World Massage Festival

Well I went to go help my good friend Ariana out with her vendors booth at the World Massage Festival this year down in beautiful New Braunfels at the T bar M resort. I was quite impressed with the comfort of the T Bar M (photo gallery). Definitely a place that I would like to go spend a few days and unwind at.

Saturday was my first morning to commute to the festival. I started out the day by miscalculating the time it would take to get there. For some reason I confused New Braunfels with San Marcos. To make it better, it was actually farther south in Canyon Lake. The festival was at 2456 Hwy 46 a few miles from New Braunfels High school.

It was an interesting festival set up. Its weird how they did it, it was more a student centric festival than a vendor centric festival. I say this because both days on Saturday and Sunday they had two class sessions per day, first class was from 8am to noon and then 2 to 6pm. So it was pretty slow with foot traffic, I think all in all there were like 300'ish people attending the event.

There were some interesting massage practices I came across. Massage cupping was interesting and looked pretty painful. Also there was a concept called Bamboo Fusion that used both hot and cold polished bamboo sticks. We are hoping to work out a strategic partnership with them but its still very early in the talks so we will see how that goes, there were quite a few businesses we met that we are hoping to synergistically work with. My friends business, Ariana Institute, got quite a bit of attention. Ariana was a judge for the techniques contest that took place. Ariana was also recognized for being a pioneer in massage therapy and instruction. Congratulations Ariana.

Right next to us was a booth called, Liddle Kidz, that focuses on pediatric massage techniques. Great meeting Tina and Shad, I look forward to having lunch with you when you are in Austin.

Another great connection I made with a business owner was with that of Mother Earth Pillows, those pillows sure can be handy. I am counting down the days till I purchase one. Hopefully soon. Really interesting entrepreneurial story Karen, the owner and founder, has. She told me of one story she met where Bill Clinton stopped by her booth and talked to her for a few minutes. Had to have been there to get the whole gist of it, lol.

I do want to say that at T Bar M, they have the best freacking ribs I have ever had. So good and their brisekt is exceptional as well. The comedian they had on hand for Saturday night wasn't that bad either, Lanny Moody. He was sort of like Jeff Foxworthy comedy, I liked it. I ended up getting home that evening around 10 and decided to return the next day to help out for the last day of the festival.

In addition to that, the only other food that I ate was that of Herberts Taco Hut, First go around I had two beef fajita tacos with gucamole, exceptional, then Sunday morning I had two egg, cheese, bean and bacon tacos, way delicious and then on the way out Sunday I had two cheese enchiladas and another beef fajita. Everything was great, definitely check it out if you are in the area which may never happen.

Unfortunately that Saturday night I decided to start blogging and stayed up way late till about 4 setting up this blog. That inevitably led me to run an hour late Sunday. Sunday was pretty slow but it did help add the mailing list we were compiling, we almost got up to 60 people. Thats pretty good. Now we have to start planning for next years festival in Kentucky.