Loney Life Colleen-Jolly-Blog-Cover Episode #21 | Colleen Jolly of PoleCon & IPIA The aerial hour running your pole business running your aerial business polecon pole studio pole instructor pole goals pole fitness pole dance podcast pole dance pole business ipia international pole industry association international pole convention how to run your pole studio colleen jolly aerial studio aerial podcast aerial arts podcast aerial arts

In this week’s episode, I interview Colleen Jolly of PoleCon & IPIA. During this interview, we chat about how she got started in the pole industry, taking over PoleCon, moving to a Virtual PoleCon for 2020, and the creation of IPIA, the pole industry’s first trade association.

Colleen has been poling for 11 years and she teaches pole dancing in the DC metro area at Fit4Polers and MyBodyShop. She also teaches pole dancing online for 123Poling.com. She has 20 years of experience in international business with an emphasis in marketing and sales for corporate clients.

Award-winning pole dancer, artist, speaker on visual communications and general business topics around the world. Colleen is the sole owner of THE INTERNATIONAL POLE CONVENTION and manages every aspect of the event. 

This episode is sponsored by my favorite knee pad company of all time, Bee’s Knees.

Loney Life Black-Heart-1024x1024 Episode #21 | Colleen Jolly of PoleCon & IPIA The aerial hour running your pole business running your aerial business polecon pole studio pole instructor pole goals pole fitness pole dance podcast pole dance pole business ipia international pole industry association international pole convention how to run your pole studio colleen jolly aerial studio aerial podcast aerial arts podcast aerial arts

Use code AERIALHOUR to receive 10% off your purchase (excluding limited edition knee pads) now.

Pole Dancing Journey

A friend of Colleen’s got her into pole dancing. They had been dancing together in Bollywood Dance Troupe which was offered through her alma mater. She has been pole dancing for 11 years and she went to her first full PoleCon in 2013.

She has never done any sort of dance performance on stage before, so she was so excited when an opportunity came up to be part of a studio troupe.

Taking Over PoleCon

  • Colleen took over and officially purchased the event in 2014. The first event she ran was the New Orleans 2015 event.
  • Her job previously exposed her to running and organizing events and all the other areas involved, she knew she could make PoleCon event bigger and better because of her history of running different kinds of events and owning a visual communications company.
  • She made a lot of changes on how PoleCon used to be from front to backend. She organized all the showcases into themes. She reached out to affinity groups like Black Girls Pole, Dangerous Curves, and all the other groups that were supporting and representing the community, and got them involved in the event.
  • From the backend, she increased strategies in sales, marketing, and advertising and gave it a more professional look. Then she instituted policies and procedures to make it more realistic for one person to manage everything.
Loney Life Colleen-Jolly-Website-Images-1024x1024 Episode #21 | Colleen Jolly of PoleCon & IPIA The aerial hour running your pole business running your aerial business polecon pole studio pole instructor pole goals pole fitness pole dance podcast pole dance pole business ipia international pole industry association international pole convention how to run your pole studio colleen jolly aerial studio aerial podcast aerial arts podcast aerial arts

Pole Convention 2020 Going Virtual

  • Colleen does early bird every year. It’s her indicator of how well they’re going to grow. Typically they grow about 20% every year. But in the beginning of 2020, the early bird was on track that to grow about 50%.
  • Because of the COVID 19 pandemic, Colleen had to cancel and move the PoleCon initially in August but that also didn’t transpire due to the pandemic.
  • The next in-person PoleCon has been moved next year 2021 but there will be Virtual PoleCon this coming October.
  • Initially, Colleen resisted doing the event virtually because she was concerned that people wouldn’t get the same sense of community that they would typically when they’re in person at PoleCon but she changed her mind and realized that the community needs to continue to connect with people within.
  • The focus for this particular PoleCon is to help all of the people that are working either full time or making a portion of their income in our community and give them the resources, the tips, the tricks, the access, so that they could continue doing their business.
There are three major tracks in the event:
  1. Tracks on Pannel Discussion – this will feature all of the panels at PoleCon over the years (plus size pole dancer, sex worker, panel, racing, cultural appropriate panel, queer panel) and also business-specific panel.
  2. Tracks on Seminars – it ranges from all sorts of things like how to build a brand, how to franchise your studio, how to get a paid performance gig and what to expect from it.
  3. Tracks on Movement Based Seminars – those range from insight into continuing edition. With certification teasers from expert fitness who does pole aerial flexibility and other certification programs.
Virtual PoleCon tickets are being sold for $50. It is being presented by the trade association, IPIA (International Pole Industry Association)
Loney Life Colleen-Jolly-Website-Images-2-1024x1024 Episode #21 | Colleen Jolly of PoleCon & IPIA The aerial hour running your pole business running your aerial business polecon pole studio pole instructor pole goals pole fitness pole dance podcast pole dance pole business ipia international pole industry association international pole convention how to run your pole studio colleen jolly aerial studio aerial podcast aerial arts podcast aerial arts

IPIA (International Pole Industry Association)

  • Colleen is Founder and Executive Director of the industry’s first trade association called International Pole Industry Association (IPIA)
  • The idea of IPIA is to gather people in Pole Community and provide them networking opportunities. It will also provide a centralized set of resources on everything from how to start a pole based business to really specific issues.

There are 5 demographics in the Pole Community that the IPIA will focus on:
1) Pole Businesses
2) Studios (that have a commercial space)
3) Full-time or part-time instructors
4) Full-time performers or actors
5) Sex Workers

  • Once a member of the IPIA, gives you access to the online resource library and resources. There is also online forums that will be private and only accessible to members as well as discounts for continuing training.
  • The advocacy of IPIA is working toward what are going to be the best ways to address the issues in our community.

Quotes from Colleen Jolly of PoleCon & IPIA:

“I wanted to create something that would help all of the people that are working either full time or making a portion of their income in our community and give them the resources, the tips, the tricks, the access, so that they could continue doing their business”

“The advocacy is working toward what are going to be the best ways to address the issues in our community”

“I wanted to create something that would help all of the people that are working either full time or making a portion of their income in our community and give them the resources, the tips, the tricks, the access, so that they could continue doing their business”

“Pole is a really interesting industry in that we’re all working together, but because we all love pole, there’s also this feeling that we all also love each other. And while that can absolutely be true, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you also get along with everybody or that you like everybody”

Colleen’s Favorite Performance of herself –  2nd place performance at PSO CPC 2014

Colleen’s Favorite Performance of someone else – 2015 PoleCon AM Davies Performance

To Connect with Colleen Jolly of PoleCon & IPIA:

IPIA Website | PoleCon | Colleen Instagram

Want to hear more? Check out Episode #19 with Squeak Machine & Brian Wolf and Episode #20 with Niyah Marie.