Dancakes Live Events Are Back! The Journey to our Return.

Wow, what the hell was 2020? It started off great, we worked an event called Hotella Nutella in Napa Valley in January, and right after that was an appearance on Good Morning America with Dan and Dana where they hung out with the hosts of Shark Tank! They all got their faces pancaked, naturally. We were getting whispers of this “Covid’19” business, but nobody really knew what it meant. Then, Ben and Jenny were guests on Lucas Films Star Wars Show on YouTube, and about 3 hours into day one of shooting (it was a 2 day shoot) they were informed San Francisco was closing and they had to finish by midnight.

The beginning of 2020 was a whirlwind for us, it was shaping up to be a banner year for us…

Then there was the lock down. It started off feeling like “oh this is just precaution, we’ll be back at it in no time” then our already contracted Dancakes events started… disappearing. As the person in company that books, schedules and sets up all the events, it was hard to witness, understandable, but hard. After about a week we went from what would be a our best year ever to our worst year on record. As a small business who depends on the hot seasons “Spring and Fall” having that ripped from us was devastating. We didn’t know if the business could survive.

We tried our best incorporating new services, some were a huge hit; Live streamed events, classes, preserved pancakes. We tried and succeeded in doing weekly live streams but after several months we just got burned out. The problem was we were in such a scramble mode to find what could make enough money to keep the boat afloat that instead of focusing on doing 2 or 3 things well, we tried doing 10-12 things which ended up spreading us very thin, in quality and in ambition.

Then, in January of 2021 I got Covid. I did all I could to avoid it but eventually an accidental contact that my Fiance’s sister ( who was staying with me for a few months) had with a friend, it was brought into my own house. For 2 weeks it sucked, like a very long, bad cold. I know I was fortunate though, others had it a lot worse. What was even worse is having to isolate in my house which coincidentally on the same property as the Dancakes studio ( It is a detached 1500 sq ft. building in my backward). So I’m literally 25 feet away from the other Dancakes members everyday as they as did their obligated weekly Dancakes things, but I can’t physically interact. It was surreal, it had me anxious. I know the guys had it handled but my dumb brain felt guilty for getting Covid and not physically able to be there. Before I got Covid all of us where talking about how exhausted the year made us, we all needed a break and some glimmer of normalcy within the company. So in my isolation I thought 1. We are all in burn-out 2. We all want this company to continue 3. How do that and not kill each other?

So after I (luckily) recovered from Covid I gathered the troops and presented the idea of just solely focusing on the core elements that work in the company; Events, Commissions and Products. If we could execute these 3 things I had no doubt we could make money, continue entertaining people and free up more time to do the things on the side that we love. A sigh of relief was noted. I think it was heard from space?

So as we slowly come back out of pandemic, hungry to do live events we are excited with this new direction. It has been so hard not being able to physically be in front of an excited crowd and flip pancakes. Nothing virtual can match that. Also we are excited to know that when we aren’t at work we don’t have to stress over what we aren’t doing, we actually can enjoy other things in our lives. Now, some people would say that is bad business but I would disagree. Happiness is very important in business, if you are stressed, overworked or even unhappy your product/service will suffer. Whereas now because we aren’t exhausted at every event we show up to, and every video we make has more enthusiasm and love behind it. It’s important. Balance is important.

So in closing I want to give a huge thank you to all who have booked us, and all who will book us. We’re vaxxed, masked, sanitized, and ready to entertain wherever, and for whomever loves our edible art. This weird group of pancake artists appreciate it more than you can imagine.

Love you guys,

Hank