Trends & innovations analysis for dance studios & fitness instructors

Would you believe me if at the beginning of the year I had told you that in the future dance schools and gyms will become broadcasting studios?

5 min readJun 28, 2020

Photography by Estudio Deheza /Courtesy of Escuela de Danza Bellart (Instagram: @bellart_danza)

The coronavirus crisis has accelerated those trends forecasted to become important several years from now: one of which is the expansion of online classes to physical activities such as dance or fitness.

To help some friends who work in these two types of businesses, I worked out this trend & innovations analysis to prepare them for the near future of their professional and business activities. I joined these two activities due to the similitudes I found; if you know someone interested in this report, please share it, hope they will find useful, and if they want more information, do not hesitate to contact me.

At-home workouts & online dance classroom

In 2013, Peloton started a new gym & fitness business model selling a stationary bicycle that allows users to remotely participate in spinning classes streamed from the company’s fitness studio payable through a monthly subscription service [1].

Since then, Peloton developed a treadmill and later started streaming meditation and Yoga classes. In May 2020, after the pandemics crisis, Peloton reported 2.6 million subscribers and revenues increased 66% from last year [2].

Due to COVID, instinctively many fitness instructors in Bolivia (likewise the rest of Latin America and the world) — to satisfy the daily exercise dosage need of their students and followers — started streaming their workouts using the zoom app, Facebook Live, or any other similar application. At the beginning struggled with all the challenges (and opportunities!) of this new situation; however, these “early adopters” are becoming more literate in this “new normal” modality, same as their followers.

Perhaps Peloton’s idea will become the regular business model of this industry: first will be adopted by those larger gym & fitness organizations who can invest to install a broadcasting studio at their locations and produce better quality material for their clients.

The same will apply to dance studios, who will have to redesign their facilities to teach dance online. For them, to make the transition easier, I strongly recommend to see and follow the COVID-19 resources and webinars prepared by the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO)[3].

For those small dance studios/gyms or instructors, who will be competing with bigger organizations, I give them these bits of advice:

Make a list of all the basic needs (including status) that your service satisfied before COVID and search for ways to keep or surpass those needs. Notice that Peloton has changed the customer expectation and now a segment of the market looks forward to workout anytime suitable to their time availability.
Collaboration is key: with other instructors/dancers or similar institutions, performing together virtual workouts, complementing disciplines, share content, resources, and networking; they say the world is flat again, meaning you can be part of a global community with similar interests. Try collaborations with other traditional industries (not only marketing their complementary products) and -very important- you can add value collaborating with other types of creatives.
Use social media to create content to attract more clients and keep your community engaged. Moreover, for some years now, we have been looking at how purpose-driven influencers becoming more relevant [4] [5], therefore evaluate how your business or service can have a social, environmental, or cultural impact.
Take advantage of all digital apps (most of them are free!) to make easier your engagement, marketing, streaming, interacting with a community. I particularly recommend these days the Application BAND [6] [7], which is a remote communication tool that features live broadcasting, voting, private share of content with all your clients/followers, group chat, and calls (similar to Whatsapp). Collaborating with digital technologies specialists is vital today and try to incorporate one who will advise you in this path.

Virtual instructors

How you make sure your students do the exercises correctly in your remote lessons?

Currently, the use of sensors, together with A.I. (artificial intelligence) is starting to develop solutions to this problem. You will find interesting the Yoganotch product (app +sensors) that helps yoga fans to correct their positions [8]. Furthermore, scientists and designers are developing garments with sensors + A.I. can help physical performance for dancers, baseball, pilates, golf, etc. [9] [10].

Although this technology is currently expensive, it will become affordable in the future; in the meantime, it can inspire to implement creative solutions to solve this expectation, which can also help engagement and open for collaborative opportunities with writers, artists photographers, and digital specialists [11].

Design for social distance

Surely, we will return to our beloved gyms and dance studios. However, social distancing will be an essential element to incorporate in these environments to guarantee our clients a safe environment to practice [12]. Besides, the spaces destined for broadcasting workouts will be part of them now [13]. Some garment innovations help to keep you safe from COVID while practicing your favorite physical activity[14], and for those ballet fans, do not hesitate to watch this performance using a 1.5 meters wide tutu [15].