Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Ashkahn and Graham have developed a bit of a reputation over the years within the industry as party animals. Anyone who has met them can confirm this to be true. But how often to the throw parties at Float On? What are good occasions for float center parties and how do you throw one?
The guys share their party philosophy and offer some nice tips and tricks for throwing a sensory deprivation shindig.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Ashkahn: Okay. Welcome everybody.
Graham: I am Graham.
Ashkahn: Throw your arms up. The crowd goes wild. I’m pretty sure that’s going on in everybody’s house right now.
Graham: And that’s Ashkahn.
Ashkahn: Oh yeah, this is Ashkahn.
Graham: And, today’s question is, it’s a pretty good question, “How often do you guys throw parties?” Every chance we get.
Ashkahn: Yeah. Some of you’ve been to the Float Conference. You know that we have a love of parties.
Graham: Even this podcast is just like half party right now. Yeah, we have little hats on, there was cake earlier.
Ashkahn: Children’s birthday party I guess is the main style of party we go for.
Graham: Yeah, I mean what else would someone need?
Ashkahn: So I guess I’m gonna go ahead and assume that they’re talking about at our shop.
Graham: Sure.
Ashkahn: Not just in general.
Graham: That’s at least for the beginning of the questions, fair assumption. We’ll see how long it takes to answer that one.
Ashkahn: We throw parties at our shop and-
Graham: It’s great.
Ashkahn: Yeah. It’s really fun and we try to throw them for most things that seem justifiable to throw a party for. We definitely every year do one for our anniversary.
Graham: Yeah, absolutely. It just feels like the right thing to do and also very cathartic.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Okay so, before we get into when we do them, the cool thing about throwing parties is not that you get to show off your tanks finally to everyone or that you get to kind of celebrate in your space and have this mingling of people in your community who fundamentally just come in to be by themselves and the nice dichotomy there. It’s that you get to make a bunch of noise, in a place that you normally have to use indoor voices and it’s awesome.
Ashkahn: That’s true, there is something great about that.
Graham: Nothing like a live, amplified band to play inside your sensory deprivation tank center is just such a rewarding feeling so, I highly recommend it. Yeah, parties are very worthwhile, for that reason, if nothing else.
Ashkahn: Yeah, it is pretty fun. So, you’re gonna have to cancel some floats probably or something of the sort. You usually just have a full amount of free party time in your schedule every week that you can fill in to the party.
Graham: But the good news is, you’re probably also not open 24 hours like we are. So finding a good time to have a party might not be as difficult and easier for you.
Ashkahn: And they’re super fun. Your regular members and stuff like that get to come and enjoy free wine or drinks or whatever and they get to have a good time feeling like they’re getting to know, on a more personal level, the business that they frequent. We often get new people. It’s very rare for us to throw a party without some group of new people that come in and like to spend that time learning about the float tanks. We also throw pretty fun parties. I think people bring their friends too. They’re like, “Oh we should, there’s a party at this float shop,” and they bring people with them to go party because it sounds like a fun party and those are the people are the new people that’ve never experienced floating before. That’s how we get them to come in.
Graham: Yeah and at this point it doesn’t us too much organization or too much money to throw a good event. I think, other than the cost of actually shutting down and canceling floats for the period we throw a party, it’s pretty simple and painless.
Ashkahn: Yeah. We basically move our couches outside, so all of a sudden we have outdoor seating and more space indoors. We have some fold up tables. We bring out some snacks and we have alcohol and some of our staff members become the people kind of serving the alcohol. And you know you’re rules will vary state by state and stuff like that for the legality around all that stuff.
Graham: Yeah and we bring in live music, usually a couple to three different bands. Often we’re paying them a very minimum amount, we’re just trading floats. And it’s great. It works out really well. You can get some really nice organic food of all different kinds for not that much money when it comes down to it. We have leftovers every single time too and it costs maybe a couple hundred dollars in food and snacks. We’re not talking about a huge amount of money here. So other than paying your staff, paying for some snacks, maybe paying for a custom cake. We’ve even bartered for custom cakes. The cost is incredibly low.
Ashkahn: And it’s super fun. You get to have a good time. Your staff gets to have a good time. Your customers get to have a good time. I guess back to when we party, so we definitely do one every year for our anniversary. That’s just super fun and a very easy excuse for throwing a party. And people come and they’re really happy that you’re another year older as a business. It’s great. It’s basically like a birthday party. We’ve done one for John Lilly’s birthday before, which was fun. That was a fun party. We’ve often done one if we go through a huge renovation and we do a lot of upgrades to our business. We’ll often throw a party afterwards a kinda like “Hey, new remodeling party,” or something, as a great chance for both to celebrate and to let our customers know. It’s a really easy way to spread the news that you’ve done cool upgrades to your business. You’re like, “Hey, we’re throwing a party because we’ve done this awesome remodeling.” So it’s a nice way to showcase that and spread the word on upgrades to your business.
Graham: Yeah and just let people know you’re done upgrading now. “Okay, it’s time to get back in the tanks.” We do one just for fun projects that we put out. If you’re doing anything outside the float world, but related to floating. When we, for instance, publish books or have musicians do a bunch of music based on their floats, we kind of do a book launch party of a CD release party. Kinda like, “we did this exciting thing, come celebrate with us and explore with us” kind of celebration. And we do one every year for the Conference. So, if they float conference is in your town, maybe consider having a party for that.
