Decision: San Francisco or Seattle Congress?

Salsa Student said:
Any decision yet? Prices for the Seattle congress go up again on the 16th, might be sooner for SF.
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Still trying to decide whether to go to the Seattle Congress, but I'm leaning towards buying a full pass before the price goes up. I feel a little foolish for flying all over for Congresses, yet have never even danced in Seattle.
 
If you want to attend the Seattle Salsa Congress some day, you might as well do it now. The weather is unbelievable. I believe it was the second driest summer since people started keeping records, and summer really hasn't ended.

Makes it hard to study when it's so nice outside. ;)

(Then again, the Congress is still two or three weeks away, and there's no way of knowing what will happen between now and then.)
 
Oops, I spoke too soon; it started raining this weekend.

The rain's been pretty light, though, and the weather's quite pleasant. A few years ago we set a new record for the wettest November ever; I think it rained every day. So at least you know it probably won't be that bad for another fifty years or so. ;)
 
No problem, I'm just down the road in Portland with the same weather. Up to now, this has been the nicest autumn I can remember for a long time.
 
Well, probably too late now, but I think I can help answer your questions.

Source: I have gone to SF, Seattle and Vancouver congresses, every year since about 3 years ago. Haven't taken classes at any of these except the first year.

I am a lead that currently lives in seattle and go to SF 2x a month and Vancouver 1x a month.

A couple of 'facts'

1. SF congress is way bigger. Lots more dancers; more "stars"; more high quality dancers. it also ended up being more expensive.
2. SF congress...the performances...HOURS. OF MY LIFE. I WANT BACK. the performances themselves were good; just way too many to sit through; got bored, even for great performances. Just wanted out. Went back to hotel and slept.
3. SF congress: Sunday night. Stay for sunday night. Best dancing. I felt inspired...haven't felt that in a while you know? was great last year.
4. SF congress and seattle I think share costs a lot of the performers will be the same; the congresses are practically back to back, so the performers just come up to Seattle, hang for a bit, and do the second congress. So you won't get any difference in performances, "stars to dance with", etc.
5. Seattle congress is about..I dunno...1/3? the size of SF on the busiest night saturday. But, on the other hand, being small means: classes you can see the instructors; easier chance of dancing with "stars"; less ******** (transportation, costs, etc.)
6. Seattle congress is RIGHT by the airport; SF congress is in oakland, which is far from SFO but not even that cose to OAK airport.
7. Both SF and Seattle are lead heavy; if you are follow, good times ahead.

A couple of 'opinions'

1. Seattle bachata and kizomba is better then SF and Vancouver, and not just by a "bit"; by a "lot". But it's not that the "best of the best" are a lot better; it's just that the distribution is moved along and squished, so the worst is better, the average is better, etc.
2. On1 versus on 2.
"Top" dancers in SF and Vncouver can dance both on 1 and on2.
Seattle has more "top" dancers that will only stick to one or the other.
I'm excluding some of the bitchy on2 people from all 3 cities :)
3. "Fun-ness". I have had the most fun in:
* vancouver. Way, way, way more follows then leads - I'm a lead so that was nice. Very highly organized; no ********, **** stars and ends on time; every dresses way the **** up.
* seattle. My homies, my town; small, intimate; easy to pick out all the best dancers and easy to get opps to dance with "stars". No one really dresses up that much.
* SF. lots of great dancers. Sunday especially amazing. but bachata not so good; everything runs late. Much bigger congress.
 
SnowDancer said:
Sounds like any Salsa Forums meetup in Seattle is also going to be lead-heavy.
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LOL - Even Seattle's biggest defenders cry endlessly about the lead-follow ratio. What really sucks is when you go to a club, and there are only about five people there - two women and three guys, including the women's boyfriends. Of course, you can always go to Century Ballroom on a night when the drop-in class has 60 women and 80 guys, though it's more balanced some nights and can even swing in the other direction on occasion.

And when I attended the Seattle Salsa Congress I was blown away by the sizes of the classes and workshops. Looked like total insanity to me.

However, I took a private lesson from one of the visiting starlets, and it was probably the best salsa lesson I've ever had.
 
Uh oh. Often the main indicator of whether a night is good or bad is the male/female ratio. Do the clubs there ever have a 'women free before 10' policy? Some clubs do that here, especially if they've had nights with too many guys.

