Check out United Pole Artists' post: What Happened at Pole 2 Pole Cup USA?
I knew about some of these events but not others. I know it got ugly. I wanted to stay out of this because most of the issues were just nasty Facebook posts back and forth between various groups and individuals. The only personal experience I had was that I knew one of our girls from Twirly Girls was planning to compete. I had purchased tickets to the original venue. When the event was moved from the Thousand Oaks venue to the pole studio, our girl decided to remove herself from the competition. Her reasoning was merely that she wanted big stage experience and she could perform in any studio if that's what she was looking to do.
Personally, I had a couple of interactions with P2P and didn't like them (long before this event and leading up to it). I'm not going to go into them but I had a bad taste in my mouth going in. However, I was planning to go to this event to support our girl. When she decided to back out, I admit I was vaguely relieved. I had no idea how much bigger it would blow up.
Anyway, forget all the bullshit and politics. I have received requests from both sides to take a side. I'm not taking a side. The pole community is very, very, very small in the whole scheme of things. And if P2P puts on bad events, people will know and won't enter future events. I am sure EVERYONE has heard of what happened with this event, so anyone entering future P2P events will go in with their eyes open.
The bigger issue to me is the hatefulness and ugliness this has spawned. The accusations and comments on Facebook got pretty nasty. And I heard a really terrible comment was left on a competitor's YouTube video. That's not okay in my book. All of the competitors worked their booties off to be part of the event and they should not be attacked. We already fight the general public to be considered a "valid" sport. We don't need to fight each other.
Anyway, Annemarie's final paragraph calls for a committee to be created to avoid future problems. Check it out: The federations out there, the associations that exist for pole dancing, I don’t want to call you out, but we are beginning to look at you and ask what will you do to construct rules, regulations and guidelines for others to follow? Understandably, there are many things on all of our plates right now, with pole dancing growing as fast as it is. But, that is even more of a reason to formulate a plan so we don’t have opportunists taking advantage of an industry in it’s infancy. We must protect ourselves and all of the time and effort that we put forth. This is no longer about the Pole 2 Pole Cup USA, this is about what we need to do now. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. It’s in our hands now, who is going to catch the ball first?
So what do you think...should the pole dancing community create a committee to oversee competitions and events? I know the UK has Pole Dancing Community (PDC) to help unite the pole dancing community. Should we in the US try to join and expand their group. Should we create our own committee of pole superstars to help keep something like this from happening in the future? There are a lot of amazing business women (and men) in the pole industry who could help make this happen.
If you were to create your own pole committee, who would you choose?
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