TankSpace is a small but important part of our main company Mermaid Cove, to give you a real perspective on how this business came about that's where we need to start. Mermaid Cove is an entertainment company that creates performance pieces featuring circus arts, immersive theatre, comedy, sword fights etc etc all focused around a custom built mermaid tank that's used as a centre piece for the shows. Our very first festival was down in Cornwall and we almost didn't make it - the tank was delayed in it's construction and was finished just days before the festival was due to start, luckily we managed to get it on a truck and delivered to site just 48 hours before the gates opened. The festival was a fantastic success with thousands of people enjoying the spectacle of our show and Mermaid Cove grew from there.
Following our first festival we began looking for a more permanent home for the tank and all of our equipment, a temporary resting place was Rainbow Horses (a wonder riding school for the disabled) who agreed to let us store the tank in return for a show for their children.
It is here that the idea for TankSpace started.
We had the site to ourselves in the evenings and we knew that we needed to shoot more showreel for Mermaid cove, we invited down several other Mermaids and as Mermaid Cove Co-Founder Kai Coombes has a background in photography he decided to use the opportunity to have some fun shooting other Mermaids in the tank. Bear in mind this was in the middle of a field, with no heating - we had some brave souls in those early days! But the results were brilliant for a first try.
We then found our first proper home with a big unit on Manor Farm in Scarrington, which was extremely local and brilliant value for the size. It was this space that allowed us to grow, we used it for prop storage, rehearsals and started to run regular photoshoots under the brand Mermaid Cove Studios - mostly targeting mermaids.
We decided to offer the space out for music videos and hosted As December Falls & later Bone Cult, who both created fantastic videos.
As these shoots became more popular we started to invest in better photography equipment and made the decision to create TankSpace as a completely different brand to Mermaid Cove. A new website was created and we started to offer our first photography packages, including the hugely popular Fire & Ice package that also included learning things like tongue touches with a lit baton and fire fans.
We also used this space to host our first open shoots for photographers, and as our online presence grew we attracted the attention of influencers like Gavin Hoey (Ambassador for Olympus Cameras & Adorama), who featured TankSpace in one of his secret shoot videos.
As TankSpace started to grow we knew we had to make a decision, the Scarrington based unit was fantastic for its original purpose - storage, rehearsals and occasional shoots, but we wanted a space more orientated towards TankSpace rather than Mermaid Cove.
We made that jump in late 2019 and then moved fully into our new space in January 2020. The new TankSpace is a purpose built 2000sqft eco-build created as part of Sherwood Energy Village and is a completely blank canvas for us to create a new home for TankSpace in.
We hope to see you there soon!