Neon Lace is a cultural and market intelligence platform for ambitious women and the premium spaces they move through — including airport lounges, private members' clubs, boutique and destination hotels, and urban wellness spaces.

Who is Neon Lace for?

Neon Lace is for ambitious women who move through elevated environments and want to understand, access and build advantage across those spaces.

What is the Neon Lace Guest Intelligence Brief?

The Guest Intelligence Brief is a commissioned desk-based research product for boutique hotel operators, interpreting their highest-value female guests through the Women Who Move lens. No guest surveys or data requests are required from the hotel.

What environments does Neon Lace cover?

Neon Lace covers four key environments: private members' clubs, airport and travel ecosystems, boutique and destination hotels, and urban wellness infrastructure.

Movement

One Million Players, Roughly 30% Women, and a Pilot Aiming for 1,000

Neon Lace

05 Oct 2026 • 3 min read

On 8 September, the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) and Empower Padel launched a four-month pilot to grow women's and girls' participation in padel, and attached three numbers to it: 1,000 unique participants, 500 repeat participants and 200 regular monthly players (LTA Padel). Britain has more than 1,000,000 people playing padel across 551 venues, according to the same release, and the LTA's March figures put women at 30% of them (The Padel Paper). Published targets give the pilot something outsiders can check against, which is what makes it worth reading closely.

What the pilot is

The Women's Padel Activator Pilot Programme places Padel Activators at venues. The release describes them as women and young women who introduce their communities to padel and help players move from a first experience to regular play. New activations start at Padel Stars Basildon, Padel4All Eastbourne and Pure Padel Lightwater, with a fourth location to be added. They build on weekly initiatives already running in Slough, Fleet, Bracknell and Maidenhead. The programme also includes university activations and a Next Gen Padel Festival for players aged 16 to 24 (LTA Padel).

Three numbers, three steps

Each target counts a different step. A unique participant has tried padel once, a repeat participant has come back, and a regular monthly player plays every month. Together they trace the path the release names as its aim. Empower Padel will track participation and retention throughout the programme to identify which approaches work best (LTA Padel).

By Neon Lace's arithmetic, the numbers imply that half of first-time participants return, and that two in five of those who return become regular players.

How large the gap is

If women make up 30% of one million players, that is roughly 300,000 women. This is Neon Lace arithmetic, because the 30% figure was published in March, before the million-player count. Against that base, 1,000 unique participants is about 0.3%. The targets are sized for a pilot, and the release frames its purpose as finding which approaches work. Nothing in the release claims the pilot will change the national share on its own.

A programme with a history

She Rallies is not new. The LTA published its She Rallies Ambition in June 2022, setting a long-term aim of making tennis and padel in Great Britain gender equal across all areas, built on three themes: visibility, participation and workforce (LTA). The release describes the Empower Padel partnership as one of a number of targeted programmes to increase female representation on court and in the workforce (LTA Padel). What September adds is a set of published numbers attached to one pilot.

Who delivers it

Activators are an LTA role. The LTA's Activator page invites people to become volunteers, says no coaching qualification is needed, and requires LTA membership, training and a safeguarding course (LTA). The pilot release does not say whether anyone in this pilot is paid.

The supply side is early. Empower Padel was founded in September 2024 and reports 3,500 women in its community, more than 1,250 women and girls introduced to padel and more than 45 local activators. On 1 September, fifteen girls aged 16 to 24 completed their LTA Activator training at a festival that drew 80 registrations (LTA Padel).

What operators measure instead

Operators count something different from participants. PadelStars, an operator with 11 venues and six more in the pipeline, reports that 28% of its players are female and has set a target of 50% by 2027. Its head of female participation lists the barriers it is working on: confidence around ability and body image, reluctance to join a male-dominated environment, safety concerns at night, and facility standards (The Padel Paper).

One pilot venue reports a measurable shift. Padel4All Bracknell, which opened on 15 December 2025, says women's and girls' share of court usage rose from 22% to 34.8% within its first few months, after it offered women-only introductory sessions, weekly women's coaching and a ladies' morning (The Padel Paper). Bracknell is among the venues the release lists as already running a weekly initiative. The figure is operator-reported, and it counts court usage, a different measure from the pilot's participant targets.

Strategic read: a target a reader can check

This section is Neon Lace's interpretation. For a woman considering a first session, a named venue, a named role and a stated aim reduce the work of finding out whether the environment will suit her before she arrives. Preparation before entry is built into the programme's structure, because activators exist to help a first experience become regular play.

The published targets let others judge the pilot. Four months from 8 September runs to around early January 2027, by arithmetic, as the release gives no end date. Whether the numbers are met will only be known if the results are published. The release says Empower Padel will track participation and retention, and it does not say that results will be shared.

Closing

Three numbers, 1,000, 500 and 200, sit against a player base of one million. The pilot's value is in what it measures at each step from first session to regular play. If the figures are published in the new year, they will show where women who tried padel stayed and where they stopped.