Zumba Marks 25 Years With Times Square Takeover
Krissy Vann | Host, All Things Fitness and Wellness
Zumba turned 25 this spring, and the brand made sure the milestone was visible. On April 29th, the company took over the TSQ LIVE stage in Times Square for a free public class drawing thousands of participants in the middle of Manhattan. At the same time, classes ran simultaneously across 185 countries in what the brand framed as a single coordinated global moment.
The anniversary events had been building for weeks. In March, the company filled a cruise to Mexico with fans for several days of programming, an event that sold out entirely. The Times Square activation and the cruise bookended what Zumba positioned as a yearlong 25th anniversary campaign, with additional programming and global activations planned throughout 2026.
The scale the brand has reached over that period is difficult to ignore. Zumba says more than 465 million live classes have been taught since its founding in 2001, and its weekly programming now runs in 200,000 locations worldwide. For context, that is more than five times the global footprint of Starbucks. The brand operates across 185 countries, and its community has collectively logged over 3 trillion calories burned.
For fitness operators, Zumba's longevity is itself the story. The format has outlasted dozens of trends that arrived with more fanfare and faded faster, and it did so by staying rooted in group participation at a time when digital and on-demand options fragmented much of the industry. The pandemic tested that model, and the brand came out the other side with its studio and instructor network largely intact.
Co-founder and CEO Alberto Perlman, who launched the brand in 2001, credited the instructor and participant community for what the company has built. The Zumba instructor base remains central to its distribution model, with licensed instructors driving class availability globally rather than company-owned locations.
Twenty-five years in, the brand shows no indication of pulling back.
