Off to APP 2017

It's that time again! This coming weekend, Infinite piercers and select staff will be leaving for Las Vegas to attend the 22nd Annual Association of Professional Piercers Conference and Exposition, taking place from June 11 to 16, 2017. This year, all the Infinite piercers—John, Andru, Robert, and Zach—along with Jes and I will be headed out to the urban oasis in the middle of the Nevada desert.

While we're gone we’ll have the amazing Paul Espinoza piercing at Infinite. Paul is our go-to guest to cover shifts during Conference week—and the nicest guy you’ll ever meet. He’ll be here covering from Saturday, June 10 to the following Saturday, June 17. We’ll also have retired Infinite piercer Jay McColm helping out on Saturday and Sunday, June 10 and 11 and Friday, June 16. Jay worked at Infinite for five years before leaving in 2014 to pursue horticultural studies while working at Longwood Gardens. We’re excited to have both of them at the shop, and we know our clients will be in good hands. Maddie, Dustin, Stephanie, and Raphea will be staying behind to make sure things keep running smoothly.

The Association of Professional Piercers is a California-based, international non-profit organization dedicated to the dissemination of vital health and safety information about body piercing to piercers, health care professionals, legislators, and the general public. The annual APP conference is an important event for all of us in the industry, as it’s the biggest piercing-only event in the world. It brings body modification practitioners from not only all over the United States, but from all over the globe for five days of classes, lectures, roundtable discussions, meetings, and workshops. It’s the most extensive and intense week of continuing education our industry has to offer—and that’s why we take as many people from the studio as we can. We’re also there not just to learn, but to give back to a community that has given us so much. During the week, both Andru and Zach will again be working as volunteers. Zach will primarily be found manning classroom doors, while Andru will be spending a lot of his time this year overseeing the APP booth at the vendor exhibition.

This week will be a lot of work, but it’s also going to be a lot of fun. For those of us in the piercing industry, the year begins and ends with the annual APP Conference, and most of us look forward to the next year's event as soon as the week is over.

Conference time also means a new Infinite t-shirt design! For the last several years we've introduced a new design for each year's show: our infamous "skull" shirts in 2014, our "banana" shirts in 2015, (our friends at BVLA loved this one), and our "Modern Primitives" tees and tank tops from last year. This year's banquet theme is the '90s, and this year's shirt pays homage to a sitcom that helped define the era: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Throwback graffiti lettering adorns the front while a special print of the original Fresh Prince himself is featured on the side. Shop information is on the back left shoulder, with “South Philadelphia, born and raised.” These are now available at the studio and directly from our online store. Like every year, we’ll be arriving at Conference with plenty of shirts for our industry friends. For anyone not attending the APP event in Las Vegas, we’ll be offering a special half-price sale on not only our new shirt design, but on all apparel while we’re gone—and for one week after we get back. This means all shirts, hoodies, booty shorts and baby clothes on the Infinite site are 50% off, from midnight this Saturday, June 10, until midnight on the night of Saturday, June 24. Just use the code SmellYaLater at checkout to take advantage of the discount. So check our online store this week for new products, and follow our social media feeds to get a first look at what will be coming back with us to Philly. We’ll see you in a week!