Ashkahn: Which is very fun.
Graham: We do one for my birthday.
Ashkahn: That’s not true.
Graham: I’m sorry, that’s just me. I do one for my birthday. That’s right. That’s right.
Ashkahn: I think that’s pretty much the scope of why we’ve thrown parties in the past.
Graham: Yep. No reason at all. Also a great time to party.
Ashkahn: A good time to party. Yeah, I mean have fun out there.
Graham: Yeah. This isn’t all hauling salt and customer complaints and stuff like that.
Ashkahn: Yeah. For no other reason even if it’s really not necessarily making you a ton of money, it’s just fun. It’s fun to party in your space. It’s fun for all the staff to get together and have a chance to party.
Graham: Really fun to make a lot noise.
Ashkahn: It’s fun to make a lot of noise, yeah. One time we actually got a noise violation.
Graham: Oh my God. I was hoping that we’d tell that story.
Ashkahn: It’s gotta be one of the most hilarious letters you can get in the mail as a float center. They send it to you in the mail a couple days later and we literally got a letter saying, it was from obviously a day we had a party with an amplified band playing deep into the night. Not deep, like 11. Deep for the neighborhood that we’re in. And, we got a thing saying your neighbors had a noise violation and they threatened to spontaneously come by and check on our business to check the noise levels.
Graham: Yeah, sometime in the next couple weeks or month or something like that and we just framed the letter and we’re just like, “Oh my God, I hope they come by.”
Ashkahn: Please, someone come by from the city to check on the noise levels in here.
Graham: Walk in, they’re just like, “Excuse me, what are you?” “Shh, shh, be quiet please.” “Why are you here?”
Ashkahn: So we did get a noise variance permit now, so we’re a little bit more on top of it.
Graham: Which in itself is kind of hilarious to me. So, have fun out there, but not too much fun.
Ashkahn: Party on.
Graham: Or what the heck, have too much fun. And, when you have your own questions that you want to submit, go to floattanksolutions.com
Ashkahn: /party /podcast
Graham: Podcast. Party podcast. Alright. Bye everyone.
Ashkahn: Bye.
Recent Podcast Episodes
pH testing devices for float tank solution – DSP 89
There are lots of things you can measure when testing the quality of your water, for sanitation and comfort. Many of which aren’t specifically designed for float tanks. This is kind of an open secret in the industry, but most things simply aren’t accurate because of the incredibly high salinity of float tank solution. And pH seems to be one of them. This can cause float center owners major headaches as it’s often one of the first things that health departments/regulators will want to measure when they come and inspect your place (if they do at all).
Graham and Ashkahn try to break down this mystery of float water and try to break down some theories as to why it might be that float tank water might not have accurate pH readings, regardless of how you measure it.
Handling humidity to reduce water drops on tank ceilings – DSP 88
One of the biggest Float Mysteries in the industry is how to properly deal with condensation in a float tank. Your float tank is basically a giant humidity generating machine so clearly there’s going to be some condensation, but how much and why it forms can vary for seemingly no reason, making managing it difficult. The last thing any float center owner wants is for it to affect the floats they’re running (little water droplets falling on floaters is no fun).
Graham and Ashkahn commiserate with the industry about the difficulties in dealing with this particular hot topic, while also delving into the science of it and common solutions that should help any float center owner that’s facing this problem.
The purpose of a flow meters and the flow rate for a float tank – DSP 87
When navigating demands from health departments, it can be an absolute minefield of regulation, oftentimes with holdovers from the pool and spa industries. Many of these can be superfluous to float centers, but if you’re just starting a center, it’s difficult to know which ones to ignore, and which ones to incorporate.
Flow meters fall into this weird gray area where they’re not as important for float centers as for pools (and in some cases aren’t really needed at all), but can still be required by health departments or regulators. And to not throw the baby out with the salty bathwater, there are definitely some very practical uses for flow meters on float tanks.
Graham and Ashkahn tackle all these confusing elements and even provide specific product recommendations for flow meters for float tanks. Give it a listen!
When to contact health department – DSP 86
Contacting your health department/inspector/regulator/enforcer/supreme overlord can be stressful, to say the least. And given their general lack of understanding of floating as an industry, it makes sense why float centers may put this off. However, they have the authority to shut down your business if they feel that it’s a public safety issue, and that’s a situation no one should put themselves in.
Talking to your health department early and often can save yourself some headaches, but you don’t want to go to them unprepared. There’s a lot of nuance to regulation and existing codes that you should probably be familiar with beforehand. Fortunately, it may be something other float centers in your area have had to deal with, if there are any.
Ashkahn and Graham have a few tips for what to do to prepare and how to address common concerns they may have in this episode.
Thoughts on facilitating couples floats – DSP 85
First off, we’ll just say that Float On does not offer couples floats and never has. Graham and Ashkahn dive into their reasoning for that decision while simultaneously addressing some of the common concerns and benefits that go along with the practice. Some people say it helps get people into the tanks that wouldn’t try it otherwise. Some smaller centers rely on the added revenue per tank and increased exposure to the practice. It’s a complicated question and one that each center will likely have to consider on their own.
Latest Blog Posts
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
