Festival and Travel Planner 2025

Are you from the area? I was looking at going to see one concert and have some dances, but price is quite steep for me if dancing will be disappointing. I'd better go to some low key local party without expectations then.

Was there better dancing before or after the concert?

I'm not from the area. I think the dances were better after the concert but I wouldn't spend the money to attend. Hotel prices, flights, and passes are expensive for the value. Your best case scenario is to dance with artists if you do attend.
 
Anybody been to the Hamburg Salsa Weekend this last weekend? It was a first timer but sold out.
Not personally, but have seen a ton of insta stories and talked to 'survivors'. My impression from those is it was nice with the exception of night parties where police has shown up several times and the music had to be turned down dramatically for long periods of time.
 
Not personally, but have seen a ton of insta stories and talked to 'survivors'. My impression from those is it was nice with the exception of night parties where police has shown up several times and the music had to be turned down dramatically for long periods of time.
The police? :cool: It's famously loud at salsa festivals, obviously the venue had no good isolation. Location wasn't far from Reeperbahn, so I'm astonished. So probably not to be at the same location next year.
 
Review 2nd Geneva Perfectly Mambo Festival

Again a great festival for the on2 crowd, I had lots of memorable dances. Organizers talked of 300 registrations, I like this size. Ratio seemed nearly equal this time, maybe a few followers more. This year many dancers from the german speaking part of Switzerland were present, different to last time. Good organization, every morning a newsletter with news regarding changes due to weather and recommendations. No workshops (except one from local Fred Dancefloor), no stars, no videographers on the floor, none of the in-crowd dancers from the dancehouse series.

Air was much better this time, they had installed half a dozen big mobile aircon machines. It also helped that outside temperature was ten degrees celsius lower than last year.

Floor felt sticky to many people, they powdered as hell or wore these sole substitutes you can wrap around your shoes (they were given as present at the entrance). I didn't have any problems with my old worn-out toms soles.

Always enough space on the dancefloor. Music as always mostly unknown tunes, hard to judge because depending on your taste. DJ Mimo prefers experimental tunes, which can be hit or miss depending on your mood and dance partner. Music was not too loud, but I often prefer earplugs nevertheless.

Only thing I disliked were the suggested dresscodes - what's the sense of wearing ugly socks? Supposed to be funny I guess, but my eyes didn't like it.
 
Review 2nd Geneva Perfectly Mambo Festival

Again a great festival for the on2 crowd, I had lots of memorable dances. Organizers talked of 300 registrations, I like this size. Ratio seemed nearly equal this time, maybe a few followers more. This year many dancers from the german speaking part of Switzerland were present, different to last time. Good organization, every morning a newsletter with news regarding changes due to weather and recommendations. No workshops (except one from local Fred Dancefloor), no stars, no videographers on the floor, none of the in-crowd dancers from the dancehouse series.

Air was much better this time, they had installed half a dozen big mobile aircon machines. It also helped that outside temperature was ten degrees celsius lower than last year.

Floor felt sticky to many people, they powdered as hell or wore these sole substitutes you can wrap around your shoes (they were given as present at the entrance). I didn't have any problems with my old worn-out toms soles.

Always enough space on the dancefloor. Music as always mostly unknown tunes, hard to judge because depending on your taste. DJ Mimo prefers experimental tunes, which can be hit or miss depending on your mood and dance partner. Music was not too loud, but I often prefer earplugs nevertheless.

Only thing I disliked were the suggested dresscodes - what's the sense of wearing ugly socks? Supposed to be funny I guess, but my eyes didn't like it.
Do you plan to attend next year as well? What was the highlight of the event for you? Who was you favorite DJ?
 
Do you plan to attend next year as well? What was the highlight of the event for you? Who was you favorite DJ?
Sure I plan to attend again next year. It's not far for me, the festival is good quality and the city always nice to visit in summer.

