Bouldering gyms leaving Urban Sports?

honestly i think the writing's on the wall for most of them. a friend works at one of the bigger halls and they're already planning their own app for next spring. urban sports just isn't worth it for them anymore with all the peak hour crowding they get from us members

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yeah it's not just a rumor tbh. a few smaller spots like boulderklub and ostbloc have been quietly testing the waters with their own pricing models. i think the issue is urban sports takes a huge cut per check-in, like 40%+ from what i've heard, and with how crowded the boulder halls get it just doesn't pencil out for them long-term. berta block was the first to fully jump but they also have that big new location in wedding which probably needed more stable revenue.

if you climb a lot it's worth doing the math on a direct membership, especially if you have a favorite spot. most gyms do a 10-visit card for around 70-80€ or a monthly around 50-60€, which ends up cheaper than urban sports if you go 3+ times a week. plus you skip the peak-hour queue of urban sports users checking in, which is a solid perk

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It's definitely not just a rumor. I've heard similar from staff at a couple of places in Friedrichshain, and the math makes sense. Urban Sports takes a massive cut, something like 40% of the monthly fee, and for a busy bouldering hall that's a lot of lost revenue that could go into new routes or maintenance.

One thing to keep in mind is that some gyms are doing a hybrid thing for now. For example, Ostbloc still shows up on the app but they've started offering their own membership cards at the front desk that are noticeably cheaper if you pay upfront for six months. I'd recommend just asking at the counter next time you're in, most staff are pretty open about what's happening.

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Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.

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if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point

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honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.

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