For the past 6 years, Float Tank Solutions has released the State of the Industry Report for the float industry based on a survey we release each year at the beginning of summer. Over the years, we’ve refined the process and adjusted the report, making it more robust, thorough, and accurate. It has expanded every single year, sometimes adding entire sections to the report.
This year has been the largest expansion since the report’s inception and putting it together was no small task.
You may have heard about the online discussion we hosted about the report this year. The full video is linked below, but first, I’d like to go over some of these changes.
Cross-Year Analysis from 2014-2019
Since we now have industry data for every year going back to 2014, we decided to try out a cross-year analysis for some of the most 
common questions we’ve asked over the years. While we didn’t get to dive too deeply into this data, we did get to look at several questions and it has shown some really interesting trends across the years.
This data is useful for a few reasons. Most significantly, the responses that remain consistent year over year provide us with much better confidence in those results. This is particularly exciting because our survey has a relatively small sample size to begin with, so there’s already uncertainty baked into our responses. Inversely, when the data makes a huge shift, we can recognize that because the rest of the data remains pretty normal. We may not know why exactly infrared saunas have gained so much popularity in conjunction with floating, but we can see that it’s not just a one-off trend year over year.
Real World Data Pulled Directly from HelmBot
Undoubtedly the most exciting addition to the report this year is the inclusion of data from HelmBot customers. Since this information is pulled directly from their operating software, it removes a lot of the issues of personal bias or confusion from the regular survey.
It was important to us that we respect Helm users’ identities throughout this process. When requesting the data we used a double opt-in method so we couldn’t get any false positives. Through our collection process, each center’s data was randomized and assigned a number code, making the information useful, without being recognizable. From here we could safely aggregate the data like normal and turned it into the colorful, pleasing graphs that you’ve come to love (let Graham know what you think of them, he worked hard to make them look good while keeping them informative).
Finally, we wanted to include the video from our chat with the industry. It’s a lengthy discussion for sure, but definitely worth the review. Graham and I could easily talk for hours on this report and it was exciting getting to see where people’s focus landed with the information we presented.
If there’s something not covered here, please reach out to us, we love talking about this information and we want to make sure that it’s as useful as possible.
Employee Handbook Template
Whether you are a small or large float center, you most likely have other employees working for you. Regardless of the size of your staff, for reasons of efficiency and legality, it’s essential that your organization has clear and straightforward policies and guidelines. No matter how good employee communication is, it’s always safest and cleanest to have clear parameters and expectations written down.
This is why Float Tank Solutions has created a customizable Employee Handbook Template. Free for anyone to download, it contains federally compliant language (current as of October 2016) and contains a multitude of sections, from employee benefits and compensation descriptions to job guidelines and discrimination policies.
Sleeping Bag Drive: Filling Float Tanks While Helping the Homeless
Sitting in our regular Float On marketing meeting, we were strategizing about our next free float giveaway, and we quickly switched the conversation to focus less on our own minor woes (ahem, first world problems) and more on how we can help those in need. Despite the fact that Portland had its warmest November of all time, temperatures plunged to all-time lows in December and January. The team came together and voted on the idea of holding a sleeping bag drive.
How Floating Helped Me Accept I Was Trans
“I’ve often heard strong advocates of floating question why people might have difficult floats, “what’s wrong with spending time alone with yourself?” When you love yourself, it’s easy to be alone with your thoughts – when you hate who you are and can’t understand why, it can be a nightmare.” – Juliet Tango Mylan
Accurate H2O2 Readings in Float Tanks – an Approved Test Kit
There’s some exciting news out there for anyone who is using hydrogen peroxide in their float tanks. Taylor Technologies, launching into a brilliant meta-testing endeavor, has tested their own H2O2 testing kits…in saturated epsom salt water! After only a year of them...
Center of the Cyclone Book Launch
Coincidence Control Publishing is pleased to announce the updated publishing of John C. Lilly’s Center of the Cyclone. Written by a researcher whose methods of self inquiry and exploration were before his time, this 45th anniversary edition, released on Lilly’s birthday, is due to see the light of day once more.
You can buy the book now on Amazon!
Oh, the Questions You’ll Hear!
When you run a float tank center, you’re going to get asked a lot of questions. Do I float naked? Can I drown? Is this sanitary? Many of these are easy to answer: It’s recommended. Not without a conscious, and determined effort. Yes! There are some questions, however,...
Happy TANKSgiving (Giving Gifts to Monthly Members)
Monthly memberships are an important way to ensure that your float tank center has a consistent, if not dependable, amount of business.
While pricing structures for memberships vary widely across the industry, we’re focusing less on the strategy of what to charge and looking more at the benefits we’re actually offering. Once we’ve established a solid offering, then we can revisit pricing.
Running a successful monthly membership program takes more than just charging customers and making sure they use their credits. With a little creativity, we can find ways to increase engagement.
Your Flow Meter May Be Inaccurate (and what to do about it)
Float tanks tend to use a lot of parts borrowed from the pool and spa industry and, whenever that happens, it’s always important to question whether that pool part works accurately with our salt water solution. We’ve recently gained some insight into that question on...
The Float Tour Blog Roundup!
The following is our collection of links to the all of the Float Tour blogs. My chronicling of our adventure, highlighting all of you out there.
Thank you for the memories.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #28
Home sweet home! After so many months on the road, it was strange being back here in Portland. We were exhausted, excited, and a little travel weary. The first night back, I slept in my own bed for the first time in three months and the world just melted away.
Having travelled across the United States, I’m reminded of how insular Portland is. We are aggressively fixated on keeping things local. Local beer, ketchup, bikes, pet food, pillows, phone cases… it’s part of our charm. We want to reward people for living here and being a part of the community. It’s so pervasive that, after living here for so long, I kind of forgot that Secret Aardvark hot-sauce isn’t available everywhere, and that most cities don’t even recycle, let alone compost.
