Overall - I was pretty disappointed by this one. For me, the festival lacked "heart". There was nothing wrong with the organisation, but the music and the people didn't give me the amazing congress feeling that I'm used to. I didn't feel like I belonged there, that my addiction to salsa dancing was satisfied or that my dancing skill was pushed to another level. This is a personal view though, it may well be that others beside me were having the time of their lives and that I simply failed to connect to that same feeling. And despite this, as a congress addict, I'm still glad I went!
Prices
1. Flights - There are direct flights from London to Marseille. Note however that the congress takes place of the Easter weekend, so while you will benefit from two free days off work, the flights will likely not be cheap as you will be competing with people who are flying home to see their families.
2. Pass prices - These were seriously overpriced at €190 for a full pass (discounted if you buy early). There were varied options for buying segmented parties. Annoyingly, the most interesting pass for me, a three-workshop pass for Sunday only came available a week before the event when I thought I'd already paid for another, more expensive pass. Luckily though, something backfired with the booking system so I was able to change my mind and ultimately sleep through the morning! I'm sure others weren't so lucky. The parties were exorbitantly priced at €40-50 per night. Only at the door did it become clear that you could skip the performances and save €20 off that price!
3. Hotels - There is a semi-official Ibis congress hotel, but given the distance from the congress (10 minutes walk), there is little incentive to stay there rather than somewhere else that is nearby and cheaper. My hotel came to €40 per night for a double room and was brand new (still a hole in the ground in google maps when I checked Street View!). There are many other alternatives in the area, but note that while it's easy to go site-seeing from there, you will require public transport if you wish to do so.
4. Water - Drinks were reasonable, with soft drinks, water, alcohol and even fresh smoothies available all day and night in the venue. You could drink water from the tap in the bathroom if you wanted to, but it wasn't overly necessary. It is important to note under this category, which should be renamed "key foodstuffs for survival" that they also had a pancake stand making delicious nutella pancakes all night long. All congresses need this!
Venue
1. Floor - New wood floor in the main room - pretty slippery but nothing fundamentally wrong with it. The other room was more sticky and much smaller.
2. Number of dance floors - A big dance floor for LA/Mambo which mostly which was medium to fast speed, one for Cuban salsa/kizomba/bachata.
3. Workshops vs. parties - Same venue for everything. I'm told some of the workshops were done on carpet making it hard to spin, but I didn't see those rooms.
4. Show seats. Loads of seats though seemingly not enough room for me! Apparently on the first night, they were so adamant that no one should stand that hundreds of people were kept outside of the room and not allowed in. Anyone having paid a mild fortune for the full pass would have been within their rights to be quite annoyed!
5. Show visibility. Fine. You could even watch them from outside the door through the peepholes and see pretty well! Standing on the side worked for me too.
6. Workshop visibility. Decent in the two main ballrooms - high stages helped.
7. Workshop organisation. Seemed fine, though not sure which idiot decided to schedule Frankie Martinez to teach in the small room!
Crowd
1. Workshops. Decent level, well populated classes - Frankie's workshop was pretty intense and packed but most people seemed happy standing on top of each other behind the master!
2. Parties - Mainly French crowd, some Swiss and a few Germans but fairly limited. The French were primarily southern French dancers, with a fairly reduced Paris contingent. The level of social dancing was reasonably low for a large congress - most dancers were proficient, but there were none worth watching and I didn't find anyone new to dance with who was particularly inspiring or creative. It felt like people were primarily dancing with their own local mini-crowds, with very little mixing between cliques. People would say hello to those they knew from other cliques but not dance with them - very strange!
3. Size - Medium to large - perhaps twice the size of Karlsruhe.
4. After parties - There were no after parties, except on Sunday when the party moved to the small room and took on an after party vibe (i.e. no lights and completely random mix of music to try and keep everyone yet no one happy). The parties ended at 5am on Friday and Saturday and at 6h30 on Sunday.
Line-up
1. Quality of teaching - All I can say is Frankie Martinez and Lori Perez' workshops made my weekend! Both of them were inspiring. Eddie Torres would have made my day too if he hadn't decided to teach partnerwork ("rock and roll" - a slightly disturbing move to do 50 times with one partner) during his footwork slot!
2. Choice of workshops - Decent choice. They had a good artist lineup and mostly had the best artists teaching at accessible times (though Lori did have a 9am class - personally I think that's just silly)...
3. Number of shows - About 1h30 of shows per night - did not justify the €10-€20 price. What really didn't make sense was that they charged €10 for the shows on Saturday and €20 for a similar quality presentation on Sunday. I saw most of the shows, but had aimed to skip them as they were running at least an hour late every night. The new routine by the Swing Guys is good though probably not a classic for them. Frankie was beyond awesome (and wasn't even supposed to perform).
4. Artists on the dance floor. They were around but frankly spread out. I wouldn't have said they were that accessible to the average congress goer and they weren't really trying to show off either. Frankie created a few circles and I'm still waiting for the youtube rendition of his cha cha with Lori (I was busy dancing at the time but would love to see it).
5. DJs. I will not name and shame as I think these are the guys responsible for killing my congress experience. There was quite simply, no flow. The DJs were out to prove something to each other by playing vinyls but because of that kept cutting off the beginning and end of songs - very frustrating as a dancer! Not only does it ruin the final moments of every dance, leaving you with a bad taste, it also gives you less time to enjoy the end of a song and find a new partner for the next one because you're already half way through the song once you've got past your confusion at skipping the end of the last one!
6. Bands. Jimmy Bosch y su Orchestra played on Saturday night and Los Van Van on Friday. I missed Friday's concert, but Jimmy Bosch rocked it! He may in fact be the reason for the DJ music feeling flat once the concert was over...
Location
1. Central location? The venue was an old warehouse in the port of Marseille and everything took place there. There was in fact nothing in the area (not even a Starbucks) so they had a pretty captive market in terms of food and drink. Distance to hotels was a 10-15 minute walk, but they also had trams running along to the venue for the extra lazy.
2. Distance from the airport - 20 mins in a taxi to the airport (and about €60 due to the bank holiday tarif). At least 45 minutes using public transport but a lot cheaper - about €10 the whole way.
3. Time to London - Approximately 2 hours on a direct flight.
4. Number of days off work. No days required - it's Easter! Note however that it's quite difficult to get people to come to this congress with you as many people have family engagements over Easter. I also found that people lacked interest because they thought it would be "too French" and finally also because it was rather expensive from the point of view of the passes.
For more information, check out the website here: http://www.massiliasalsacongress.com/2012/
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