I heard from several people that they couldn't dance during the day at the pool because there was no room. Seems like the organizers want to sell as many tickets as possible with little regard for the amount of space.
Festival and Travel Planner 2025
- Thread starter azana
- Start date
Excellent points. Also a good friend told me about this. It rained when the pool dancing began so they moved it inside. Inside, more people were able to dance and there was AC. THEN ...
As soon as it stopped raining, they wanted to move it outside (probably because they can capture more appealing videos by the pool with people playing instruments and the alcoholics chanting and cheering) even though things were still somewhat slippery and wet and dirty from the rain. And there also wasn't enough room for people to dance.
He also mentioned that it took about 10-15 minutes to move people from in to outdoors on that day because there was only one exit being utilized, which made me wonder if it might be a fire hazard.
Not saying the event isn't fun, but this event seems to be heavily invested in making social media vids that make it seems way better than the reality
I heard the smaller pool at the bottom had an uneven floor and still couldn't accommodate the capacity?
It's not (only) about space. In my experience it's very hard to make big high quality event.
Yes, I've been to Warsaw fest 10 years ago and to Rostov, but these are exceptions and as soon as Warsaw fest priority became business, the quality went down.
For example rave had many issues with sound, playing same songs, DJs messing up sound, etc.
And I know personally several of invited DJs are professionals. But since DJs were switched up randomly, it seemed noone took or even could take responsibility.
Or let's say salsa is a social dance - how do you find, connect, socialize in big loud hall with 1000 people environment? Dancehouse events had separate chillout/bar environments with comfy seats and lower sound volume, so you could talk. Zeid finds nice venues, it costs a lot more than cheepest hotel in airport area or tourist trap beach town.
Another example - same event with social spaces and garderobes had policy not to bring drinks to the dance floor. Still floor was spilled and people put their stuff everywhere. In big enough events culture degrades, everyone becomes average of the crowd. Or in big events there will always be someone smoking inside. Or right next to entrance.
We've talked about musical selection in other threads, rave was an exception, but as a norm, the larger audience, the more mainstream will be the music. Which means same tracks all the time, and averageness by all criteria. Mediocrity can't be great.
Logistics, lines, congestion, where did I leave my bag, who stole my drink. All these are side effects of party too big.
Also smaller events can adjust to reality much faster. Rostov could switch venues next day, if there was an issue with one. Or organize some other event instead of pool party if weather got bad.
I could go on, but I believe complexity of many things increase with size and to make it work quality goes down.
Then again, in Europe large events have live bands, and smaller ones rarely so. But Berlin marathon has very nice local band, that makes everyone happy.
desconocida
Son
The revenge of the annoyed? Sounds like a possible scenario to me
One complaint I heard was that there were too many DJs. Like 5 good DJs would have been better or maybe 3 known and 2 experimental. I heard overall there was good music, but there were also plenty of periods when the music was meh.
Rave seems like a poor mans version of Rovinj with better music. I can see a place for both, but my bread and butter would be smaller events that focus more on quality than quantity.
I do like the concept of an event based on good mambo music and high quality dancers. I could skip the element that is just there primarily to drink and take selfies and the starmambo dudes taking up space on a crowded dance floor.
MAMBO_CEC
Son Montuno
Yeah Starmambo seemed to be filming the same people over and over? With regard to DJs, there could have been better coordination between them. I think the DJs are one of the selling points for Salsarave.
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Within reason. For example, there was a DJ there from NJ that people back home aren't a fan of. Nobody came to hear him play Marc Anthony. But yes, in general, the music is a selling point.
One reason more and more people started filming themselves and their friends, IMO
desconocida
Son
I wholeheartedly agree with this approach and would like to add that generally I'd much rather support local organizers such as dance schools who are actively trying to elevate their local scenes by offering a really nice event in their city with my money rather than those whose business model mainly relies on and caters to air-miles hedonists.
Agreed. I think the current international festivals all over Europe for an elite in crowd vibe is not helping local scenes. Almost like a brain drain effect, but if we want salsa to stay alive and grow we need to nourish the grass roots not just focus on the flashy stars.
In my experience many of those that I dance with in elite festivals are exactly those who nourish grass roots -- teach and organize in their communities. Festival is an opportunity to mingle with like-minded people and share the love for the dance.
Also festival if it's integrated in regional salsa communities will lift them up with inspiration, access to classes, live bands, high level dancing, etc. Many people who dance locally want to go to festival few times a year and can afford the closest one.
But I agree that without local scenes festivals would be unsustainable and they extract quite a bit of resources from dancers.
Very true. It is all about either being an influencer or content maker. The younger generation that grew up with social media or social media natives, are wired differently.
Indeed. It was a bit annoying.
I think this happened at the Salsarave, when after playing no cha-cha one night, they dropped one in, in order to film Frankie Martinez dancing. I know this because I was standing near the back, and the cha-cha cleared a lot of the dance floor, so I could see him dancing upfront with someone, whilst being filmed by Starmambo. Alicia Velasco was also dancing up front as well.
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StarMambo posts a lot of vids of his GF and I don't think anyone is checking for her.
I'm all for promoting with good looking people, good dancers and the "in crowd" or people that StarMambo is cool with or likes. I think the discomfort comes when he's filming someone's entire dance and comes into other people's space.
Well he does posts videos of certain people more often who are at best average dancers.
He will also oblige organizers. After all they invite and pay.
He will also shoot the popular celebrities and other in-crowd that are friends with him.
Later in the night he also shoots videos of random dancers.
He also takes request to shoot if asked.
I don’t know what the distribution is for each of above categories.
Happens all the time. He takes up space for enough for 3 couples to dance.
That kinda sounds like they want to facilitate leaving together (unless the orgy starts on the dance floor)
ctcmichael
Changui
On the Asia side, gonna head to Seoul Salsa Week next week, but there will be a typhoon which might mess up my flights completely.
Also contemplating whether I should be go Taipei in November for their festival.
Also contemplating whether I should be go Taipei in November for their festival.