Changes for PoleCon 2019

Hi PoleCon Community!

I’ve always said PoleCon is community and it’s a community I want to see continue into the future. To do that requires some changes to make PoleCon sustainable. Here’s how things will be changing so we can all continue to gather and share ideas while growing together.

As I said, my goal is to make this event sustainable. What does that mean? It means that PoleCon needs to pay for itself AND be able to pay back business loans taken in previous years to cover losses. I’ve heard a funny rumor that I’m a rich heiress—I’m not. I’ve had some business success in prior industries through a combination of hard work and luck/being in the right place at the right time and I’ve invested a lot of blood, sweat, tears, money and glitter into PoleCon. These changes will help PoleCon be viable for the long term.

Below are all the big changes coming for PoleCon 2019 in Denver.

Price Changes, Tickets on Sale August 1:

• Raise Weekend Pass $20/ticket = $195 (11.4% increase from last year)
• Raise Day Pass $5/ticket = $105 Fri or Sat; $55 Sunday
• Raise Junior Weekend Pass $10/ticket = $95
• Decrease early bird to 10% discount = $175.50
• Decrease performer discount to 10% — can be combined with early bird to make 20% discount = $156
• Decrease free workshop leader discount to 10% — can be combined with early bird to make 20% discount = $156
• Create a payment plan for tickets: under the “Contracts” option on MindBody (Website not App) choose the Payment Plan option and this will break the ticket into 3 payments paid each month consecutively for 3 months (so if you bought now would be an August payment, September payment and October payment). This works with the early bird price but does NOT work also with the performer discount or the group discount so if you want to do that – we’ll do it manually. Email me directly to do that.
• All payments for passes to PoleCon will now be completed under Contracts and unfortunately you’ll have to buy your own ticket or purchase a gift card for a friend rather than buying multiple tickets under one account. You will still be able to purchase workshops for each other. This change will eliminate the need for in person, hard copy liability forms and make check-in faster at PoleCon for everyone who buys a ticket in advance. It will still be possible to buy at the door and people will then do a hardcopy liability form. Exhibitors and paid workshop leaders will also do an inperson hardcopy liability form.
  

No change to the group discount, it remains 5% off 5-9 people; 10% off 10+ people – can be combined with early bird to make 15% or 20% off.

Early Bird remains active from August 1 – December 31.

Expect a moderate price increase per year (or every other year) to keep up with increasing costs (mostly the hotel, the stage is our second highest cost).

Why raise prices? Hotel food is expensive. It costs ~$55-60/meal (for lunch, closer to $40 for breakfast – yes continental!) including tax (6-12%) and service (20-25%). Also, we haven’t raised prices since I purchased the event in 2014 (2015 NOLA was first event under my leadership). (For everyone doing the quick math in their head, previously an early bird performer ticket did not pay for all meals.)

What this change will do: provide guaranteed food for everyone – including box lunches for people in workshops + pay back loans that have paid for previous PoleCons.

Why food? Food brings people together. Also, hotels typically either charge you room rental or food and then room rental is free. I prefer to pay for delicious food to fuel pole dancers.

Aren’t there cheaper hotels? It depends. There are cheaper hotels, but they often don’t have the space we require. We can’t work with every hotel; some don’t like what we do, some don’t like our number of hotel rooms rented to hotel space needed ratio (we typically need more space and rent less rooms than similar sized events), some don’t have our preferred dates. PoleCon 2016 was in a convention center and I personally did not like that experience as much as PoleCons in hotels.  I always look for hotels in popular areas walking distance to a downtown area with restaurants and shops, so people can make PoleCon part of their vacation.

Additional Changes:

Free workshop/seminar/panel discussion leaders: preference given to paid workshop leaders/performers/bloggers + people who otherwise are at PoleCon.

Why? While I want everyone to have their chance to share their info with the PoleCon community, the people who have randomly not shown up are people that we don’t know/aren’t involved in our community DESPITE responding to all emails and giving every indication they will show up. This is not always the case and is not a “hard and fast” rule but a preference.

Volunteers: moving towards a “full time” volunteer concept.

Why? For most of the year, PoleCon is just me. When we get to the event, I need a herd of people to help with pole cleaning, managing the free workshop room, checking people into paid workshops, and set up/break down of all the stage poles in workshop rooms. Every year I sign up between 50-70 people to volunteer and every year at least half (if not more than half) of those people do not show up to shifts or don’t even make it to signing up for shifts. I’m still working on the details for this concept and will be reaching out individually to local studios and to folks who have volunteered for previous PoleCons in the next few months.

Exhibitors: no change this year, expect a ~10% increase next year.

Sponsors/Advertisers: no change this year, expect a ~10% increase next year.

Performers: there will be some changes to the showcases. Everyone will apply at the same time rather than rolling admissions using a Google Form available September 1. Everyone will know if they will be performing at PoleCon before early bird expires so you can get the best deal possible. I’m also looking at having some guest curators for some shows that PoleCon typically organizes. Everyone loved the BGP showcase and that was highly curated.

Got questions about any of this? Let me know! I’m happy to answer any questions you have – my goal is to be as transparent as possible.

<3

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Colleen

Colleen Jolly is an entrepreneur and a pole dance enthusiast. She has been poling for 12 years, is the CEO of PoleCon and the Executive Director of the IPIA. She teaches pole, lyra, floorwork, and mobility online and in-person in the DC metro area. She has been active in leadership roles in several international businesses over the past two decades and is also an award-winning pole dancer, artist, writer, and speaker. She is certified in several movement modalities and wrote the book "Mobility for Pole" to help pole dancers move better.

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