home zip codes from the waivers would give you an idea of how far people are driving to use the gym. Ideally you could match the number of visits with a zip code.

Good intention to ask on mountainproject, but I would suggest that half your audience isn't on here as this is a forum mostly frequented by outdoor climbers which aren't the only people who use climbing gyms.

Think about the different types of climbing gym users (marketing persona's) I can think of a few that vary:
- Outdoor climbers looking to train. Will want lead/sport and maybe even crack features. Sport climbers will want overhangs. Will demand good route-setting.
- Excercise and fitness junkies looking for variety (might be good for you with the Ninja and Crossfit facility) this may include those that get interested in challenging activities as well, like skateboarding, parkour, gymnastics, bouldering
- Occasions, Birthdays, corporate events, other reasons for parties
- People seeking attractions across a variety of categories, "climbing wall" "go-kart track" "zip line" "art class" or "mini golf" for an adventure or even a date today?
I'm sure I'm missing a user group here
- Corporate transplants. People who moved for work but previously did a lot of climbing in a more mountainous state or country
- Business travellers looking for a gym in the city they're on a temp project in
- Parents with incomes to sign their kids up for expensive extracurricular dance, music, martial arts, climbing gym lessons, etc.

Define demographics for the types, age, income, education, interests. How old is the exercise junkie group? How much money do they make where they can pay for fancy gyms?

Pull this information for a half, one-hour, 1.5 hr drive time. Look at maps on city-data.com. This is all based on census info so kind of abstract

Combine this with zip code from waivers if the gyms will give them to you. Heck, do they have city stickers in Wisconsin? Take a count of windshield stickers in the parking lot. This would give you actual data on users

Thanks for the link for city-data.com.  I'll dig through the information on there.  And I agree with you on the market, the local climbing community is only a portion of it but an important one.  The owners are in the process of looking into starting climbing clubs with the local schools / district, holding "teen nights", corporate outings, boy scout / girl scout over night sleep overs, birthday parties, private events, etc.  I know there is a good size climbing community in the Appleton area.  I am less familiar with Green Bay and Sheboygan but I know there are markets there as well.  Appleton has a climbing wall in a trampoline park but I really doubt it pulls in the climbing community.  I was really hoping people from the Fox Valley area would be excited about a nice winter training facility.  To be honest, I'm surprised there has not been a response from anyone in the area.  Most people would rather be outside (myself included).  Plenty of fun places to be had in the summer.  Not a lot of good ice in the area in the winter (unless you are willing to drive).  To be fair, climbing at Devils Lake in the winter is a lot of fun when there is a lot of snow.  With that said, I think having a nice gym over the winter to stay in shape is a nice thing to have.   
   

Good morning,

I am a recent grad from Madison who got hooked on climbing in my time there.  I now live in the fox cities and the lack of a climbing has been wearing on my mind and physique over the past  year or so.  My wife and I will be moving to Manitowoc shortly and will be regular members if the business gets off the ground. Assuming the gym can offer decent route/problem setting and quick enough turn over in routes for its size, I would have been more than willing to make a 1 hour drive 1-2 times per week even if I were still living in the fox cities.  There are enough graduates from Madison and Milwaukee who have settled in the Green Bay/Appleton area that I suspect I am not alone.

I would not take the lack of responses to your post as a lack of interest.  While I am a climber and use Mountain Project as a guide I do not often puruse the forms.  I just happened upon your post while googling the status of the gym. To answer your questions, I do not think a sport wall is absolutely necessary though it would be a nice feature.  I would prefer to see a larger bouldering area with a variety of angles; some roof or 50 and slight overhang.  To me price is not a huge deal but the gym is in Manitowoc.  I would consider something in the $10-$15 range for a day pass and maybe free or reduced harness/shoe days, at least when the gym first opens.  I personaly would not like to pay extra for access to the business's other activities, so some sort of climbing only membership/admittance would be nice.  I know two others from the Fox Cities who may be interested in the gym but both have woodies and and would require a lot v7+ for frequent use.  If hard problem settings is going to be an issue, I would recammend that your friend consider or at least leave space for the addition of a moonboard.          

My wife and I were members of the Green Bay ice climbing club before the quarry was sold and the new owners refused access. I would love to have a place to climb in manitowoc. I’m sure lots more people would go if they didn’t have to drive to Mke. I would also request a slack line. I’m not very picky as we have no other options, it could be bouldering only and I would be happy. More of an issue for me would be late hours as I typically work until 7pm. If you were open after that I would get a yearly pass. As far as prices go... the ymca is around $700 a year

Hey Forrest, this is Howie.  The gym is going to be in the old strand building. The space looks awesome.  I think it’s going to be pretty nice. They are making good progress on it. 

I’m up that way working every winter, and spent all last winter driving down to Adventure Rock to climb.  The UofGB has climbing, but it’s limited.  

I’d definitely support it, but would hope for a monthly membership ($50?) or 10 pass.  $10-$15 range is a common rate.  I don’t really do the lead or sport climbing as much at the moment, but just to top rope, auto belay and boulder is good (I’m sure I don’t speak for everyone on that though).  

I understand that there used to be a climb area (similar to this idea) in Green Bay.  I think there’s growing support for the sport in the area—and again, there are a few universities in the area that have people who like to climb, but has a limited schedule and range of climbing.

Hopefully it’s done soon if they do it.  Adventure Rock is a great gym and really great people—but that’s a 4-1/2 hour round trip for me twice a week each winter to climb—Manitowoc is only 2—much better!