I always prefer afternoon socials over late night dancing, so no surprise saturday afternoon was my best experience. Of all good dances one stays in my memory: I knew my follower from other festivals, and we created something beautiful to some unusual song, improvising a lot. I always wanted to dance like this, and there is still a long way to go in this direction.

There was no particular DJ that I constantly liked or disliked. Music was never bad, but sometimes not my vibe. I loved the rare moments when I knew a song.
 
Passes for Magic are selling from today, so I'm seeking an informed opinion:
Will I be OK (as a lead) dancing strictly on 1 on that festival? I've never danced on 2 (and just returned to dancing after a several-year hiatus). If every second follower is going to frown upon dancing on 1 or make a deal out of it, I'd rather skip this event.
Thoughts?
 
Passes for Magic are selling from today, so I'm seeking an informed opinion:
Will I be OK (as a lead) dancing strictly on 1 on that festival? I've never danced on 2 (and just returned to dancing after a several-year hiatus). If every second follower is going to frown upon dancing on 1 or make a deal out of it, I'd rather skip this event.
Thoughts?

You'll be fine.
 
Not personally, but have seen a ton of insta stories and talked to 'survivors'. My impression from those is it was nice with the exception of night parties where police has shown up several times and the music had to be turned down dramatically for long periods of time.
Weird enough their website is down since the day after the festival... Inspector Colombo, can you take over the case?
 
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Has anyone been to Dance Casa in Budapest? What do you think? What about All stars in Budapest?

Been to All Stars 3 times, and 3 times I was disappointed and decided to do other things in Budapest (like stare at the ceiling) . It's a very mixed event. The level of dancing is low overall. Music is totally dependent on the DJs, but it's clear this event is more for the party people and not the music afficionados. I can only comment on the Salsa xbody room, which is usually an afterthought at this event. You might run into Johnny Vasquez who loves attending Hungarian festivals.
 
Passes for Magic are selling from today, so I'm seeking an informed opinion:
Will I be OK (as a lead) dancing strictly on 1 on that festival? I've never danced on 2 (and just returned to dancing after a several-year hiatus). If every second follower is going to frown upon dancing on 1 or make a deal out of it, I'd rather skip this event.
Thoughts?
I basically did the same thing as a follower. I was fine. I watched dancers and asked those who were clearly compatible. There were groups from several places, some predominantly on1. Others were skilled enough to properly switch between on1 and on2. I spent a couple of weeks in Slovenia and loved it :)
 
The police? :cool: It's famously loud at salsa festivals, obviously the venue had no good isolation. Location wasn't far from Reeperbahn, so I'm astonished. So probably not to be at the same location next year.
Yeah, apparently they were still under the allowed decibel-threshold but in my understanding the police still have to come out whenever there's a complaint. They say hi, very politely, measure, and then say bye, again, very politely. So, technically, the promoter was in the right but still somewhat intimidated. Since I'm no Columbo I can't speak on the other issue but I wouldn't read too much into it.
 
Looks like SalsaRave in Barcelona is going to be well attended, based on what I see on social media. What's a bit puzzling to me is that there is an event in Madrid the same weekend? Seems like it would have been more wise to have the Madrid event the weekend after and they could have probably got some of the folks that are in Spain for Rave.

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Looks like SalsaRave in Barcelona is going to be well attended, based on what I see on social media. What's a bit puzzling to me is that there is an event in Madrid the same weekend? Seems like it would have been more wise to have the Madrid event the weekend after and they could have probably got some of the folks that are in Spain for Rave.

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First time I'm hearing about this event. It's not even advertised on FB? I tried looking for it but nada. Just a couple of interviews with some stars with single digits views.

If they're barely advertising an event packed with this many celebs, it must mean they are not targeting a high level social dancing crowd, which is what Salsa Rave is attracting. Either that or the organizational team thinks it won't matter.. But no one I know would choose this over Salsarave.

Someone told me they expect 800 people at Salsarave, which is double what it was last year. Thanks to word of mouth of the Salsa dancers, this event spread like wildfire.
 
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