We visited the Fitness Festival at Gunwharf Quays today. It was great to see people getting involved and enjoying fitness.
I do miss the space and extra exhibitors from when the festival was at Castle Field. I remember sweating in a tent doing Hot Yoga years ago and there being talks throughout the day. I also wish there was more to look at fitness equipment, clothing and accessories wise. The 2 or 3 years the event was a castle field it seemingly just allowed more space for 'more'.
Hopefully the event continues to grow and there’s even more at future fitness festivals.
Maybe a collaboration with the sport/ fitness shops that are at Gunwharf, would engage the local retailers and more of the Gunwharf complex. Having the restaurants stands worked well in the space. But again there was nothing in there actual restaurants pointing to the festival.
As it is the festival felt small and almost easy to miss. There was no signage around Gunwharf until you were at the festival space. Meaning potentially a lot of people were even at Gunwharf, but didn't know this event was happening.
Session/ stage wise, bfit with Billie engaged a large group of people while we were there. The HIIT session made me think about my home workouts. Hopefully I’ll have my space set up soon, so I can get back into HIIT.
It was great to see a range of people getting involved and showing the accessibility of Billies classes.
The Zumba class that was on before was great too, again with good accessibility. After Billie there was a bounce class, which looked quite exclusive as there were no extra trampets for people to try or join in. Very different to the other sessions were someone could just join in.
It was nice to also have some of the restaurants involved, that collaboration was really good and added to the space. Wagamama's handed out some taster pots at one stage too. Again very nice, and the small sizes worked because most of the people in that space were being or had recently been active.
The event is over two days, I’m disappointed to miss the mindset maintenance and Tai Chi tomorrow (we are looking at baby things in Southampton). But there's not really enough there to justify going back, unless your super local to Gunwharf/ Southsea. I think my biggest issue is I am comparing this event to the event from 3ish years ago, maybe that's not fair?
There’s a range of fitness activities happening on Sunday. If you happen to be in the area, check the lineup online to find out more.
Well done to the organisers and everyone involved; I really hope the event continues to grow and develop. The things that are here are great, it's just, for me, there's too many things not here to make it a 'festival'.
Bloggers Note: Since the event I have seen social media posts showing lots of other sections to the event, which I didn't see or know about. Potentially there's a lot I missed, hopefully in future there's more signage and pre-event maps to help make sure more people visit more/ all sections of the event in future.
Again mega well done to the event hosts.
Please note: This post does not include sponsored content; Fitness Festival, Performers and Exhibitors did not ask to and have not seen this post before it is published, nor have they instructed me on what to say. The views, experiences, thoughts and insights expressed in this post are my own.