Launnie Long-standers: F45

Brother and sister, Field and Danica’s story began in Hobart, inside a building that used to be their dad’s old office. They went in to see the new F45 that had opened there, tried a session and walked out with a clear direction. “I tried it and said I was going to open one,” Danica recalls. Field laughs, “Once she decides, that’s it.”

Hobart had no territories left, so they turned back to home. “Because we’re from Launnie originally, we went back to our roots,” she says. Returning wasn't just practical. It felt right. Their childhood, their community and their story were here.

From the start, their roles meshed naturally. “Field’s the operations, he’s the face of the business,” Danica says. Their accountant once told them it was the best business pairing he’d ever seen because, as Danica recounts with a laugh, “You’re brother and sister, so you can’t break up.”

When they first opened ten years ago, F45 was not widely known in Tasmania. “It was hard, because it was so new. Just setting up something of this scale was a new thing,” Field says. Functional group training wasn’t part of the local fitness culture yet. But they believed in it. “F45 put group fitness and functional HIIT [high-intensity interval training] on the map, not just in Tassie but worldwide.”

Launceston looked different in those early days. “George Street was empty,” Danica says of their original location. “Now it’s full. It’s a big difference in ten years.” Since the beginning, they did everything themselves. “It was just us. Field worked every single class, and I’d come in on weekends to give him a break.” Now located at 43-45 Brisbane Street, their studio is filled with natural light, and large enough to accommodate their sister business FS8 Launceston Pilates studio on the upper level.

Support from the Launceston community was palpable from the start. Their first landlord saw something special in them. “He loved seeing young people wanting to have a go.” That kind of encouragement mattered in a city that was still finding its next phase of growth.

The real heartbeat of F45 Launceston isn’t the room or the equipment. It is the people.

“We are community focused. We’re family focused. We call our team our family,” Danica says. And it shows. Members don’t just train beside each other. They build real networks. “Someone needs a renovation, they can find the plumber from our group,” Field says. “They show up in each other’s lives well beyond the studio”. School plays. Weekend sport. Coffee catch-ups. Supermarket run-ins that turn into twenty-minute conversations. “They weren’t friends when they started. Now they’re part of something,” Field says.

That sense of belonging is what many rely on. “It’s their safe place for forty or forty-five minutes,” Danica explains. “If they’re having a really bad day or a bad time in life, they know they can rely on us and our team.”

Inside the business, the same community energy shaped their team. They now have twenty-two staff, some of whom started at sixteen or seventeen and grew into instructors. “A couple of them are staying on full time,” Danica notes. “It’s pretty cool when you say it out loud.”

Global brand growth has added momentum. “Head office moved from Sydney to Texas. We’ve got head offices in Australia, the UK and Asia,” Field says. Their Launceston studio equipment mirrors the newest international standard. “These rigs are the most current fit out you can get. Our brand stripes are inside. It feels really cool when you come in.”

Looking ahead, their goal is steady and simple. “Continued growth.” Field says. “The product is always evolving, so members can always keep growing.”

After a decade, being named a Launnie Long-stander carries weight. “Looking back, it feels like it’s gone in a flash,” Danica says. When ‘two staff to twenty-two staff’ was mentioned, she immediately smiled. Field laughed. “Yeah. That’s amazing.”

Field and Danica have built something that lasts. Something grounded in community, shaped by consistency, and held together by connection. And as they say, they’re nowhere near done.