Some musicians are creating their own new genres within the fitness market niche. The 37-year-old mother of two says she is drawn to the style of music and is happy to travel to do Zumba dance routines with 8,000 other conventioneers to live music performed by artists like Wyclef Jean and Vanilla Ice. Heather Velasquez has traveled twice in the past few years to Orlando, Fla., from her home in Espanola, N.M., to attend "concerts" organized by Zumba Fitness.
David Romanelli, a New York-based yoga instructor, led a class this summer in Colorado that was accompanied, live, by the jazz-fusion musician Stanley Jordan. So-called live-music yoga classes and festivals are growing in popularity.
Some fitness buffs may even find a musical artist making a guest appearance right in the workout room. This year, the company says March Music Madness will be a battle of the bands. Last year, Kanye West's "Stronger" beat out, among others, the "Rocky" theme song. Throughout March, the gym franchise's group-fitness class instructors build some of their playlists from the suggested songs. The social media response was so great that later that year it debuted "March Music Madness," in which people go online to submit their favorite workout songs for a bracket that mimics the NCAA's "March Madness" national basketball championship bracket. Two years ago, Gold's Gym asked its Facebook followers to share their preferred iron-pumping jams. Rapper Vanilla Ice, left, and Zumba Fitness co-founder Beto Perez, center, at one of the company's fitness concerts. More traditional gyms and fitness centers are also trying to harness their customers' interest in well-curated playlists. With these playlists, the company will be able to stream classes on the Web for its clients who have purchased their own SoulCycle indoor bikes, which retail for $2,200.
She says SoulCycle hopes to make a deal with a music label to license the label's library and then sell SoulCycle-branded playlists culled from it. "The music is a part of what people come to SoulCycle for," says company co-founder Julie Rice. Melker says.Īt SoulCycle, a rapidly expanding national chain of spinning studios co-owned by Equinox Gyms, instructors are prohibited from sharing their playlists with students online. Many fitness instructors post playlists on websites likeĪnd Spotify in response to such student requests. Melker and the instructors after classes, he says. Cyclists who want to know the names of songs they've just sweated to often bombard Mr. Labels and artists who want their music included in his playlists pitch him regularly, he says. Melker's curated database of a few thousand new songs, as well as those he remixes or "mashes" together. Songs that Flywheel clients hear blaring in their spin classes in the company's growing number of satellite studios-which have since opened in cities like Chicago, Seattle and Dubai-are drawn largely from Mr.
VanWinkle says.įlywheel Sports hired Scott Melker, a music producer and DJ, to help orchestrate the music strategy for its indoor cycling classes before opening its first studio in New York three years ago. "Zumba reaches so many millions of people, it's like MTV was back in the day," Mr. Released last August, the single has sold nearly 17,000 copies. VanWinkle rerecorded his 1990s hit "Ice Ice Baby" with a Latin flavor and Zumba-friendly tempo, then starred in a video featuring Zumba choreography. Zumba fans have already helped revive the career of Rob VanWinkle-better known as the rapper Vanilla Ice. Philip Montgomery for The Wall Street Journal A 'DJ Ride' class at Flywheel Sports in New York.