It’s been our pleasure to be actively involved in the float industry for over five years now. In 2016, we’re already on track to have more new centers opening, more press covering floating, and more resources for people just entering our salty world than ever before.
With so much action, we’ve decided to send out brief, quarterly updates on our industry to keep people posted on the all the latest happenings. Welcome to our first installment!
In the News…
Floating really surfaced up in the media quite a bit during 2015. There were more articles coming out in higher profile news outlets than any other year in decades. Here are just a few of the bigger news pieces that caught our eye:
There was one article that stood out to us because of everything that it got wrong. Most of you have read our strongly worded response to the NY Times article that was released in October, but in case you haven’t… buckle up, because here it is!
Thankfully, the New York Times took another crack at covering floating, and their second piece is much better.
All Together Now…
Moving away from the NY Times lowlight, the Float Conference was decidedly one of our highlights for 2015. We got to learn and celebrate with 470 attendees from 15 different countries, which was pretty darn cool.
There are a few ways you can catch up on the activities if you didn’t get a chance to be there in person:
Listen to free talks from this past August, which are being released over time. Subscribe to the conference YouTube channel to be notified when future talks are released.
The conference also has a Podcast featuring interviews with the speakers. You can start from the beginning, but if you wanted to skip ahead and focus on interviews relevant for 2015, jump to episodes 36-55.
If you’re one of those who like to plan ahead (and there’s nothing wrong with that) the dates & location have already been announced for 2016. Mark your calendars for August 20-21, 2016 with a special Float Center Workshop on August 18-19th. If you’re looking to become a certified pool operator, you’ll also want to book an extra day on August 22nd.
#WhyWeFloat
The industry came together over the past several months to tell the world why a community has formed around the idea of complete isolation.
The #WhyWeFloat social media contest produced thousands of pieces of social content and introduced a lot of people to floating. The winner, Christina Wiebe, was announced in November: check out her winning video, and wish her a buoyant trip to Hawaii while you’re at it!
How Exactly Have We Grown as an Industry?
For the second year running, Float Tank Solutions has produced an annual Float Industry Report.
The 2015 State of the Float Industry Report
is available for download!
If you’re new to the float game and missed out on the 2014 Industry Report, we’ve got you covered.
In these reports you’ll discover how long it took for float center to find funding and to go through their construction. Discover what non-floating services centers offer and how much the average float costs throughout the US and Canada!
HEY… Do you know Alex Ziegler?
Read this quarter’s Float Center Owner profile, and find out his best & worst parts of opening.
My partner, Kristophir Brooks, and I opened the doors to Northwest Float Center in October of 2013.
Kriss and I have been friends since middle school, and we both found floating in different ways. I had gone through a lot of western medication with childhood illnesses and was always finding alternative ways to combat side effects from harsh drugs. Floating also appealed to me interest in things like meditation and mindfulness. Kriss had sustained a back injury while working overseas, and it was recommended that he float to relieve the physical back pain. The next thing we knew we were at a float conference in Portland, buying a float tank on the way home to bring the practice to Tacoma.
As it turns out, introducing a brand new industry to a major city had its share of hurdles, many of them having to do with bureaucratic city officials. One of our biggest challenges was with the local health department, since they wanted to regulate us like a pool facility: a lot of our time early on was spent persistently educating and following up with our lead health official (who at the time was training someone else, so we had to pretty much double our efforts). The hardest part of all of this was having to throw away all of our purchased pump and filter systems, which we were required to replace with the specified designs from a licensed engineer (which we had to foot the bill for, of course).
On the flip side, the most rewarding of our journey has definitely been interacting with our new community of float enthusiasts. When we opened our doors for business, inevitably there were things that went wrong (pumps going on accidentally, the water temperature not being spot on, weird noises, etc.) but every single person who came in to float was completely understanding and very gracious with our learning curve. Our customers, and people who float in general, are absolutely awesome.
You really can’t have a bad float: something good always comes of it.
written by:
Alex Ziegler
Knowledge is Power…
No matter where you are in process of starting or running a float tank center, there are great resources out there for you. From industry blogs, to a variety of podcasts, from manufacturer sites, to even video lectures the amount of information on the float industry is growing in both amount and variety.
Here are some categories of posts from the Float Tank Solutions blog to get you started.
And That’s All, Folks!
Thanks for reading our first installment of Float Quarterly. Let us know if there’s any cool content you’d like to see us cover in the April edition, and in the meantime, float on!
