The Flow Prop Shop is a subsidiary of Vibrant Hoops, established in 2018.
Vibrant Hoops started as an art collaborative called Mind Hydration back in 2015.
Mind Hydration started after a weird girl named Katie quit her job as a car salesman and her friend asked what she was going to do next. Katie took a heavy sigh and said, "I just really want to go to music festivals." A night of pros-and-cons lists covered the living room floor like a fur rug near a hobble stone fireplace. The inspirational romance of creating a nook where artists could grow while living in the environment that Katie felt her weird was the right kind of weird expanded its radius with every breath. Then, in a great leap of spontaneity, this weird outburst of a human invested all her money (and some of her dad's) into an art collab and tie-dye workshop company that toured the country.
In time, there had been many requests for flow toys, namely, hula hoops. Happy to accommodate a visible demand in her local scene, Katie started making and selling hoops.
There was something about a baby in that first year of business, so the second year and a half was fairly stifled in activity, and Katie had other artists working the booth while she did baby stuff. Somewhere around the spring of 2017, she had found a much better work/life balance and was back at the booth with a megaphone.
As time continued and personal lives demanded distance, it had become more difficult to maintain ties with the artists once sponsored, while the hoops continued to dominate in sales. By 2018, Katie rebranded as Vibrant Hoops. When COVID shut the world down in 2020 and Katie was forced to stop touring as a festival vendor, Katie started busting her butt to build an Etsy shop and a website. It was a lot of work; she did it all by herself. Really, it was a lot.
What's more, Katie had a really hard time balancing the website stuff with the need for a separate premade inventory for vending at music festivals, and the number of festivals she could manage became less each year. Katie could feel that the purpose had been lost. Hula Hoops are great, but they were not the focus of the expedition.
Now, as MORE than 5 years have passed, it seems only fitting that Katie has felt the gypsy itch again. Internet sales are a drag. Too many people are their worst selves online. Too many people think that small businesses should operate like big box stores, and it is increasingly exhausting. The entitlement really makes Katie wish she were back at the music festivals again. Additionally, the online business for made-to-order items really impedes on the travel capabilities. Katie now spends most of her time in an isolated basement workshop, in a rural area where she has no roots, making hula hoop after hula hoop. Katie has decided that this sucks.
So, this is what Katie's doing about it: Katie has made some really cool friends over the years. She's ready to stop making hoops; she doesn't want to restock on the materials. Katie has decided to create this website, using domains she bought impulsively and didn't use (5 years ago), to help her super cool, creative, interesting, and super busy friends with their own merchant companies while unloading the last of her products from Vibrant Hoops.
Which brings us to The Flow Prop Shop! Katie is meeting up with festival vendors at their warehouses, digging through the stock that has been buried, and offering these items to you at tier-based discount prices. Many of the products on our website are very high demand but just aren't being produced anymore. If a festival vendor stops producing the item and only has a few in stock, then it usually isn't worth having to travel with it and end up prioritizing the new stock.
Katie's new purpose will be to help take the load off, where she sees one. Once Katie has sold out on the majority of hula hoops and other stock that has come from Vibrant Hoops she intends to venture off into the wild unknown with the "not a baby anymore" and go where the inspiration takes her.
Fill contact form if interested in donating to the "Katie wants to keep it moving and travel the world until there is a new and clear gap that she feels the need to fill fund." Thank you.
