When we went to our first major Arnold Sports Festival in quite some time, in March of last year, it was pretty clear that not only was the health and fitness convention back, but back and stronger than ever. The organizers blew the roof off the Columbus Convention Center, proving that after all of these years, events can blow away those memorable 2010s turnouts. There was promise of the follow up to that Arnold Sports Festival being even bigger and the team certainly delivered.
Those who made it out to the Arnold Sports Festival this past weekend in Columbus, Ohio, will already know the Columbus Convention Center was absolutely packed with plenty of people running through on Friday and Sunday, but Saturday was another animal, no pun intended, Animal Pak. It was as full as we’d ever seen for the entire afternoon on Saturday, and that makes sense as a total of more than 100,000 individual visitors made it out to Columbus and walked the Arnold Expo.
The numbers at the Arnold Expo were far beyond the huge success of last year, and the record breaking didn’t end there. The livestream of the Arnold Sports Festival, which was made free for the first time in 2024, increased its viewership by 16%, captivating just under four million individual viewers. The Stack3d crew was, of course, in-house again, hosting the premium Stack3d Pavilion full of reputable and reliable brands, witnessing the success firsthand. We look forward to doing it all again in 2026, where there is no reason the Arnold Sports Festival can’t repeat that same increase.
