| News & Know How | First Person CBI Spends 10 Minutes on the Line with


Phillip Mills W


Phillip Mills is the founder and chief executive of Auckland, New Zealand-based Les Mills International. Les Mills offers nine pre-choreographed programs in 13,000 clubs worldwide, and is currently conducting the “Ultimate Studio Search” competition.


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For additional information or to enter or nominate your club for the “Ultimate Studio Search,” visit www.lesmills. com/studiosearch before April 15, 2011.


hy do you consider group fitness studio design to be so important? Where do most clubs fall short? In your view, what elements comprise a great


studio? What impact does studio design have in Les Mills clubs and on the bottom line?


First of all, group fitness is not necessarily found in every club. In fact, that’s why it’s so important: it is the major activity that differentiates traditional clubs from budget clubs, protecting member loyalty and profit for club owners. Research shows that group fitness participants visit their clubs two or three times more often than members who use only the club’s fitness equipment. The two main reasons people go to a club are for results and motivation, and group fitness delivers on that magical combination better than anything else. To optimize that, you’ve got to maximize the music and the theatrical nature of group fitness. We’ve all seen huge con- vention classes and the energy they capture, and some clubs around the world achieve similar results in their studios, too. Unfortunately, the industry standard is nearly the opposite. If we tried to design something less suited to group fitness, we almost couldn’t do worse than what we’ve got now.


The typical studio feels like an operating room or a medical lab—a sterile, intimidating envi- ronment. It’s normally a small room with bright lights, big mirrors that make people feel self- conscious, and bland white walls and floors. Ask yourself: if you went to a nightclub that looked like that, would you want to get out on the floor to dance? The answer, of course, is no.


This type of studio design creates an intimidating, self-conscious environment that doesn’t moti- vate people, as opposed to the engrossing theater space a great studio can be.


We need to be thinking about things like dimming the lights a bit, especially for mind/body classes. A lot of yoga studios get it quite right: they create a beautiful environment that feels much more comfortable to exercise in. Studios need a great sound system and a great microphone system. From an aesthetic point of view, great music adds another whole dimension to a class. From a func- tional perspective, great instructors really need to be heard. And from the theatrical aspect, they need to be seen. Think about what theaters do to create focus on actors: they put them up on a stage with a spotlight; they don’t put them flat on the floor where they can’t be seen by everyone, with floor-to-ceiling mirrors behind them that distract people’s attention from the performance.


In our 10 Les Mills clubs in New Zealand, we still have some more progress to make, but we’ve made a start down the design track. And it’s paying off—we have individual classes at peak times with as many as 250 people in them. Our Auckland City club has 12,500 fanatical members who pay fees of about $100 a month. We get 10,000 group fitness visits a week there and have 2,000 people paying $5 to reserve a bike in our RPM group-cycling classes. That’s $10,000 per week in ancillary revenue from one program at one club alone!


My belief is: If you build it, they will come. A great studio creates a buzz in the community, members start talking about it, they bring other people along, and suddenly you’ve got a lot more people in the club.


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www. ihrsa.org | FEBRUARY 2011 | Club Business Internat ional 31


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