Chris Hampton is the owner of Boogie Heads, an interactive party entertainment company based out of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Here, Hampton explains where the original idea for Boogie Heads came from.
I have been in the party business for years, and originally I had a lot of success with another “green screen” (a special type of video equipment) event business called Magic Carpet Ride. That was a precursor to what everyone now knows as Boogie Heads.
Some people may have heard of Magic Carpet Ride or seen it around at tourist attractions over the years, but basically it was an experience where party-goers would get down on our specially set-up carpet and lift up the front—all while sitting in front of a green screen. With the help of a little green-screen magic and technology, we could make it look like people were flying over their favorite city and waving to people—it was a lot of fun.
Eventually, though, we figured out that we could have more flexibility if we morphed the idea for Magic Carpet Ride into something that would be easier to transport, purchase, and operate for entrepreneurs who run their own entertainment businesses.
With a few tweaks, we took the idea and turned it into what is now known as Boogie Heads. Both Boogie Heads and Magic Carpet Ride are popular, but the benefit of Boogie Heads is that it’s easier to take to events, and as an entrepreneur it is cheaper to run on a day-to-day basis without the need for a carpet and other extra things.
The guests themselves still seem to have just as much fun with both interactive entertainment systems.
Right now, a full Boogie Heads rig sells through our company for about $15,500. And a rig, for those who don’t know, includes every single thing that a potential business owner would need to get started—from the wires and the cases to the monitors and recorders. And it includes the green screen, of course. The music videos that the dancers are on, the stools people sit on—they all come as a package.
The training and support that go along with the equipment are included as well, which is important since we wouldn’t leave a new Boogie Heads operator stranded without a clue of how to operate his own new business.
In as little time as 30 minutes, a new Boogie Heads business owner can get set up and start learning how to run the high-tech system. Sometimes it might take up to a few days to become completely comfortable working the system, but it never usually takes more than that because of the easy way we have it set up.
The Boogie Heads system does not use computers, and it is set up in a way to be as friendly to use for business owners as possible. That is a real benefit that entrepreneurs who are buying our equipment have, since our system is easier to use than some of the other event entertainment systems available on the market today.
Without having to use a computer, Boogie Heads business owners do not have to be technologically savvy to work the Boogie Heads equipment. In fact, we have designed it so that if you can push record and play on a DVD player, you are pretty much set up and ready to go with your own Boogie Heads event business.
The Boogie Heads system is pretty hard to mess up, and that is intentional. We were looking for a system that people could use with ease. I think we have definitely accomplished that with the systems that we currently sell, which is one of the reasons why Boogie Heads is so popular with people hosting parties, as well as with entrepreneurs interested in owning a business and becoming their own bosses.
