The Last Week of Classes at Ritual North Canal Road

[Ritual gym abruptly ceased operations on 29 February 2024 and plunged straight into provisional liquidation.]

Ritual (Raffes Place) at its North Canal Road address is closing down for good. It has been there for a decade and within weeks, it announced a permanent closure. It still has other outlets that I can go to, so I'm not too perturbed about it. Tiong Bahru and Orchard would do nicely.

But for many gym-goers, this convenient CBD location is exactly why they signed up with them. With the rental of spaces in Singapore as such, I don't know if Ritual could even open up another location in the CBD in mid 2024. These would be the folks who would be annoyed and request for refunds that (I understand) the gym is honoring, depending on the outstanding amount, date of purchase and such. 

The gym took full responsibility for the abrupt announcement. We literally had a week to get in our classes before 5 May, 2023. As far as corporate ethics go, Ritual has done well. The administrative team stepped up to call for a small focus group session with some members before the official announcement of closure. At least that took the edge of the shocking news. When I saw a 4.30 am email from the Director of Operations asking us to join in a video call at 14 hours later in the evening, I suspected as much.

Thankfully, the staff would all be retained and redeployed to the other outlets. Our memberships were extended by a month, with complimentary classes, as well as widening our one-location-gym-use to all-access to every outlet. I will get to use up all my outstanding classes. 

I don't know if I'll stick to Ritual after that. We'll see. I haven't got anything much to complain about it. The gym and what it offers work for me quite well. The classes aren't competitive or too stressful on my joints and muscles. I compete with no one but myself, deciding on what intensity to take it to on any given day. The HIIT component is what I need, along with its flexible booking system and its '30-minute before class' cancellation policy, both of which very few gyms would offer.