Alumni News | MoveGB bring a £1m boost to the virtual fitness industry

MoveGB flew the nest from the Innovation Centre in 2018 after being residential members for six years. During the pandemic they have been quick to adapt their subscription-based fitness platform to run completely online which in turn has kept their instructors and independent gyms with much needed revenue.

MoveGB has generated more than £1m for the fitness, yoga and dance instructors across the country since launching its lockdown-inspired Move At Home service. In less than a month more than 40,000 classes have been streamed through the service and the number of classes and providers continues to grow by the day. 

With over 250,000 users registered on the platform, fitness providers have not only benefited from maintained attendance for their classes, their audiences have exponentially grown too. MoveGB, the UK’s largest fitness class provider, launched Move At Home within a week of the lockdown.

The firm’s bosses had watched as gyms, fitness venues and community halls were forced to close their doors, putting the livelihoods of self-employed instructors and independent fitness businesses on the line overnight.

MoveGB, which before the pandemic offered access to more than 6,000 activity locations, studios and gyms in 25 UK cities, pivoted its business to help reduce the economic impact the coronavirus would have on its partners.

And while live-streamed fitness classes have become commonplace, since the nation went into lockdown, very few offer any financial support to your local aerobics, yoga or dance tutor.

Move At Home enables fitness businesses to stream their classes to MoveGB’s vast membership base of 250,000 users and maintain their income.

Lucy Stone, founder of award-winning yoga studio The Hive in Bath, said: “Since the lockdown and converting to streaming our classes online through MoveGB, we have seen an increase of people attending classes by almost 300%.

“We have had to double the number of classes available on the timetable from 23 to 45 to meet the growing demand and now are streaming classes to people from all over the world.”

MoveGB CEO and founder Alister Rollins added: “In the face of an unprecedented crisis, we knew we have to change things up quickly to help support our members and partners. For our members, this meant keeping them moving while at home. For our fitness partners, this meant ensuring they could maintain their livelihoods.

“MoveGB was created to be a community-led business that would connect providers with users to encourage people to stay active for life. With Move At Home we have been able to uphold that principle and prevent this pandemic from having a significant impact on our partners’ businesses.”

The use of the platform has mirrored the incredible strong sense of community and local support felt across the UK, during the lockdown.

More than 73% of users are attending classes by instructors in their own city, choosing to support the local, independent businesses on their doorstep.

To further protect the many independent small fitness businesses in the UK, MoveGB has also launched an Activity Provider Support Fund (#SupportOurIndies) which will provide income to providers, even when classes are not running.

While most home workouts focus on yoga and HIIT, MoveGB has always championed variety as part of a fitness routine – this is still the case with Move At Home. The company has already witnessed an incredible 120% increase in class variety since the platform went live.

Members have been more willing to try the more unique and unusual classes, including twerking, 80’s aerobics, acrobatic circuits and Afro-Caribbean fitness fusion from the privacy of their own home alongside their usual fix of yoga, Pilates and HIIT.

Free to existing members, Move At Home offers live-streamed classes from MoveGB independent instructors and on-demand workouts from the world’s top trainers. Existing MoveGB members will have access to these features as part of their membership at no extra cost. Move At Home is also available to new members from £1 per week, offering on-demand workouts as well as pay-as-you-go live-streamed classes (many instructors are offering free taster sessions).

MoveGB is also supporting NHS staff by offering them Move At Home for free!

Source: Robert Buckland, Bath Business News - 24/04/20

Congratulations to alumni members MoveGB who have excelled during very uncertain times.