Foam party

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Club Patrons at a Foam Party.

A foam party is a social event in which participants are lathered up with soap-like suds, usually dispensed from a foam generator or cannon. The height of applied foam can vary between 10 centimeters and 2 meters. Foam parties often take place at night clubs, where music, dance, and social drinking occur.

1 Clothing
2 Safety
3 Foam Generation
4 Problems
5 Regularly scheduled foam parties
6 External links

[edit] Clothing

Most foam party participants wear bathing suits or beach attire, often choosing to adorn their outfits with props such as snorkeling goggles, sunglasses, and shower caps. Many participants arrive fully clothed, but then end up removing a large portion of their clothing over the course of the event as the foam eventually soaks through clothes, making them very uncomfortable.

Foam parties have been known to inspire nudity among some participants or minor sexual exploration such as groping other participants under the cover of the foam.

Club Patrons at a Foam Party. The blue object in the upper-right corner of the photo is a foam generator.

[edit] Safety

Household soap or detergents should not be used to generate party foam. These products are not pH-neutral and often contain protein-dissolving enzymes. If they are used at a foam party, the resulting foam will likely cause serious eye and respiratory system irritation. The sole exception is Johnson & Johnson Baby Soap, which is specifically designed to be non-irritating on contact with the eyes and mucous membranes; unfortunately this product is not cost-effective for large parties.

Reputable foam party companies use special non-toxic, non-staining, hypo-allergenic solutions to generate their foam.

It is extremely important that foam be prevented from contact with electrical equipment. In most facilities, the electrical outlets in the walls are only 30cm above the floor. These outlets should be sealed with duct tape or, ideally, shut-off at the breaker panel. The foam generators must be kept clear of dance floor lighting - otherwise foam may be drawn in by the fixture's cooling fans and cause serious damage. Additionally, the foam generators, pumps, and related electrical equipment should be operated on curcuits protected by a Balance Fault Interrupter (BFI) or similar device that disconnects electricity whenever there is a current to ground.

Because foam parties create a wet, slippery, and disorienting environment, it is also important to avoid the use of glass bottles and beverage glasses. When a beverage is only sold in a glass bottle, the venue staff typically pour it into a plastic cup before handing it to the patron, instead of giving them the bottle. This avoids the risk of a customer being seriously injured by slipping and falling on a broken bottle or glass. Tripping hazards such as tables and chairs are also removed from the area filled with foam.

In some municipalities, special licenses are required for the club prior to a foam party being held. Some venues also require attendees to sign a liability waiver before entering.

[edit] Foam Generation

Club Patrons at a Foam Party.

Generating hundreds of cubic meters of foam in a club environment is a non-trivial endeavor. Foam breaks down rapidly after it is generated and breakdown is greatly accelerated by heat (such as generated by club lighting), air flow, and people moving through the foam.

The event shown in the photos above lasted four hours and was held on a dance floor measuring 10m x 15m. It required three foam generators, 80 liters of foam concentrate, and over 500 liters of water to keep the dance floor filled for the evening.

The most common type of foam generator consists of an industrial "squirrel cage" blower with a porous fabric bag (such as a pillow case) tied around its exhaust. It is important to use this type of blower because other types of blowers cannot generate sufficient pressure to force air through the bag. Foam concentrate is diluted with water in a large (150 liter) plastic garbage can or 220 liter "oil drum" and pumped to the foam generator (suspended from the ceiling) where it is sprayed on to the fabric bag. By adjusting the air volume from the blower, solution flow, and thread-count of the bag's fabric, it is often possible to generate foam with consistencies ranging from shaving cream to 5cm+ bubbles. The distribution of foam can range from a blizzard-like effect to a bubble bath overflowing.

Recently, some club operators have started using commercial foam cannons capable of shooting jets of foam over 10 meters - either at people in the crowd, or up in the air. Foam cannons have been used for a long time in firefighting and crowd control, but have recently been used for mass decontamination (with MDF200 decon foam). The use of foam cannons in clubs has been limited by high cost and the need for a source of high-volume high-pressure air to launch the foam.

[edit] Problems

Foam parties can be extremely destructive to venues and must be planned very carefully to avoid expensive repairs.

Because foam contains water and a wetting agent (soap), it soaks into everything it touches and readily wicks into confined locations. It can cause serious damage to painted surfaces, wooden floors, and drywall at the base of walls. It will also readily saturate upholstered surfaces such as furniture, draperies, and carpets. All of these items must either be covered with plastic or removed from the venue.

Filling a dance floor with foam can raise the water content of the venue's air to near 100% humidity, causing water to condense on pipes, windows, metal doors, and any other surface that is below the dew point. This can cause serious problems when foam parties are held in cold climates during the winter, causing condensation on the walls and ice buildup in building's HVAC ducts.

Water from the foam that is not absorbed by the air will pool on the dance floor. If drainage is not provided for this water (often hundreds of liters over the course of a night) it can easily flood the venue, with the potential for serious damage. If other parts of the venue can be damaged by water, it is important to provide a dry-off or buffer area between the dance floor and the rest of the club, otherwise foam and water will be tracked by participants into other parts of the venue.

There have been several reports in the media of severe allergic skin or eye reactions to party foam, but in almost all cases this has been the result of inexperienced operators using dishwashing liquids instead of non-irritating foam. Participants with allergies to soap should either wear appropriate protective clothing such as a dental mask and Tyvek coveralls, or avoid contact with the foam entirely.

Sore throats have also commonly been reported, but it is not yet known if this is from the spreading of communicable disease (such as common cold) through the foam, if it is a direct effect of chemical ingestion of the foam, if the foam merely temporarily weakens the immune system through exposure, or if it is just simply a matter of people being cold and wet, and then going out into the cold with wet bodies and hair. Some venues provide shower facilities to cleanse the foam from the body.

Visitors of foam parties must also protect electronic devices like cameras and mobile phones from the foam, because it may damage them.

Some kinds of pay cards can be also damaged by the foam.

[edit] Regularly scheduled foam parties

Some establishments have weekly foam parties throughout the summer, and include such features as a hot tub to maintain the beach party atmosphere. Alternatively foam parties can be a one-off event, such as a party at the end of a school year, or the like.

Perhaps the best-known annual foam party is the Mather Lather, at Mather House, at Harvard University.