imin was recently invited to exhibit as a partner at Legend’s Customer Conference 2018. At the event, Legend introduced a new product feature that would enable its customers to easy publish opportunity data from leisure centres across the country, for which imin has been advocating for the past few year.

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Sean Maguire, MD of Legend, told Health Club Management: “We have made this technically possible for all, so it is up to operators to decide how they wish to take forward the collaborations that have the potential to grow the reach of the sector.”

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Earlier in the year, a group of Legend customers that understand and recognised the value of open data and OpenActive requested of Legend that an open API be built. Coordinated by the Open Data Institute and assisted by imin, the petition built on the momentum of the OpenActive initiative and would benefit some of the sector’s largest leisure operators, including GLL and Parkwood Leisure.

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Open data was acknowledged by Maguire and Legend’s COO during their time on stage, as delegates from over 50 companies were encouraged to embrace innovation and startups. The panel discussion, chaired by ukactive and made up of representatives from Sport England, Stevenage Leisure and the Open Data Institute, also answered questions and gave thoughts on open data and its potential benefits.

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After the conference, we learned that Legend was planning to incorporate the open data functionality into a product update due in December. We look forward to receiving word on this groundbreaking work.

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If you are a leisure operator and would like to find out more about how to open your data via your chosen booking system, and the benefits for doing so, do please get in touch.