2010 Climbing Wall Summit

Just got back from this year's Climbing Wall Association Summit Conference in Boulder, and I thought I would share my impressions.

First, for those who aren't familiar with it, the Climbing Wall Association is the industry trade group representing climbing gym owners & operators. It's a non-profit organization focussed on education, standards (for engineering, inspection and more recently instruction) and looking out for the industry in areas like insurance and regulation.

This is the fourth year running that the CWA has held a conference in Boulder Colorado to bring together gym owners and their staff, equipment manufacturers, and others who make their living in this cool business. At last year's event I was a wannabe gym owner, soaking up as much information as I could to prepare me for the adventure that followed. I learned a lot of important things that affected how True North Climbing took shape. The biggest lessons I listened to were:

• If you're going to build a gym, build a big one. Many gym owners regret building a small facility (which they often do to keep the costs manageable), and find it quickly fills up and they have to build another one!
• Treat routesetting as a profession, and recognize that having great routes that are changed regularly is the key to a successful business

This year I saw a lot of familiar faces, both from people I had met at last year's conference, and those who got involved in helping me build my gym. I picked up some good bits of advice from a few of the sessions, but on the whole the value in this year's trip was more in the people I met and talked to. I met several people who are where I was a year ago, and it was fun to be able to share some of what I have learned to try to help them, as many others helped me last year.

The highlight of the week was the Battle in the Bubble bouldering competition. After qualifying and semi-final rounds at The Spot, the finals were Saturday night, outdoors at the Boulder reservoir. This comp used an elimination format, in which the initial 10 men and women were reduced over 5 problems to 6, 4, 3 and then 2 for the final problem. Daniel Woods and Alex Puccio were the winners, but it was close, and the action was really thrilling. Here are some other articles with more details of the comp, and some good photos:

• ClimbingNarc.com
• B3bouldering
• Fullerton Images
• The Spot blog (lots of details here about the setting & forerunning that I found especially interesting)

There was also a round-table session for Canadian attendees. There was good representation from north of the border this year, and we had a good chat about a few topics we can cooperate on.

The CWA does a good job of serving the climbing gym industry, and we definitely benefit from keeping up on their work. the Summit conference each year is a great opportunity to learn what's going on in the business, and share lessons and best practices with gym owners from all over the world.