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People checking-in at the registration booth at PoleCon.

PoleCon 2023 Updates from the Survey

Thank you to everyone who took our survey! We read every response. <3

This year (same as last year), ~10% of attendees took the survey.

There were TONS of new people this year! Thank you for coming and for sharing your perspective on your first PoleCon.

“My experience at PoleCon 2023 was an AMAZING one! It was my first time attending and it was everything I could ask for and more. There was so much to do and I wanted to do it all. Everything from the showcases to the workshops and vendors was Awesome. I spent so much money but had so much fun doing it. It felt great to be in an atmosphere with people that share the same love for pole that you do. Can’t wait for next year!!”

MOST of you liked the venue!

“I appreciated the location. It was perfect. Close to the airport, the event center was amazing. The stage was one of the best I have performed on and the host hotel was beautiful and very clean.”

There were also SEVERAL repeat PoleCon attendees who saw the improvements we try to make year-over-year. We appreciate you! <3

“I have attended 7 Pole Cons, and this year’s venue was the best one. (1) I loved the stadium seating and being inside a true theater to watch the showcases. (2) The hotel rooms were massive and super nice. (3) Because it was a casino, there were no complaints when pole dancers went to the bathroom in Pole shorts (and no pants). (4) Venue was conveniently located to the airport and train station. (5) Multiple restaurants on-site + so much within walking distance meant there were ample food options. “

For those of you that this was your first time attending, we know some things are amazing, and some things are annoying as you navigate PoleCon for the first time.

With holding one event every year, we only get ONE CHANCE to improve things and that chance is always challenged by being in a different hotel and just in general different set ups ever year including different workshop leaders, vendors, general world situations, AND different attendees with different expectations.

There are a few common themes found in the survey that we will address:

1. Expensive – Yes, the event is expensive. We’ve written about it before so that you can be prepared (please note, some costs have gone up since this blog was published).

We talked about this last year and we kept prices consistent from 2022 to the 2023. For us though, EVERYTHING HAS INCREASED IN PRICE. Watch for price increases for the 2024 event, likely across the board including workshop prices (which haven’t been raised since 2015 — yes, workshop leaders will also make more money from this increase not just PoleCon). We understand if this means some of you cannot attend, or that you can do less things.

2. Workshop leaders and workshops.

Unfortunately, some workshop leaders (paid and free) canceled last minute, and we had other people teach instead. If you have specific instructors you’d like to see teach, please HAVE THEM APPLY. Applications will go out in the fall. We ENCOURAGE all workshop leaders to be VERY VERY CLEAR what their workshops entail so that you know what to expect.

There is unfortunately NO clear delineation in the pole world what is intermediate vs. what is advanced. We do our best to read workshop leader descriptions and apply a basic color-coding system on the workshops in the Cheat Sheet.

>> we get that comment ^ every year. Some folks over estimate their abilities, some under estimate. Some workshop leaders are very good about putting what moves are required to be successful in their classes, some don’t. We will continue to encourage people to put specific moves in their descriptions. We do know that while some of you can invert, you might not be doing it “cleanly” or in a way that promotes doing it multiple times in a row for 90 minutes.

New comment, someone asked about having cheaper workshops from someone who has “less influence.” This, I find, is not inclusive. If you are teaching a workshop, you are teaching a workshop. You are treated the same way and are paid the same way. I appreciate the goal is to get more “bang from your buck,” but we will not be doing a sliding scale.

Free workshop room >> For those of you that have been coming to PoleCon for a while know that from 2015-2019, the free workshop “room” was really a section of the ballroom that was roped off with some curtains and then a “hard wall” (which was not hard but that’s what they call it). Every year, we had complaints about noise bleed from the stage. So in 2021 and in 2022 we had an actual separate room. In 2023, this was our BIGGEST ROOM YET!! And still it was overcrowded. Why? Growing pains. PoleCon experienced a total increase of human beings around 32% Which is great! And super unexpected. Since everyone buys tickets late (LATER EVERY YEAR) and PoleCon books about a year in advance, we have to guess how many people will attend based on metrics from previous years and potentially some increased growth (BUT it could also be decreased growth or stagnate growth depending on general economic conditions, growth or stagnation in the pole industry, world events, etc.). Anyone who runs a small business knows the projections are some science and an uncomfortable amount of prayer. If we book a space that is too big, than the cost could exceed the ticket revenue. If we book a space that is too small, people will be pissed off and maybe not come back next year.

We will not be adding a way to sign up for the free workshops (this was another suggestion). Unfortunately, what we’ve seen from other free events is that folks sign up online months in advance, forget that they signed up and then don’t show up (or don’t care to sign up day of because it was “free”) so then other people don’t show up. We will make the room bigger.

“Free workshops are always engaging and fun. The room space this year was way bigger and better that 2022. Thank you so much!”

