This week I travelled to Elevate in London, the fitness industry’s biggest trade show and expo. Elevate brings together all the major players in fitness, including equipment manufacturers, training providers, technology companies, health and wellbeing brands, and industry organisations.
There are talks, workshops, demonstrations and product launches happening throughout the event. Many years ago, the big industry event was Leisure Industry Week. When that disappeared, Elevate stepped in and has grown into the major annual fitness industry gathering, now held at the Excel Centre in East London. I always enjoy attending. It’s a fantastic opportunity to catch up with people face-to-face, arrange meetings, make new connections and see what’s happening across the industry.
In previous years, I’ve tended to wander around, create some content and see who I bumped into along the way. Last year I was presenting at the FitPro Convention, which was held alongside Elevate, so my experience was slightly different. This year I decided to be much more strategic and purposeful. Before travelling down, I organised meetings with everyone I needed to speak to, including Active IQ, YMCA Awards, Transcend and EMD UK.
We have an exciting announcement coming up with EMD UK this week, so it was great to sit down with the team and discuss future plans. I genuinely think Elevate is a valuable event for anyone working in the fitness industry. Whether you’re looking for education, inspiration, networking opportunities, new ideas or simply want to stay current with industry trends, it’s well worth attending.
The event itself is free to attend, although of course there are costs involved with travel, accommodation, taking time away from your business and arranging class cover. Even so, I think it’s one of the best networking opportunities available in our industry. We are now 24 weeks into the vlog series. I still haven’t quite reached 20,000 subscribers, but I’m going to keep going! If you’ve enjoyed following the journey, please like, subscribe and leave a comment.
I’d love to know what you think of the vlog and whether you’ve ever attended Elevate yourself.
