July Blog Hop: A day in the life of a pole dancer

This month's blog hop is about chronicling a day in the life of a pole dancer...  If you want to check out other entries for this month, click HERE. 

I am no average pole dancer.  Especially not lately with this 9 month old foot injury that is causing more and more pain every single day.  Even on my best, most pain-free day, I am not the most awesome pole dancer you will ever meet.  I am not putting myself down.  Just stating a fact.  But what I love to do is put on pole events.  So today I will tell you about the day in the life of a pole dance event coordinator.

Last Saturday, Twirly Girls Pole Fitness and Club 1220 sponsored Twirl for a Cause: An AIDS Walk Fundraiser to benefit star walker, Jimmy Gale.  Truly setting up this event started many moons ago, when Jimmy and I had to set the date with our location, Club 1220, a bar in Walnut Creek, California.  We also had to invite dancers willing to perform and find sponsors willing to donate raffle items.  But this post is about a single day in the life of, so...

I purposely picked up the stage pole from Twirly Girls the night before the event.  We had two poles but Diana from Twirly Girls was transporting her pole to the event separately.  Twirly Girls is 25 miles from my house and I was worried that Saturday would be hectic and wanted to have one thing checked off my list.  I also had the dancers sign liability and photo releases the night before.  Two things checked off the list.

On Saturday, I woke up and ran some errands.  I picked up water, ice and snacks so the performers would have a little something during the time they were at the club.  I then had to get myself ready.  This is where it gets fun.  See, I debated back and forth on whether I wanted to dress up since I figured I would be co-MC at the event, or whether I wanted to dress comfortably, as I knew I'd be running around a lot.  Biggest drawback to dressing up cute is that my foot won't allow cute shoes, so I'd have to be barefoot (plus I'd be setting up the pole without the ability to breathe in the tight corset I wanted to wear).  Biggest drawback to not dressing up is I end up in a million photos looking like a homeless lady.  So I dressed up.  Now I have to transport a heavy stage pole and set up wearing the corset.

I got to the club around 4:30 PM to set up.  None of my cohorts were there yet so I mostly wandered around outside.  Got a thumbs up from some firemen on my outfit at least.  Soon enough, people were arriving and thank goodness, Patrick, and others did most of the unloading of my truck and setting up of the pole. 

The next hour and a half were kind of a blur.  I was mostly running around, setting up, getting the dancers into the dressing area, gathering CDs of music...  Then at 5:45, I realized I'd forgotten three raffle items at home.  My house is only a mile away but it was bad timing.  The show was supposed to start at 6 PM.  The bar was still kind of empty, so with Jimmy's help, I decided to run home to get the missing items.  On my way back, one of the dancers called and needed a ride, so I swung over to BART and picked her up.  We arrived back at the club around 6:15 PM.  The bar was suddenly packed.  We got started around 6:30. 

I felt like the event went really well.  We allowed tipping of the dancers and the dancers were then able to decide how much they wanted to donate to the fundraiser.  Normally, of course, we don't allow tipping at our showcases.  Although I love pole dancing, I really feel like dancing is very personal for me.  So, I do participate in showcases but I don't feel like performing is my life calling.  I felt much more comfortable being behind the scenes and sharing MC duties with Jimmy (I have a lot of work to do to sound better on the mic, though).  I did participate a little in a "twerking" finale, which was fun.  I felt like I was running around the entire show -- barefoot on a cement floor.  I saw some familiar faces but didn't really get to say hi.  I really, really appreciated everyone who came out to support us, though.   

After the show was over, it was clean-up time.  The minute the show ended, I ripped that corset off and sucked in as much air as I could get into my lungs.  At the end of the event, I had been on my feet for over six hours and my foot was definitely toast.  We got to dinner after 9 PM.  We celebrated the $1,200 raised for AIDS Walk San Francisco by hitting up a sushi bar and eating some "healthy fried vegetables," aka tempura.


So, that is one day in the life of a pole dance event coordinator.  I really, really enjoy setting up pole shows.  I realize I am still learning about how to throw a huge event and I am hoping to apply what I learn each time to making the next event bigger and better.