Holiday closures: how to cancel classes, return credits, and tell booked members

Plan a gym or studio holiday closure. Set the window, decide what happens to bookings, credits, packs and paid sessions, and send notices members can act on.

Classes · 9 min read

By Rovari · Updated November 2, 2026

Before you cancel holiday classes, decide whether members can still use the building and what happens to each booking. A pack session you return may expire while you are closed. Paid appointments need their own refund or new date, and monthly members may ask about their fee or class allowance. Settle those answers before the first cancellation notice goes out.

Set the closure window

In the United States, Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26, 2026. Christmas Day is Friday, December 25, and New Year's Day is Friday, January 1, 2027, on the federal holiday schedule. Decide whether you will also shorten hours on the days before those holidays.

Sources:[1]

Decide what closes at each location. You may close the building, cancel some classes while keeping the floor open, or close one room. For a partial closure, tell members which classes or rooms remain open and whether they can still enter the building.

Check which instructors can teach the classes that remain on the schedule, and arrange cover where needed. Decide how you will handle pay for cancelled classes under your instructor agreements before you announce the closure.

Write a start and end time for each location in that location's time zone. "Closed Thanksgiving" leaves staff to guess about the Wednesday evening class and the first session on Friday morning. "Closed from 2:00 p.m. Wednesday, November 25, to 6:00 a.m. Friday, November 27, Eastern time" answers both.

Check the boundary of the window and the work outside group classes:

A 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. class overlaps a closure that starts at 2:00 p.m. Decide whether it runs in full, ends early, or is cancelled.
A second location may keep normal hours or close for a different window. Say whether members of the closed location may use the open one.
Private appointments, course sessions, and fixed-date events such as level assessments have their own terms for a missed session.
Door and kiosk access may continue outside staffed hours. Decide whether that access continues during the closure.
Confirm or cancel front desk and instructor shifts in the window. Tell whoever teaches the last class when the building closes.

Set a cutoff for planned changes to the window and name who can approve a later change.

Decide what happens to each kind of booking

What a member gets back depends on the booking and how they paid for it. Settle each row before you cancel sessions.

What each kind of booking needs when its class is cancelled
Booking	What the member had	Decision to make
Seat included in a membership	A place in that class	There is no separate class credit or pack session to return for the booking. Check whether the closure prevents the member from using a monthly class allowance.
Seat paid with a class credit or pack session	One session from a limited balance	Return the session, then check its expiry. Returning a session may leave its expiry date unchanged.
Paid single session or private appointment	Money for one session	Choose whether to refund it, move it to another date, or hold the value as credit, because cancelling the session does none of these. Name who processes refunds and by when.
Waitlist place	A position in line, without a seat	Remove it and tell the member, so they do not keep the time free for a seat that will not open.
Recurring or standing booking	Seats on future dates	Cancel only the closed dates and confirm the seat on the next date that runs.
Course or series session	One session in a fixed sequence	Choose a make-up date or a price adjustment under the course terms.

Record these as cancellations by the business. A member whose class you cancelled should not lose a credit or pay a late-cancellation fee because the closure fell inside your usual cancellation window. Check how your software records the change. If it treats the change as a member's late cancellation, it may apply the penalty on its own. Your class capacity, waitlist, and late-cancellation rules should say what an organization cancellation returns.

Check credits and packs that expire near the closure

A returned session may be unusable if its pack expires while you are closed. List the class credits and packs that expire inside the closure or within a few days after you reopen. Include guest passes, introductory offers, and anything sold as a holiday gift whose use-by date falls in the window.

Suppose a pack expires at the end of Saturday, December 26, and the member's class on Thursday, December 24, is cancelled. The session comes back with only Christmas Day and the Saturday after it left to use it. You may be closed or on a reduced schedule on both days.

Choose a rule for each affected product and apply it consistently to members who hold that product. These are illustrative options to check against your terms:

Extend each affected pack or credit by the number of days you are closed.
Extend only those that expire during the closure to a set number of days after you reopen.
Make no change and tell affected members in advance so they can book before the closure.

Record the reason for each extension. Staff can then answer a member who compares their date with someone else's. If your software extends one pack at a time, the length of the list tells you how much staff time the rule needs.

Decide what monthly members get back

Monthly plans need a decision even when no credit was used for a booking. A full building closure removes days of access, and a closure of any size can leave too few class days to use a monthly allowance.

Positions for monthly members and prepaid terms
Position	When it fits	What to check
No change to the fee	The agreement says the published schedule can change for holidays, and the price assumes some closed days.	State the relevant term in the announcement so members can see the reason.
A credit or discount for the affected period	The closure is longer than usual, or the agreement promises a set number of sessions.	Apply it the same way to every member who qualifies, and record it before the next bill is prepared.
A pause or term extension	Members lose a long block, such as a week between Christmas and New Year's Day.	Record the dates and what happens to the next billing date. Your membership pause policy covers the details.
An extended end date for a prepaid term or short pass	The member paid upfront for a fixed term, such as a year or an introductory two weeks, so there is no bill to adjust.	Extend the end date by the closed days, or point to the term that says holiday closures are included.

Check plans with a monthly class allowance against the classes that will still run. A member on eight classes a month may not have enough December class days left to use them all. A member with no class limit loses scheduled classes during the closure but no counted sessions. Decide whether an adjustment applies to everyone on an affected plan or only to members who had sessions booked in the window.

