Had a great turn out at the first Yonge and Bloor Blues event and you could say it was a bit of success. We had about sixty to seventy people throughout the course of the event. This by itself is not a lot of people compared to our local lindy hop saturday night dance (which tops over a hundred guests) but we were pleasantly surprised by the turn out.
What I was really most ecstatic about was the fact that the majority of people came out to Kevin and Brooke’s drop-in beginner blues class and stuck around for the dancing. New people being introduced to blues dancing from the beginning instead of being an after band dance at Dovercourt or at the pubs. Wowzee crazee?
A couple quick thoughts I had about the event though:
- Organizing is hard work. Lots of work goes behind the scenes just to put on a very “simple social”.
- Getting the right mood with the music selection is a lot harder than it seems (need to find/grow more blues DJs in our scene).
- People will ask a lot of questions about blues dancing and about the event. Be prepared to spend time chatting with new dancers and doing a bit of educating.
Overall, I’m glad the first event was “successful”. However, success is a double edged sword. If the event had not gone well or if nobody showed up, we could have just dusted off our hands and said, “well at least we tried, time to move on to something else” (like dancing). Now we actually have to follow-up and host another one.
More to come later.
Toronto Blues Website
I started a blogroll (mainly for myself), to keep track of the new blues events/happenings going around in Toronto. Semi useful information and a few songs now and then.
Check it out: http://torontobluesdance.com
by Randy
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