Almost three years ago, we discussed the merits of running overnight floats from an employee’s perspective, focusing on the opportunities of this unique experience as well as its challenges. We’d like to take a deeper dive into this issue because, while the majority of floaters come through our tanks during “normal” business hours, overnight floats form an important part of not only Float On’s identity, but also its business structure and broader culture.

There’s something that feels quintessentially true and real about the decision to pursue a 24/7 schedule because it recognizes the fluid, uninterrupted, and obscure nature of time. We refused to chop it up into open or closed. Also, we like to think that the salty brine gets lonely, and so it’s nice to give it some humans to hangout with when most of the world sleeps. In this post, we will explore income considerations, employee management, integration of late night floats into float center culture, and a range of other positive, as well as challenging, aspects of extending your schedule into the night.

There are many ways to work overnight floats into your center’s schedule, marketing efforts, business plan, and community engagement. You don’t necessarily even need to be open 24/7. At a base level, if you are scheduling enough floaters to cover your costs, considering overnight floats is a worthy conversation.

Assuming that you are paying one employee $15/hr from 11 PM to 6 AM. That’s $105. Plus whatever your variable and semivariable operating costs are (technology costs, credit card fees, office products, cleaning supplies, electricity, and other utilities.) If you are charging $75 for both of the two late 2.5 hour slots, and only one person floats per spot (some centers have many tanks!) that is $150 in business income. This is a break even scenario. If you are confident that you can muster at least that many customers for late night slots, staffing is the next concern.

Do you have someone who is willing to stay up that late? Someone who can stay alert, organized, and kind in those odd hours? Some people are night owls, and it’s a perfect fit. At Float On, we are are lucky to have a crew of regular employees who rotate through the overnight shift. It takes a special person to come to work from 10:30 pm to 6:00 am.

Staffing is, by far, the most difficult part of running overnight floats. Even if you find the right person, they can burnout or change jobs. Someone can show up late or not at all. If the employee decides that the late shift isn’t for them after you’ve already expanded your hours, you are stuck scrambling to fill the spot or, even, having to do it yourself. It might not be as easy as simply hiring another employee. They need to know what they are signing up for and you need to be confident in their commitment.

Despite these challenges, staying open for late-night floats also provides more shifts for employees and, consequently, more income potential. As a business owner, it’s nice to know that you are providing more income opportunities for your employees.

The most obvious consideration for whether or not to implement overnight floats is how such a decision might affect the bottom line. As illustrated in the previously scenario, if you are able to cover your employee and shop costs, it may be a worthy endeavor. You might be tempted to assert that just barely covering your costs isn’t worth the administrative hassle of managing those employee slots and keeping the center open, and you may be right. However, if you get creative with your task-lists, your night employee(s) can do certain chores that can crowd the daily schedule (folding towels, deeper daily-cleans, re-stocking and organizing shop materials and merchandise.) In this way, you are creating value from those late-night hours on top of enough customer payments to cover your labor and variable costs.

Ideally, however, you want to be making a profit from your decision to open your shop longer. If you can find the clients in your community who might take advantage of the opportunity, you will be able to fill your tanks. It’s important, of course, to set the right price point. 11:00 PM – 1:30 AM and 2:00 AM – 4:30 AM aren’t your average activity times. As a center, you get to extend your operating hours and turn an extra profit by basically squeezing the clock, while your floaters get a great deal. Float On’s 90 minute floats, at $65, come to 72 cents/minute. For our 2.5 hour floats, priced at just $10 more, they come to 50 cents/minute. Talk about consciousness expansion per temporal unit!

Beyond any income considerations, you are creating an opportunity for your customers to have potentially deeper experiences. While there is no concrete research saying that longer is better, many experienced floaters swear by the opportunity to have extended time in the tank. Although this author’s data set is sparse (one 2.5 hour float), the correlation is strong in my subjective opinion.

Providing lengthy float time is valuable in and of itself, but it’s also a boon to your center’s culture and brand by boosting overall involvement and engagement. Because a float center’s best marketing is often happy customers, extending float times and your overall float schedule will give more people more floating to talk about. If your daily schedule is often booked up, it also gives people an extra couple of slots to consider. While most 9 – 5ers won’t take those late times, it’s perfect for students, artists, doctors, funemployed and funderemployed individuals, and other people with strange working hours.

At Float On, we generally fill up our 11-1:30 slots and usually have 2 – 4 tanks filled from 2 – 4:30. These empty spots are great for encouraging friends, partners, and employees to float. We generally believe that a tank with a human in it is doing more for the world than an empty tank, so providing more time for floating feels inherently good and valuable.

While I generally don’t like to posit disaster scenarios, there’s something to be said about having someone at your center monitoring the tanks, water, and overall space. Pumps can break. Salt solution can lock up and need immediate chemical doctoring. It’s also just a good feeling knowing that you have someone hanging out with your multi-$100k investment.

It may be a good idea to phase in overnight floats. Add in one or two nights a week before announcing a full schedule change. If you’ve already been open for a while, you need to spend some time and effort educating your customers about the shift. Make sure that you announce the addition of late night floats on social media, by email, and in your center beforehand. Depending on your price point, you could even sell discounted late night floats just to get some float traffic in your tanks early on. If you know your customers really well, you’ll also have a good sense of who might dig longer float times. If you have yet to open your center, you could decide to implement it right off the bat, or wait until your daily schedule begins to fill up before seriously considering it.

While we’ve focused mostly on the positive aspects of running late night floats, there is another negative aspect of extending your schedule and running more floats: keeping your float center open more hours puts more wear and tear on your tanks. While this might be negligible, it could shorten the lifespan of your system over time. (You could also choose to believe that your tanks/pumps/etc are living fuller, richer lives than their diurnal counterparts.)

In all, every center will have to weigh the benefits and concerns of offering overnight floats. Perhaps your schedule is just fine as is, or maybe you’re looking for a way to provide more float time and bring in a little extra income. The decision will be different for everyone but one thing is for certain, turning your center into an hourly aqua hotel at night is certainly an adventure worth considering.

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