There’s truly something for everyone at every point in their career on the Neill education calendar. Owners tap into business education and personal growth at Serious Business and Neill Quality College. Stylists have a catalog of in-person and virtual courses to choose from. And Elevate Hair live shows meld together music, performance and education.

Elevate also provides artists in communities across the Neill network a platform to showcase their work and inspire their peers through their creativity.

And now, artists have another opportunity to educate in their communities with Neill’s Locals Night.

“Locals Night was born out of the same idea and ethos of Elevate,” says Tatum Neill, creative director at Paris Parker salons and co-founder of Elevate Hair

Tapping Into the Community

Locals Nights are pop-up education sessions that happen in three cities simultaneously, with top artists from each community sharing their creativity and education in a host salon, and Tatum Neill, Alberto Swanson or Brandie Devillier representing Neill at each city’s event.

Artists share insights and techniques, showcasing trends, product tips and more in cutting, coloring and hairstyling.

“They give the stylist community a chance to gather, work together and share each other’s knowledge in peer-to-peer learning,” says Alberto Swanson, executive director of education and hair color sales. “We choose the cities for Locals Night, and then find host salons that can accommodate the event. We’re finding salons love to open up their space and invite the local stylist community in.”

Already, the event is evolving, growing and expanding for more opportunity.

“When we launched Locals Night last year, we kept them open ended, allowing the artists to do whatever they wanted,” Neill says. “This season, because of the launch of Be Curly Advanced, we themed the first session around curly hair education. The next session was all about volume with Invati Ultra Advanced.”

Source: @neill

By incorporating product lines, Neill says audience members were inspired to use the products in new ways.

“For Invati, it moved the perception of the line from therapeutic to creating volume,” he says. “We’re noticing when stylists get this type of education it contributes to their performance in the salon—they can use the product technically, and in retail. Education will show up in the bottom line of the salon.”

In some salons, it already has. After the Be Curly’s Advanced-themed Locals Night, Neill Corp. did an analysis on Be Curly Advanced sales for salons that sent stylists to the event compared to salons that did not.

Shawn Quattlebaum, master stylist at Lemongrass Salon University in Fort Worth, Texas, demonstrated Invati Ultra Advanced, utilizing VoMor tape-ins to show how to enhance fullness as part of his Locals Night demonstration.