I just returned from the Be:Fit show. The Be:Fit show is an exhibition show/event dedicated to women's health and fitness, it has exhibitors, fitness classes, expert talks, fitness challenges, health checks, free samples of food, and much more.
It used to be called the Vitality Show and this year rebranded to Be:Fit and has moved from Earls Court to Old Billingsgate Market. I have been to the Vitality show for the past two years and enjoyed it a lot and so thought i totally couldn't miss it this year too.
Overall I had a lovely time, i went with my acrobatic friend Lisa and we participated in a lot of different things. We stayed for the whole day, arriving at about 10:30am and leaving at 5pm.
Price
Be:Fit 2014: Full price tickets were £18, we got ours for £12.50 each as there always seems to be some sort of deal or discount going on. I did sign up to be a Vitality Ambassador, meaning if people use my code they get money off and it advantages me, sadly they only got £2 off a full price ticket and there were far better deals going on so no-one used my code!
(Vitality Show 2013 full price weekend tickets were £20, vitality ambassador code priced tickets were £10 and i sold quite a few).
So a full price ticket was slightly cheaper this year, but signing up to be an ambassador was totally pointless!
Freebies
I was slightly disappointed. The Vitality Show used to have a free goody bag for all guests full of wonderful things, but this didn't exist this year at Be:Fit. There were a lot of food stalls offering lovely free samples, i ate alot. I did still get a few freebies to take home with me, just totally no way near as many as previous years.
Fitness Classes
Me and Lisa got there early and were recommended that if we wished to participate in fitness classes we needed to go and sign up for them, so we did. The Vitality Show used to have several different areas where fitness classes happened, Be:Fit only had one area so only about 9 classes during the whole day. This resulted in many people not being able to participate and it was a bit sad to see the long queue of people in the reserve queue for classes. I think there totally needed to be more areas for more classes, I love participating in the different classes and would have been gutted if i had of missed out on it. The other downside was the stairs leading to the fitness zone, i had my granny shopping trolley and stairs and a granny shopping trolley full of things is harsh. The plus side was that the classes I did do were awesome. I did the Beyonce Workout where we all danced, strutted, and shaked our booties, I enjoyed this class a lot. I also did a contemporary yoga class, i enjoyed the first part of this where we did some gentle yoga asana, the dance bit for the last ten mins slightly lost me, possibly because i really was enjoying doing the gentle asana part. I would have maybe done some more classes had i been able to.
Something else sad was that there was a whole massive bit of unused space on the floor when you went down to do the fitness classes, it would have been totally better to have utilised this space for more fitness classes/trying out things zone/etc, or at least more stalls.
Health Check
I love a health check haha, so as soon as we arrived we dashed to the Nuffield desk to make a health check appointment. I think they booked up fairly quickly and so again this was good to get in quick early in the morning. The health check consisted of about a 10min check of blood glucose, cholesterol, blood pressure, heart rate. I was happy to be totally healthy.
What i really would have loved is the machine that one year made an appearance at the Vitality Show. I held onto some handles and it sent electrical impulses through my body measuring nearly everything about my body composition such as the percentage body fat in each part of my body.
Stalls
The Be:Fit show was way way smaller than the Vitality Show, so less stalls and less variety of stalls. Me and Lisa had walked around it all fairly quickly. I did make some lovely purchases such as some bud earphones that are the first i have ever tried out that do not fall out of my tiny ears (www.yurbuds.com), a lovely pair of leggings i just couldn't resist buying (www.bottonfitness.co.uk), and my long awaited Vitamix machine using the prize money from when I won the yoga asana championships earlier this year.
A big sector missing from the show this year was the hair and beauty sector. I missed it. I know beauty isn't directly to do with health and fitness, but in a way it is because a lot of us work out to make our figures look more beautiful as well as for health reasons, and when we feel beautiful we feel happy, and some people (not me as i mainly do do hot yoga) workout in makeup, and some people like me like to do our post workout baths in nice smelly bath bombs like i happily purchased at last years Vitality Show!!! :-) Also I missed the cheese stalls, i purchase awesome cheeses every year at the Vitality Show, something little but i really missed it! I think maybe they were trying to make it even more healthy fitness based (after all cheese is not as healthy as a granola bar), but in doing this i think that they lost a bit of beautifulness about the show.
I am happy the massage chairs were there. I always feel slightly guilty with these as however much i would love one (they are amazing) then i know full well before i sit down that i can not budget for one, yet i sit down in denial of my budget and try it out on every part of my body before deciding that indeed i have no budget for one.
Fitness Challenges
These made my day that much brighter. I participated in the Tribe Sports Side Plank challenge where you had to hold a side plank for as long as you could. I never do side planks and was totally blind to my side planking abilities. The two highest scorers of the day won a sports top, i somehow came 2nd with 4.31mins. There was a lady who got 6 minutes, full respect to her! I also took part in one of the Reebok challenges, when we walked past at 10.30am then it said if you took part you got a free goody bag, except about an hour later when we returned and did as many sit ups as we could in a minute there were no goody bags left and so we got nothing. So we didn't then do the Reebok press up challenge or burpee challenge, gotta motivate us with freebies and prizes lol! If there were more challenges with more prizes/incentives i totally would have done them :-)
Lecture Theatre and Fitness Personalities
Things i didn't do as none of them really appealed to me or clashed with stuff i had already scheduled to do.
Overall
Overall then I had an awesome time. Though if we had of got there later and/or not been aware we had to book in for fitness classes or the health check I think we would have been totally gutted as without them then the show may as well have been free entry. We were lucky and the reward for that was that we had a pretty good time. Though it was slightly disappointing in terms of size then there were many good stalls and i met some lovely people. There were too many different floors and too many stairs. I am not sure why it changed from the Vitality Show as the Vitality Show in content and location size was superior, but i hope the Be:Fit show can grow and develop back to what the Vitality show was like for next year, and i hope they have more fitness class areas, and bring back the free goody bags!
