On Salsorro 2010

So here are my thoughts on Salsorro:

Overall - Great social dancing, good organisation. Really fantastic social dancing with some great dancers, workshops organised so you can sleep in all morning and dance till breakfast at 7am without feeling like you'll be missing anything the next day. Artists readily available and happy to dance with you, generally chilled out atmosphere and very friendly participants. I never got turned down for a dance and generally enjoyed every dance I had! Would even have liked to take a couple of the dancers home with me to be able to dance with them on a weekly basis... ;))

Let's break it down:

1. Prices
1. Flights - Getting to Santiago de Compostella is a bit of a nightmare. From London you can fly via Madrid (but this will take you all day), via Porto or via A Coruna. A Coruna it turns out, is the best option, with only a 45min train journey into Santiago. We went via Porto this year and had the option of a group bus for a €50 return ticket or a group car rental for slightly less. I took the car option but if you're doing this, I would fully recommend taking an up to date GPS and a friend who doesn't dance until the early hours of the morning and will thus ensure you have a safe ride! For info, all flights are at least £50 return.
2. Pass prices - There is only one pass. Salsorro only sells full passes and these are mostly packages with hotels. It's not cheap! Ours was €265 for the 5 star hotel, the full congress pass and the gala dinner on the Saturday night. Not bad, but throw in prices and transport and it's more expensive than your average city break. 
3. Hotels -  There are many hotels in the area and most importantly, the door to the 5 star hotel is about 50 meters away from the entry to the congress venue. Convenient as Galicia in November is absolutely FREEZING! The door to the 4 start hotel is maybe 300 meters away. Bring a decent coat!
4. Bottled water - Water bottles were about 33cl at the bar and cost €1.50. Ridiculous prices. Nevertheless, having spent about €10 the first night, we were able to bring our own bottles in the following night to drink on location and refill in the loos. Many were overjoyed with the size of the rum shot in the rum and coke - pay for one, get three, and all for €4.50! 

Hotel Puerta del Camino *****

1. Venue
1. Floor - Marble. Slippery, except where spillages had occurred and pretty hard. Not as bad as Zurich though, so perhaps it was lower quality marble. Managed to keep dancing till 7am with only an hour of pain at the end - not much pressure on knees though so that's good!
2. Number of dance floors - Two. One was larger and dedicated to mambo floor and the other was smaller and supposedly played a wider mix of bachata and cuban...I can't say I ever heard so much as a song on the other dance floor. It was perhaps 40 meters away but there was enough good stuff happening on the large floor that there was no need to walk away from it. 
3. Workshops vs. parties - All in same venue so all great. Workshops started in the afternoon so you could happily party all night and sleep all morning without being worried you might miss something. Only 3 choices of workshops per hour though and not all performers (even the good ones like Baila Society) were given a teaching slot. I guess you could book privates if you wanted to, but essentially it made for crowded workshops and little choice. Better for hanging out and being silly around the venue than actually learning something in my opinion. Salsorro really wasn't about the workshops though - the parties were what sold the event.
4. Show seats - Large auditorium in which everyone had pre-assigned seats. Good visibility from pretty much everywhere. Great lighting on the stage made some of the earlier shows look better than they perhaps were too!
5. Show visibility - Independent of where you sit (see above)
6. Workshop visibility - Decent, artists were highly elevated for both of the main workshop rooms.  Rooms crowded by artists visible from everywhere.
7. Workshop organisation Not much need given size of rooms/venue
2. Crowd
1. Workshops - High level within workshops means that artists are able to teach according to plan
2. Parties - Very high level of dancing - no complaints. Only had one average cha cha all weekend and one gratuitous "progressing friend" dance. All else wonderful. Artists easily accessible on dance floor and happy to dance with everyone. 
3. Size - Large. Not enormous, but big enough to be able to dance with new people every night and yet be able to dance with people again if and when you wanted to. Was great for making friends and dancing over and over again with the sweet leads you met along the way!
4. After parties - No such thing - no need for an afterparty when the party goes on till 7am!  Perfectly finishing in time for breakfast, and on Saturday night, about 40 minutes after the beginning of breakfast!
3. Line-up
1. Quality of teaching - Good. Number of high quality teachers. Adrian y Anita, Eddie & Melissa, Yamulee, Cobo Brothers, Magna Gopal, Supermario and Tropical Gem to name a few.
2. Choice of workshops - Small. Three per hour. 3 decent slots per day, more if you want to do lifts/tricks, rueda and zouk classes...
3. Number of shows - One set per night, start at 11h30. Solid organisation and seating meant that it didn't really make sense to skip these. Shows of high quality on Friday and Saturday. Sunday is audition night for local teams (and some others) to try out on stage and see if they can get picked for the next year. Work skipping this one if you're tired - there was only one show that might conceivably have been to the standard of the two other nights. Unless you're an aspiring performer, you might just find this quite entertaining though! ;)
4. Artists on dance floor - Yup. And no grouping factor. Easy to find and track them down. From the moment I decided I wanted to dance with Adolfo until my actual dance with him there was only the wait until the end of the next song. Same with James and Milton Cobo. Pretty decent to not have much of a queue on the dance floor for artists of their calibre...
4. Location
1. Centralised - While not in one single hotel, the venue was within 1 minute walk. Very straightforward. The town is a 20 minute walk away and the cathedral is worth seeing. Good restaurants within 5 minutes of the venue if you don't want to eat what's on offer in your hotel.
2. Distance from airport - 2.5 hours from Porto by car
3. Time from London - 2 hours by plane
4. Number of days off work - Two necessary due to travelling times and limited number of flights.

For more information check out the website: Salsorro website