What to show on gym reception screens

A gym reception screen works best when it answers the questions members would otherwise ask the front desk: what classes are on today, is anything closed, what's this month's offer, who are the coaches. Put those first, add a few things that make the place feel like a community, and change the mix through the day, because the people swiping in at 6am want different things from the after-work crowd.

Start with what people ask the desk

Spend a week noticing what members ask at reception and you've got most of your content plan. Usually the list starts with class times, then closures (the sauna's out, the pool's shut for cleaning, the car park barrier's broken again), then opening hours over bank holidays.

Today's classes deserve the most airtime. Keep them in a dataset so the front desk can mark a class as full or swap a coach in a few clicks, and the screen stays right without anyone redesigning anything. Showing gym class timetables on screen covers that set-up in detail.

Closures need to be seen by everyone who walks in while they apply, and then disappear. Two tools in Casty suit this. An overlay layout sits on top of whatever is already playing, so a strip along the bottom saying "Sauna closed today for repairs" stays visible while the timetable carries on above it. For something bigger, like a change to opening hours over Christmas, a priority event takes over the screen for the time you set, then hands back to the normal schedule when it ends. Priority, interrupts and overlays explains both.

Sell, but don't nag

Members already pay you, so a reception screen that's wall-to-wall selling gets tuned out fast. A few commercial slides are fine, though, and some are things members genuinely want to know about.

A membership offer with a clear end date is the classic. In the Casty demo, Fitzroy Gym in Leeds runs a "no joining fee this October" layout that's scheduled to stop on 31 October, so it disappears on 1 November without anyone remembering to take it down. Your members can't sign up again, but they can bring a friend, so a referral offer is worth a slide alongside it.

Personal training sells better with faces. One slide per coach, with a photo, a name and what they're good at (strength, rehab, getting back into it after a baby), does more than a generic "Ask about PT" slide. Members get to know who's who before they book.

If you sell shakes, bottles or towels at the desk, show them with prices, and keep the prices in one place so the screen and the till agree.

To stop the selling crowding out the useful stuff, schedule offers as interrupt layouts. Each one gets a set share of voice, in seconds per hour, and the timetable keeps the rest of the hour.

Make it feel like your gym

The slides people stop and look at tend to be about the place and the people in it. That might be a new class launching next month, the summer challenge with its running total, photos from the charity row or the Christmas social, or a welcome for a new coach.

Leaderboards and member milestones ("Sarah's 100th class") go down well, but only show someone's name or photo if they've said yes. A name on a screen in a public reception is personal information, and some members would much rather not be on it. If you're not sure where you stand, the Information Commissioner's Office has guidance for organisations.

House rules, minus the telling-off

Wipe down the kit, rack your weights, book an induction before using the free weights area. These are worth a slide, but tone matters. A bright, short "Re-rack your weights, thanks" reads better than a paragraph of capital letters, and one rule per slide is plenty. Rotate them so the same one isn't up every time someone looks.

Change the mix through the day

Most gyms have a few distinct crowds. Early mornings are people fitting a session in before work, who want to know what's on and get going. The middle of the day brings a different set of members with more time, who'll happily read about a new class or a coach. Evenings are the busy peak, when "this week's quietest times" or a reminder to share equipment makes sense.

Dayparts let you plan for that. You define named slots once (say Early, Daytime and Evening, with whatever times fit your opening hours) and schedule different content into each. The screen changes over by itself every day. The dayparts guide shows how to set them up, including different times for one day of the week if your Sunday hours are shorter.

A few practical points

Think about where the screen is. One behind the desk gets read in passing as people swipe in, so keep it to short, big messages. A screen in a seating area, where people wait for an induction or a PT session, gets a longer look and can carry more detail.

Leave the sound off. Reception usually has music playing already, and the front desk team would hear the same audio loop all day.

Give every screen a default layout with your logo and opening hours. It plays whenever nothing else is scheduled, so the screen never sits on something odd before the first event of the day.

And decide who keeps it up to date. The front desk can have their own logins (we set them up and can limit each one to what that person needs), and a manager who only looks after the promotions can have access to a single playlist from a simple page. The team access guide lists the kinds of access available.