Our first Salon

My wife was the one that suggested us beginning our social endeavors with a Salon. Like most people, I didn’t have the slightest idea what a salon was except for the obvious thought that comes to mind. Yep, you got it. A hair salon. Once she explained it to me, I had a “oh!” moment. After a little digging, I got a better idea about the concept, and was a go for the social. We brainstormed a few ideas and approached to our salons, and we settled on an approach that suited our tastes and vision. The post is how we conceived the salon, how we set it up, and how we followed through with execution. It was hard work, but our first attempt at a social was a resounding success. This first try also gave us a baseline where we could improve on the following socials to improve our product, and get more out of the experience.

Concept

The concept that we decided to go with closely approached a cocktail party, but still had the basics of a salon. The concept revolved around a 'topic' or a focus for the night. Our thought was to start the first salons with a tangible item that would serve as the topic for each salon. We came up with something unusual and underrated at the same time, meads. If you're not familiar with meads, sometimes called 'honeywine,' this beverage is made from fermented wine rather than the grape, like more common wines. We narrowed the focus even more, and only featured those meads produced in our home state, North Carolina. We had a great time going out to the meaderies and collecting the meads and some knowledge of the topic, as well as doing some tastings.

We have a friends group that includes many mead aficionados, many of whom were great candidates for our initial IPC membership. We set the number of invitees between 8-12 folks (all well over 21). We also decided to mail out invitations to add a little more cachet to our first go at a social.

Setup

The setup was to feature six selections of North Carolina sourced mead for the topic. These ranged from a regular mead for a baseline taste, to flavored meads. We even had a mead that had what I would say had a savory taste. The outings to the meaderies also included researching mead and food combinations. Cheeses and meats seemed to the prevalent food companions to mead, so we had a good selection on hand, as well as some fruits such as grapes, apples and pears. To top it off, the table had a nice complementary floral arrangement.

Since this was a tasting, we had other foods that would help clean the palate, as well as plenty of water. As a note, if you do a tasting, always provide a dump bucket just in case a taste isn't up to someone's liking. Keep in mind this type of salon is to experience the topic and then discuss it. Tastes not to someone's liking are fair game for discussion, and the ability not go any further is sometimes a relief. As an ending for the tasting, we offered was coffee from Hawai'i and Earl Grey tea.

We also requested that everyone wear cocktail dress, but we didn't require it. We wanted to experiment with clothing and atmosphere. To be honest, we were also curious to see how people interpreted the request.

Execution

We had folks come in at 6:30pm (18:30); early enough to get settled. We were careful to make sure everyone was introduced. Some folks knew each other, others did not. Our first task was to get the small talk going a quickly as possible as a warm up. This also gave everyone time to arrive before the salon started. We settled everyone in our living room from the very beginning so everyone present could talk and get to know each other. When everyone who RSVPed was present, then we officially introduced the salon by reading a couple of poems that were related to mead. We were on the fence about the reading, but the poetry seems to get things moving, and it added an elegant touch.

Afterwards, we had folks move to the dining room, and starting the tasting and discussions. We went through the various meads, and then allowed folks to sample at will. The discussion was fairly focused on the topic, but soon branched off. We didn't try to moderate discussion, but let it take an organic path.

At the end of the night, we asked everyone to fill out cards and list the topics they wanted to see in the future. Most were variants on the tasting theme, but some creative souls wanted to do a salon related to fashion, and another related to music.

Wrap-Up
At the end of the night, we felt successful. The food was mostly consumed, as was the mead. People left the house with an air of excitement, and that's what we were looking for as a result of the salon. Our follow-up included tabulating the results of the topic lists, and asking the participants about future salons. Our goal is to have different folks hosting their topics.

We've also looked hard at improvements, but for the most part, these involve changes to arrangement and a rogue light fixture. More salons will provide us with more information on handling discussions and the salon as a whole.