Posts tagged Cody Vaughn

Point 89: The President’s Corner

Cody Vaughn

 A lot has changed since I initially wrote this article. Originally I had written about how excited we should all be for our upcoming Conference, and how 2020 was going to be a great year for our piercing community. Little did I know…

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a massive impact on everybody, and our piercing community is no exception. I understand and sympathize that we are all facing incredible challenges, and the closure of our businesses has been a massive blow to us all.

The Board immediately began working on appropriate responses to the pandemic and how it affects our community. We issued our statement early in March recommending we all discontinue piercing services due to the high risk it could present to our staff and clients, prior to most states issuing mandatory closures. It  was a necessary recommendation, but the economic impact of closures did make it a tough pill to swallow. Each response we have issued regarding COVID-19 has required multiple updates because of how quickly information has been changing, on a near daily basis.

A big question from our community has been whether or not our Conference would still happen this year. The health and safety of our conference attendees, volunteers, speakers and vendors has been our top priority while looking at Conference. The Board put in a lot of work creating protocols and plans for how a scaled back Conference could look given the current situation, and every avenue was investigated as to how we could safely make it happen. Initially there were no Federal guidelines for us to follow and everybody was in a bit of a holding pattern. Information continues to become available about COVID-19; the White House and CDC have begun making suggestions for each state outlining phases to determine when businesses can safely start to reopen. These developments made it clear to the Board that with the current state of affairs our 2020 Conference should not happen.

Prematurely canceling our Conference wasn’t a simple option. Contract negotiations are a sensitive and complicated process and the fiscal impact we could have created by prematurely canceling would have been a heavy financial burden for our organization; a $200,000+ penalty in addition to losing our biggest source of annual revenue.

On a national level, nobody knew how long these forced closure measures would last. A couple of weeks? A month? Our host hotel was initially only willing to discuss options when we were thirty days out from our Conference. But thanks to our Board Members’ decisiveness, and a lot of scheduled meetings, we successfully came to a favorable negotiation earlier than that with our host hotel, which allowed us to cancel our 2020 Conference AND avoid penalties.

We thank you all for your patience and trust while we’ve worked on this. From the outside I can understand how people would think, “You should just cancel it,” and my goodness how we all had hoped it could have been that quick and simple! As Board Members we have a responsibility to be stewards of the organization, and to look out for its well being. That includes upholding our mission statement of health and safety, and looking out for the financial health of the organization.

I am incredibly proud of all of the tireless work our Board Members, Officers, APP staff and volunteers have been putting in to best address all these issues. Like everybody else, we all have our own family, financial responsibilities, and work/studios to worry about. Even with all that, everybody has truly risen to this challenge and continues to do so.

It isn’t to say we are anywhere close to being out of the woods yet, as there is still a lot of work to be done and planning ahead. How this pandemic will affect our community long-term is not yet known. But I know the APP’s Board, employees, and volunteers will all continue to do the absolute best job we possibly can. I implore all of us in the piercing community to be kind and encouraging to each other in these difficult days ahead. We are a large extended family and now is the time for us to come together and show our support for one another.

I hope all of you reading this stay healthy, stay safe, and hang in there. It will be especially sweet when we are all able to safely meet each other again, and come together with our shared passion for safe piercing.

Point 88: The President’s Corner

by Cody Vaughn

Hello dear readers of The Point: Journal of Body Piercing! I am incredibly humbled and proud to introduce myself to you all as the new President for the Association of Professional Piercers.

I would like to start by sharing with you all a little about myself. I was born and raised in Monterey, California. I have an amazing wife, Brittney Vaughn, and we both own and pierce at Vaughn Body Arts. We have three children and a big goofy dog named Lobo.

My love of body piercing started as a teenager while watching MTV late at night. I saw a pierced nipple for the very first time and well, here I am now (thank you, Red Hot ChiliPeppers).

I started piercing in 2004. I became an APP Member in 2009 and have been a volunteer with the Membership Committee ever since. I have also volunteered on other various APP committees on and off throughout the years, and have been serving as a Board Member since 2014. In addition to my volunteerism, I am a dedicated educator. I have been an instructor for The Fakir Intensives since 2011. Over the years, I have also had the pleasure of teaching at APP Conference and Camp APP in the United States, LBP in Mexico, and ruAPP in Russia. During my APP Board terms I have served as Vice President, Membership Liaison, and now as President. Needless to say, things have been very busy and exciting these past five years! But that is enough about me, let’s talk about APP Conference!

A few years ago a survey was sent out to APP Members requesting their feedback for Conference. The overwhelming response was that Conference makes the most sense in Las Vegas from a financial and entertainment standpoint. At the request of the membership, we started looking at other hotels to host our Conference.

Some were too small and couldn’t physically house all our attendees. Others were simply too expensive for the daily room rates. Then we toured Planet Hollywood. Making a very long and work-intensive story short, Planet Hollywood looked like the perfect next step for our growing conference.

Now, I’m one of those people that gets used to things and am fine with familiarity. I was always quite fond of Bally’s. I knew where everything was located. Huge group hangouts at the bar were always a sight to see. So why change it? I walked into Planet Hollywood thinking, “well if everybody wants a change of scenery, so be it, but what was wrong with Bally’s?” I am happy to say that I was wrong. So very, very wrong.

Our Conference at Planet Hollywood was simply fantastic. The overall look of the hotel felt updated and refreshing. The rooms were comfy and felt new and modern. And every room had a fridge!! (It’s the little things.)

The easy walk directly from the elevator to the conference space and Expo was incredibly convenient.

It felt wonderful to travel to and from classes without having to go through all the cigarette smoke on the gaming floor. I had the opportunity to speak with a lot of first-time attendees, long-time attendees, and vendors. The overwhelming amount of positive and enthusiastic comments about the new location were simply amazing.

It felt so good as a Board Member to hear how happy attendees were. Personally, this Conference was truly memorable because of the tributes for Fakir Musafar. Fakir was a friend of mine, my boss at The Intensives, and an altogether fun person to be around. He always seemed to have a new story I had never heard about something he did at some point. Did you realize Fakir was a puppeteer on a children’s television show for a little bit?

The Body Piercing Archive’s Fakir exhibit was breathtaking. In my biased opinion, it is their most amazing exhibit as of yet. Seeing all the amazing pictures and original items from Fakir’s body play journey and photography up close and in person was surreal.

Docent tours were lead by Cléo Dubois, Ken Coyote, Ian Bishop, Jef Saunders, Dustin Allor, Allen Falkner, Annie Sprinkle, Cynthia Wright, Betty Ann Peed, and Paul King; the tours were wonderfully done. Hearing each person’s unique relationship with Fakir was a memorable treat that I’ll never forget.

What a Conference! Smiles, tears, hugs, laughs. It was an emotional rollercoaster for sure.

I don’t want to give away any surprises, but with our next Conference in 2020 being our 25th anniversary, it is safe to say it’s going to be a special one.

Thank you for having me as a Board Member these past five years! I look forward to one more year of service and I look forward to learning with you all at our next Camp and Conference