PoleCon: West 2026 Recap

Thank you so much for coming to PoleCon: West 2026 at the Sheraton Mesa Hotel at Wrigleyville West!

From one performer: “Thank you for organizing such an amazing, informative, and fun weekend! Looking forward to next year!”

PoleCon: West 2026 officially had ~450 people attend, including attendees, exhibitors, and workshop leaders over the course of the weekend; not everyone is at the convention all at one time and not all of us are in one place all the time. This is a 13% decrease from the previous year.

In addition to being an intentionally smaller event than “regular” PoleCon, PoleCon: West 2026 was also designed to be a slightly shorter event running from Friday-Sunday (instead of Thursday-Sunday) and with one fewer paid workshop rooms. This year it featured four paid workshop rooms (up from three!), free workshops and seminars, privates and photography rooms (newly available this year!), showcases (more on that below!), two panel discussions – the Pole Business and Pole Safety panels – and of course, food!

Showcases

We had 11 unique showcases highlighting the diversity of pole throughout the weekend, with more than 100 performers, including reprising the new (as of 2025) showcases: the OG showcase, AAPI Polers United, FlexyFlow, Moms Who Pole, and CosPole Fusion!

Both evening showcases, the Sexy Showcase, held on Saturday night, and the combined ticket of OG+BGP Showcases held on Friday night, were equally well attended!

We continued our multi-camera livestream, and this year due to continued censorship issues that happened during PoleCon 2026, we switched to Crowdcast, a pay-for platform. After an initial sound issue during the OG showcase, the stream ran well throughout the entire weekend. PoleCon MCs Crystal and Shay debuted a new “podcast” style of MC-ing, keeping the crowd entertained between acts.

We will be posting individual HD videos on our YouTube channel per usual once we receive them from our amazing videographer. Any video that does not appear is because of music copyright issues on that platform NOT because we censored it OR because a performer has requested their video not be posted.

People from all walks of life, all gender expressions, all colors, all shapes, and all sizes performed on our stage and had a great time!

Survey and Next Year

Per previous events year, after I review survey responses (going on now!) I may make some adjustments to aspects of the event moving forward.

I will write another blog to explain the changes so y’all are prepared.

Where are we going for 2027?

PoleCon 2027 has found a home at the Maryland Live! Hotel and Casino for the foreseeable future and will be returning there June 3-6, 2027! Information on how to be a part of that event including applications to perform, teach, and be an exhibitor will be available October 15 via the newsletter, website, and Instagram linktree.

Unfortunately, there will be no PoleCon: West for 2027 due to financial issues. We very much love and value our West-based pole friends and hope with enough time to plan and budget, they will be able to join us for PoleCon 2027 in the DMV. <3

Keep tagging #poleconwest2026 in your memories and we’ll keep sharing them!

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Colleen

Colleen Jolly is an entrepreneur and a pole dance enthusiast. She has been poling for 15 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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Latest posts by Colleen (see all)

• Updates to PoleCon 2027 - October 12, 2026
• PoleCon: West 2026 Updates from the Survey - October 9, 2026
• What responsibility does the audience have? - October 2, 2026