Just a few thoughts
After closing out the year, most businesses look both ahead and behind. What do we expect this coming year? What happened last year? And what lessons did we learn? This week a few articles that take an industry view, alongside our Gym List Awards that recognizes and celebrates the new gyms in North America from last year. And (drumbeat please)… we’re putting the finishing touches on our 13th annual Gyms & Trends Report, to be released in the next few weeks. Alongside the report will be a new dashboard that delves deeply into past performance and future outlook based on survey data from over 200 facilities in North America. Coming soon!
See The Freshest Job Posts Here
Community & Culture
- Podcast: The man who wants to reinvent comp climbing, Charlie Boscoe (The Runout Podcast)
- Gender, morphology and controversy – should we revolutionize the ratings? (Matthew Amaré, Vertige Media)
- How the Viral ‘Rotisserie Boulder’ Went from Idea to Reality (Steven Chua, Gripped)
Comp Scene
- Mar 20-22: 2026 ASCL National Championships (ASCL)
- Titan World League: One Wall. One Standard. One Global League. (CBJ)
- Climbing USA seeks at least $250K more after hitting snag in preserving historic Utah building (Carter Williams, KSL-dot-com)
- 2025 Review Part 1 (Rory Potter, Inside Climbing)
- Climbing World Cups in China – The Influence of the Sporting World (Pierre-Gaël Pasquiou, Vertige Media)
- Volunteer Positions: Performance Advisory Group – Youth Team Coach – Para-Climbing Committee (Kraig Devlin, CEC)
Gear Talk
- We tested the Vertical Jogging TM with the Mawem brothers (Laurence Guyon, La Fabrique Verticale)
- The Mawem brothers want to bring the community into the capital of MBS Industry (Vertige Media)
- Magnesia – what if we’ve been wrong from the start? (Pierre-Gaël Pasquiou, Vertige Media)
For Managers & Owners
- Jan 21: Lease or Buy? Choosing the Right Path for Your Project (webinar ft. Chris Ryan) (CBJ)
- Making Sense of a Growing Industry: Why the CWA Summit Helps Leaders Navigate Complexity (CWA, CBJ)
- 2025 Climbing Gym Industry Insights & 2026 Predictions (Pete Ward, Rise Above Consulting)
- ECN 2025 Market Report (Euro Climbing News)
For Routesetters
- Feb 10: Routesetting for Paraclimbers (online discussion ft. Nohl Haeckel) (Vortex Routesetting, CBJ)
- New Climbing Holds and Volumes: January 2026 (CBJ)
- Walltopia Launches International Shapers Showdown to Discover New Talent (CBJ)
- Podcast: Routesetting in China. Hello 2026 (Another Setting Podcast)
Many of the links above are from third-party sources, and the views expressed at those links do not necessarily represent the views of the CBJ editorial team. We share this content to help readers stay informed about what is happening in the industry and the community of climbing.
