A Nashville man recently competed in the Sign Spinning World Championships in Las Vegas, finishing 44th among more than 3,600 spinners from around the country.
Colton Kinslow told Nashville’s News 2 he has been spinning signs advertising area businesses since he was 14-years-old.
“I’ve been doing it since then, so this is my first and only job,” Kinslow said.
Sign spinning is somewhat a new form of advertising for businesses located in areas with a lot of car traffic.
Currently Kinslow works for Aarrow Advertising, one of several agencies who contract spinners to work for retailers to promote their products or sales.
On Thursday Colton spun an arrow sign pointing people to the T-Mobile store located on West End Avenue.
“You start off making $10 an hour, and you work up from there depending on how much you learn,” Kinslow explained. “You can work anywhere between 10 and 30 hours a week. Once you push over 25, it starts to get difficult just because of the wear and tear on your body.”
Kinslow said he trains other spinners in Centennial Park several times each week.
“We are professional advertisers. You’ll notice I don’t sit here and do tricks constantly, I have a patented aero attention method that we use to draw attention to the businesses that we work for,” he said.
Kinslow said his best move is called a ‘scissor catch’ in which he flips the sign behind his back as he jumps forward onto his hands, grabbing the sign between his legs before it hits the ground.
Despite finishing this year’s championship in 44th place, Kinslow said he is already working toward improving that finish for next year’s competition.
“I actually started training last night I was sick for this year’s competition and didn’t place where I wanted to place, so next year I’m going for first. Definitely,” he said.
By Jamey Tucker, Video Journalist @ www.wkrn.com
