NEW OPENING
Left: The gym is split across two floors and equipped by Cybex. Above: SportHouse overlooks Mayesbrook Athletics Arena, which benefited from a £2m refurbishment
From autumn 2012, SportHouse will
also include a spectator arena, within the sports hall which will be ca- pable of accommodating between 200 and 2,500 spectators. The arena will be used for national and international sports events, club competitions and lo- cal school and college activities, as well as for concerts and live music events.
Ensuring sustainability and commercial success While SportHouse will undeniably con- tribute to a lasting sporting legacy, the long-term success and longevity of the venue will ultimately come down to its ability to attract regular members. “The success of SportHouse is based on
the level at which the local community engages with the club and its facilities,” says Nicola Addison, director of sport and leisure consultancy HBA, which was appointed as part of the leisure consul- tancy team for ECSC and has acted as the advisory body on aspects central to the project’s delivery. “We set ourselves an ambitious target, but we achieved a 95 per cent conversion rate from member- ship enquiries, so we signed up more than 1,000 founder members after just seven weeks of pre-sale activity,” she says. The commercial strategy behind Sport-
House is value for money, with the most expensive gym membership priced at £39 a month. Unlike many gym memberships, the minimum sign-up duration is just six months; discounted memberships are also available for off-peak use, as well as
WHO WILL BE USING SPORTHOUSE?
● Olympic and Paralympic athletes during London 2012 Games-time
● More than 1,000 new members signed up before the public opening of SportHouse in March 2012
● More than 95 per cent of member- ships converted from walk-ins
corporate and joint memberships. “With memberships starting from £1 a
day, the SportHouse commercial model delivers a world-class training venue for a cost directly in line with that of local au- thority sports facilities,” says Addison. SportHouse also offers a ‘pay as you
play’ option; users can pay for one-off visits to the gym as and when required. The HouseKey – SportHouse’s annual
access card – provides guests with un- limited access which includes the use of the ClubHouse restaurant and bar, the ability to pay for single-use gym ses- sions and bookings for the sports hall. To complement the affordable monthly gym memberships, HouseKeys are priced at a maximum of just £40 a year. In line with the facility’s Olympic
legacy strategy, SportHouse is already looking beyond this summer’s major in- ternational competitions. The facilities have become a focus of attention from a number of national governing bodies in- cluding the English Handball Association, The FA and England Netball, which have all expressed interest in being involved in
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the longer-term use of the site. Alongside this, the venue is already
being used as a training camp by the Brazilian and Norwegian women’s Olym- pic handball teams during London 2012 Games time and it will play host to a se- nior international futsal match between England and Denmark later this month. “What makes SportHouse unique is
its ease of accessibility, which is reflect- ed in its portfolio of users, says Stimson. “Visitors are just as likely to see an inter- national elite squad training in the gym as they are a local school team hiring out a five-a-side court in the sports hall.”
What’s next for ECSC? For Stimson and his team, SportHouse is just the start of bigger and better things to come. The hard work and dedication will carry on as the venue continues to prove the unique commercial model un- derpinning the success of the site. “With the first SportHouse up and run-
ning,” he says, “ECSC is already exploring similar opportunities both internation- ally and across the UK. We’ve already been approached by a number of key individuals who recognise the value that a site such as SportHouse can deliver to a community. However, for the time being, our current focus remains on ensuring our management team at SportHouse continues to deliver a first class, fully- inclusive, commercially successful sports facility in the heart of East London.” ●
Lauren Applegarth is a freelance writer Issue 2 2012 © cybertrek 2012
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