The discussion with Kimo Seymour, President of Events & Media at Life Time, touched on a number of areas in the endurance event landscape.
Kimo gave some background to his experience at Life Time over the past 10 or so years, and how the event business has grown and evolved. Recently, Life Time has been particularly busy. The acquisition of the Sea Otter cycling show & festival in 2021 was a notable milestone; alongside this is the launch of the new Life Time Grand Prix for elite cyclists.
Kimo explained how the Life Time Grand Prix is a way for the company to support elite bike racing in North America – and it helps Life Time tie together a number of its key cycling event acquisitions and newly created event properties.
Life Time has given a lot of attention to gravel cycling, which has been a booming area in terms of retail bike sales alongside events and general riding participation.
In recent years, the company’s focus has shifted away from triathlon somewhat. Kimo noted that the two triathlon events in its portfolio in 2022 are iconic city races in Chicago and New York. He said “Having the only big downtown triathlons in New York and Chicago is pretty epic from our perspective.”
The company has noted some waning triathlon demand in North America with less new participants entering the sport. In the past 5-6 years, Life Time has also found that many athletes tend to “jump over Sprint and Olympic distance triathlon” and go straight for longer distances.
This waning demand for shorter course racing has been coupled with increased costs. It therefore became more financially challenging to put on some triathlon events. So, the focus has been on bigger events with higher barriers to entry.
Kimo also gave his views on why demand for triathlon may be waning. Going forwards, Life Time sees strong demand in a number of other endurance sport categories – notably its focus areas of cycling and running. Kimo added, “For any product, in any industry, you have to provide distinction. We know that we’ll be continuing to evolve our events to differentiate.”
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