But I've never seen a 'men free' club.:rolleyes:
 
I don't know; I dropped out a year or two ago, and I think two or three new clubs have sprung up since then. Since I scrapped my Seattle Salsa website, I don't think there's a single website that lists all the salsa clubs, let alone describe them. However, you could probably track most of them down with Google or Facebook - or just contact some Seattle salser@s.

Century Ballroom is the biggest and most popular salsa club by far.
 
lastquestion said:
3. "Fun-ness". I have had the most fun in:
* vancouver. Way, way, way more follows then leads
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Really? The Vancouver congress I went to seemed pretty balanced lead/follow and I seem to remember getting turned down a fair amount. This is in contrast to the local Vancouver scene which is somewhat follow heavy and I can only remember every getting turned down once.
 
Ummmmm... so I dance in Seattle a lot and I would say that I have found that although there are more leads then follows, I have not had problems dancing the entire night away.

Now I remember this one night on Thursday at Century and literally the ratio must have been 5:1 guy:girl. But that was an exception and honestly I didn't even mind it's nice to sit and watch sometimes. It probably happens once every couple of months when the ratio is so skewed. But you just wait a while and a lot of the guys just leave and the ratio is back to normal.

On the other hand Mondays at East Hall the ratio is probably much more even, if not the other way. I remember once when there were so many more women then men, like, 3:1 Actually everyone complained that the ratio was whack that night the week after, even the guys. I think that a best ratio is like, 1.5:1 guys to girl.

In general most nights I find the ratio perfectly fine. It was pretty interesting at the Vancouver congress, as there were a lot more women then men. I found it difficult to sit out and watch because girls would do this thing where they would come up from the side and ask. Although obviously I remember doing that a lot as a guy, so fair's fair :D

On the other hand it's definitely a perspective thing. It depends on who you want to dance with and what kind of night you would want to have. the distribution of guys and girls at each level is different so everyone's experience is different. I definitely have seen / have heard from others what salsabear is describing.

I guess I think that in the end it's just how you feel about it, whether you're there to dance all out, have fun, meet friends socialize, etc. If you decide to have fun, you will! at least that's my take on going out :)

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Anyway about the list of clubs and dancing etc. There is a great up to date list of all the seattle clubs on Facebook. It has the prices when to go and where they are. But there are no good descriptions of each place as the list is collaborative with many people editing it so it's difficult to get a consensus opinion on anything.

Don't know if this is public or whatnot. https://www.facebook.com/groups/SeattleSalsaTonight/?bookmark_t=group But msg me privately and I can add you and so on.
 
Salsa Student said:
Really? The Vancouver congress I went to seemed pretty balanced lead/follow and I seem to remember getting turned down a fair amount. This is in contrast to the local Vancouver scene which is somewhat follow heavy and I can only remember every getting turned down once.
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I dunno, a lot of people I asked and talked to - both vancouver and seattle people - said that there were way more follows. actually I heard they are going to try and fix the ratio somehow this year. I'm "interested" to see what happens.

I think also when did you go at night? it was pretty follow heavy right after performances until maybe 1 and then the ratio changed back to even / men a bit ahead. Also the first night was pretty unbalanced and it got more even as the weekend went on because a lot of locals just didn't come because they heard the ratio was bad. OR, at least, that's what people told me. </secondhand wave>

I definitely remember seeing girls stand by the wall in the bachata room looking sad for like, multiple dances.
 
lastquestion said:
Don't know if this is public or whatnot. https://www.facebook.com/groups/SeattleSalsaTonight/?bookmark_t=group But msg me privately and I can add you and so on.
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Thanks, I'm already on it.

Re: the lead/follow ratio in Seattle, if there are enough follows I'd like to dance with I usually get as many dances as I'd like regardless of the ratio (although part of the reason for that is that I rarely dance more than two or three songs in a row). One fo the things I dont like though is the attitude that almost always being in demand seems to promote in some people. I know some of the Vancouver follows and they use almost the same words to describe some of the leads in Vancouver as Seattle leads use to describe some of the Seattle follows. Just human nature I guess.
 
Salsa Student said:
One fo the things I dont like though is the attitude that almost always being in demand seems to promote in some people.
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I agree. I recently moved to Seattle (about a month ago) and have encountered quite a few followers with attitude. Nothing too bad, just being turned down more than I'm used to. To give them the benefit of the doubt, some of it might be due to not knowing me or because they haven't seen me dance before. That complaint aside, most of the followers I've had the pleasure of dancing with have been down to earth, friendly, and fun dancers.
 
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