Introducing A European Mega Comp!
We sat down with Ludo and Enzo, the enthusiastic minds behind Vertical Shelter - a routesetting and competition management app, a performance coaching programme, and soon a huge competition league coming to Europe.
To kick things off we talked about the app and the benefit it brings to gyms and users. Vertical Shelter has only been around since February of this year, and is now in use by Bloc Out across their 14 French sites and has already recruited a few thousand gym users to the platform. The appeal of the app comes from the the use of ‘gamification’, offering fun challenges with friends, leaderboards, points for physical prizes from gyms, and of course the actual climbing competitions run by gyms.
They noted the benefit and opportunity for scalability of the app in that it does not require buy-in from a given climbing gym; if a user wants to make use of the app for their local gym which isn’t signed up as a business partner this is absolutely fine, and the user can input the climbs available within the gym for others to find and tick off. Currently Vertical Shelter is used in, but not by, Arkose, Climbing District and Climb Up. Should the gym later wish to join the Vertical Shelter ecosystem as a business user they are obviously more than welcome to, allowing them to make full use of their routesetting and competition management functions.
Now for the fun bit, we got talking about the Vertical Shelter League; Possibly Europe’s largest climbing competition ever, including up to 30 teams of 3 from climbing gyms across the continent competing for a grand prize of €10,000 and a set of holds for their home gym.
The format is as follows:
A climbing gym runs a competition which doubles as a qualifier for the Vertical Shelter League to find a winning team of 3 climbers
Climbers within this team can be any age and gender
The Semis and Finals are held at Bloc Out in Paris in June 2025
The teams of 3 will each have a specialist role - Slabmaster, Ninja and Hulk, extra points will be awarded for blocs completed in their particular style. Choose your role and blocs carefully!
Finals will be broadcast live across social media channels - YouTube, Instagram, Twitch
Ludo and Enzo are actively recruiting more gyms for the opportunity to take part in the first of what, they aim, will be a regular feature in the climbing calendar. There is obviously a huge amount of excitement in this format, and with a prize pot that could attract the biggest names in climbing, how amazing it would be for teams to be competing against their heroes in the heart of Paris!
Vertical Shelter will be launching their League with a competition at Bloc Out Paris to find a team to represent them, if you’re in Paris and want to get involved this will be your early chance, otherwise get your local gym involved and take part in this massive league.