3. The Food.

see #1, cost. Expect some form of grab and go lunch and breakfast option to continue that is similar to the 2023 food options. Why? Several reasons:

• People in a workshop, can easily grab and go.
• People not comfortable taking their mask off around others, can easily grab and go.
• Because see #1 – costs have gone up and the only way to keep this event running is to manage the hotel costs which include food costs.

Vegans – EVERY YEAR we work to make this better.

We like to provide lunch because it helps promote a sense of community. You can hang out and meet new people and don’t have to spend time trying to find food in a location you’re not familiar with. It will be IMPOSSIBLE to cater to everyone’s preferences. If we did away with lunch unfortunately due to the cost of hotels, we would not be able to decrease the cost of the PoleCon pass. Soooo, we’d rather provide something to eat than nothing.

>> The above text ^ is from last year, it’s still true and this year we did a better job of understanding how many vegans attend (A LOT). What wasn’t good, was poor packaging from the hotel and inclusion of a cookie that had dairy in the vegan box <insert face palm emoji>. A few of you came to us during lunch and allowed us to have a conversation with the hotel real time about improving packaging and understanding what was appropriate for you to eat. We will continue working with the hotel to make this better for everyone.

Additionally, the way contracts work with large hotels (to explain #3 in more detail) is that you either pay for the rental of the space or you pay for food and get the space “for free.” Personally, I would prefer to have food (even if you didn’t like all of it) then pay the same price and not have any food. I know this sounds weird but it’s how hotels work. We’ve tried to negotiate and see if just rental would be cheaper, or not include the service charge (ranges from 20-28% ON TOP of the rental or food cost and not including tax) but it does not. We also can’t have other food vendors come in like a food truck which someone suggested.

Too much information

In general, every year, we publish a lot of information about the event, in email, in newsletter, on our website, on our social media, etc. And every year we get comments and see comments that “we didn’t know” about something and so expectations did not align with what happened at the event and that made you frustrated.

To help this, we are going to publish EVEN MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EVENT MUHAHAHAHA. So for those of you who are tired of getting my emails, tough =) It’ll be too much information in email, on this website (especially for people who don’t get our emails, see here on how to white list an email in your gmail so our emails don’t go to your spam folder), and in social media. Hopefully, though, this will help people prepare and have a better experience at PoleCon in the future.

Based on the feedback from this year’s event, we are making the following updates:

  1. Working with hotel on more clearly labeled box lunches or separating the box lunches so that you can make better informed food choices.
  2. Increasing the size of the free workshop room and the non-pole rooms (which will likely mean slightly decreasing the size of the pole rooms).
  3. Eliminating the waitlist function for paid workshops. It was confusing to everyone.
  4. Improving sound quality on and around the stage for performers and viewers.
  5. Encouraging teachers to use gender neutral terms (such as “folks” or “friends” instead of “ladies”) to more accurate represent attendees.
  6. Encouraging teachers to put pre-requisite moves in their workshop descriptions.
  7. Mandating that all movement teachers are CPR/AED certified.
  8. Presuming a same or slight (10-15%) increase over last year’s attendance.

We are not changing:

  1. The entire event to cost more than you want it to including (but not limited to) the hotel, the flight, the food, the ticket, etc. Prices will increase slightly across the board.
  2. Dress in layers for the challenges of hotel temperature control. (*this was better than in previous years!*)
  3. Plastic wrist bands are here to stay. Please don’t take them off while you are at PoleCon and yes, you can perform with them on.
  4. Grab and Go lunch.
  5. Gender neutral bathrooms in the PoleCon area (we’ve been doing this since 2019)
  6. Physical safety precautions (we’ve published this information — home page under faqs — and will continue reviewing and upgrading as needed)
  7. We will continue to have a livestream for those that can’t attend in person. (This year our AV crew did some new stuff that honestly we didn’t know about until they did it! So hurray for new things and we’ll work to keep those awesome camera angles going for 2024! We did learn that you can’t livestream for more than 12 hours, that’s why BGP didn’t save on YouTube, we are working to get the entire show up but that is not done yet.)

If you have other things that you’d like see or do at PoleCon (someone verbally mentioned hosting a Sober Meet Up at PoleCon, great idea! Please contact me to talk more about it), NOW is the time to talk to me about it. July through December is when the big scheduling decisions get made. January and after, it is hard to fit new things in.

Generally, if you want to see more of your community represented in performers, vendors, workshop leaders, etc. PLEASE APPLY!

Tips from a repeat PoleCon attendee:

“PoleCon always tries it’s best to accommodate and include everyone that wants to be a part of this community and artform. I love what the PoleCon team is doing!
It was a great time. I think for any first timer it’s a little “go and find out,” you need to find out what works and doesn’t work, then start planning year 2 and beyond accordingly. 🙂

Colleen
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