From the Vendor Village to the Main Stage: Battle Cancer and Wodapalooza

Some partnerships are signed in a boardroom. Ours with Wodapalooza started with a pop-up tent, a rig, and a lot of people asking the same question: "So what actually is Battle Cancer?"

Wodapalooza is the largest functional fitness festival in the world. What began in 2012 as a local Miami competition with 145 athletes now brings more than 40,000 people to Miami Beach every March, with over 2,000 athletes competing across dozens of divisions, a $500,000+ prize purse and a vendor village of 100+ brands. It's where the sport goes to celebrate itself. Its tagline says it plainly: Celebrate Fitness. Community. Life.

That third word is where we found each other.

Where it started: a stand in the village

Battle Cancer first showed up at Wodapalooza the way hundreds of brands do — as a vendor. We had a space in the festival village, and we used it the only way we know how: we put people to work. Athletes, spectators and gym owners came by, picked up a bar or a rower, heard the story of a team-of-four format built to raise money for people living with cancer, and left with a wristband and a reason.

What surprised us was the depth of the response. The Wodapalooza crowd is a competitive one, but it's also a community that already understands purpose-driven fitness. The conversations at that stand turned into gym partnerships across South Florida, athletes who flew to Battle Cancer events in Europe, and a standing invitation from the Wodapalooza team to do more.

Then: a full Battle Cancer event inside the festival

"More" turned out to mean hosting a full Battle Cancer event on the festival grounds. Teams of four took on the Battle Cancer Challenge in front of a Wodapalooza crowd, with our MC, our DJ, our floor crew and our fundraising model running alongside the elite competition. For a lot of festival-goers it was the first time they'd been on a competition floor themselves rather than watching from the stands — which is exactly the point of everything we do.

That event proved something to both teams: the Wodapalooza audience doesn't just want to watch fitness at the highest level. They want a way in.

Now: Wodapalooza is backing Battle Cancer Miami

This year, Wodapalooza is going a step further and putting its weight behind Battle Cancer Miami — Sunday 8 November 2026 at loanDepot Park, home of the Miami Marlins. They'll be sharing the event with their community, and we'll be welcoming Wodapalooza athletes, gyms and fans onto our floor.

Battle Cancer Miami runs our Hybrid 3|20 format: three zones, nine stations, then a 20-minute max-distance run to finish. You can enter as an individual or as a pair, in either the Challenge division (movements can be scaled, everyone welcome) or the Compete division (stricter standards, heavier loads). Every athlete gets the full Battle Cancer experience — the Battle Prep training plan, DJ and MC, warm-up zone, the Hyperice recovery area, shoe trials and gifts from our partners and vendors including Nike, Celsius and Concept2, free event photos, a finisher's patch and a finisher's medal for everyone who crosses the line. Fundraising is optional with a suggested $50 minimum. Our primary charities in Miami are Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami and Baptist Health, and athletes are free to fundraise for any cancer-related charity in South Florida or across the USA.

The Gauntlet: why this partnership makes sense

If you want to understand why Wodapalooza and Battle Cancer fit together, look at The Gauntlet.

The Gauntlet is Wodapalooza's answer to a question we ask ourselves constantly: how do you let everyone compete without dumbing the competition down? Their description is the best summary we've read of it — "built to be inclusive without being soft." It opens the festival floor to any athlete by lowering the technical barrier rather than the intensity.

The format is three legs in one hour. Leg one is The Engine: 15 minutes of max distance across the SkiErg, rower and bike. Leg two is Strength in the Spotlight: presses, cleans, lunges and sandbag work under the lights. Leg three is The Metcon Finale: wall balls, burpees, box jumps and dumbbells until the clock runs out. No muscle-ups, no handstand walks, no excuses. Top finishers go through to a final, and anyone who's put in a few months in a gym can sign up and stand on the same ground as the pros that weekend.

That philosophy — conditioning, strength, a metcon, and a floor that's open to everyone — is the same one behind the Battle Cancer Challenge's three zones of Endurance, Burn and Power, and behind the Hybrid 3|20 you'll see at loanDepot Park. Wodapalooza built The Gauntlet so that the festival is something you do, not just something you watch. We built Battle Cancer so that the doing raises money for people who need it. Put those two ideas together and you've got a partnership that was always going to happen.

What we bring to the table

Battle Cancer has grown into a global fitness fundraising platform. More than 37,000 athletes have taken on the Challenge across the UK, Ireland, Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and the US, and together they have raised over £15 million ($19M+) for cancer charities. Our partners include Nike, Hyperice, Celsius and Concept2, and the calendar now runs from Dublin and London to Paris, Berlin, Dubai and Singapore.

But the numbers have always been a by-product. The thing that matters is a team of four standing on a start line, knowing that the next 90 minutes are the hardest thing they'll do that month — and that someone else is going through something far harder. That's what we took to the Wodapalooza vendor village, and it's what we're bringing to Miami on 8 November.

Join us in Miami

Battle Cancer Miami — Hybrid 3|20

Sunday 8 November 2026 · 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM

loanDepot Park, West Plaza · 501 Marlins Way, Miami, FL 33125

Individual and pairs · Challenge and Compete divisions

Register before 7 October to guarantee your athlete tee.

Register for Battle Cancer Miami →

And if you've never done a fitness competition before, put The Gauntlet at Wodapalooza Miami Beach (11–15 March 2027) on your list too. Between the two, there's no longer a good reason to stay in the stands.

Battle Cancer is the official charity partner of Wodapalooza. Find out more at wodapalooza.com.