Check your position against the membership agreement and any rules that apply where you operate. Then write next year's position into the agreement so staff do not have to decide it again.

Tell members in the right order

Send each group the message it needs:

Which members need which message, and when
Who	What they need	When to send it
All members	Hours and access for each location, the exact closure window, and where to check the schedule	As soon as the planned closure is final
Members booked or waitlisted for a cancelled session	Which session was cancelled, what was returned or refunded, and how to book another time	When you cancel the sessions, with account follow-up where needed
Members with an expiring balance, a paid session, or a fee adjustment	The confirmed decision for their account	Before the closure, directly to each affected member

For a planned closure, send the general announcement before you cancel sessions. Describe what you will do, then confirm each account change after staff process it. A short automatic cancellation message makes sense to a member who already knows why the location is closed. Name who updates the website, booking page, and front desk sign, and set a date by which all three show the same hours.

A holiday hours announcement

Adapt this example to your agreement, software, and chosen policy.

[Organization] holiday hours

[Location] will be closed from [start day, date, and time] to [end day, date, and time]. Classes and private sessions in that time will be cancelled. We reopen at [time] on [date].

If you are booked into a session in that window, [we will return the class credit or pack session to your account / we will refund your payment / we will contact you about a new date]. We will remove waitlist places for cancelled sessions. We will confirm account changes directly with affected members.

[Your monthly membership fee will not change for holiday closures, as set out in your membership agreement. / Describe the credit or adjustment and the bill it will apply to.]

If a pack or class credit expires between [date] and [date], [state the extension, or ask members to book before the closure].

[Other location] keeps its normal hours. The full schedule is at [schedule link]. For questions, contact [contact].

A note to a member whose paid session was cancelled

Adapt this example to the decision you made for that session.

Your [session name] on [date and time] is cancelled because [location] is closed for [holiday].

[We returned one class credit to your account. It can be used until [date]. / We refunded [amount] to your original payment method. / Your session is moved to [date and time]; reply to this message if that time does not work.]

Sessions with open places before and after the closure: [link].

If you change the plan after announcing it

If you reopen a day you announced as closed, cancelled bookings and waitlist places may not return with the classes. Check which places, if any, were restored. Contact members who lost a booking or waitlist place and tell them whether they need to book again.

An extended closure needs decisions for the added hours. Apply the same treatment to credits and paid sessions in those hours as you used for the first window, and tell the newly affected members.

Unplanned closures

A storm or a burst pipe may leave only hours to act. Set the window, then cancel the affected sessions straight away so booked members hear before they travel. Send the explanation afterwards, with what was returned and when you expect to reopen. Apply the same rules for credits, packs, and paid sessions that you use for planned closures.

Closure worksheet

Holiday closure worksheet
Decision	Record your answer
Window	Each location, start and end with time zone, and the boundary classes: ______
What closes	Whole building, some classes, or one room; group classes, private appointments, course sessions, and assessments: ______
Staff	Who can teach, cover for classes that run, shifts to cancel, and pay for cancelled classes: ______
Building access	Check-in, door access, kiosks, and use of other locations during the window: ______
Bookings	Included seats, credits and packs, paid sessions, waitlists, and recurring bookings: ______
Expiring balances	Credits, packs, passes, and gift purchases expiring in or after the window, the extension rule, and its reason: ______
Memberships and terms	No change, credit, discount, pause, or extended end date; who qualifies; and the agreement wording: ______
Notices	Announcement date, cancellation message, individual follow-ups, website, and signs: ______
Later changes	Who decides, the last date for changes, and how members are told to book again: ______

How Rovari handles this

An owner or manager declares a closure for one location, with a start and end in that location's local time and an operational reason. A closure covers the whole location. To close one room or cancel only the evening schedule, cancel those classes individually from the calendar, which also notifies booked members. Before confirming, the review counts the classes and active bookings the closure affects and the class credits it can return. A second location needs its own closure, and closures at the same location cannot overlap.

Confirming the closure cancels every scheduled class and private appointment at that location that overlaps the window, including one that starts before the closure and runs into it. Recurring classes that would fall inside the window are not created. Staff cannot add a one-off class that overlaps it, and members cannot book a private appointment during it.

Each booking and waitlist place becomes a cancellation by the organization. A class credit used for the booking returns once, with its original expiry date, even when the closure falls inside the usual late-cancellation window. A session paid from a pack returns to that pack and keeps the pack's expiry. An owner, or a manager whose authority covers the pack's locations, can extend the last usable day of a pack that has an expiry date. They do this from the member's record, one pack at a time, with a reason, and the original date stays in its history.

Each person whose booking or waitlist place was cancelled receives a class-cancelled email if they have an email address and have agreed to transactional email. The email names the class and location, gives the class time in the location's local time, and includes your operational reason, so write the reason for members to read. It does not list your holiday hours or what was returned, so send your own announcement as well.

A closure does not refund a paid session or appointment; review those separately. It also does not pause memberships or change billing, and it does not block check-in. Record any fee credit or discount for members as its own decision.

Withdrawing a closure brings back future classes that are still eligible to run. Cancelled bookings, returned credits, and cancellation emails stay as they are, so members need to book again.

Public signup is not open yet. Request early access

See scheduling and bookings in Rovari

Sources

Sources checked November 2, 2026. Sample policies and settings are illustrative.

U.S. Office of Personnel Management: Federal holidays
Federal holiday dates for 2026 and 2027, including Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day.