Overall – Best festival I
have been to in a while. It’s been two weeks and I’m still on a dance high. I
have such bad PCD (post congress depression) that I couldn’t bring myself to
dance at SOS this past Sunday – the music just wouldn’t speak to me after a
string of amazing DJ sets backed up by amazing dances. More than twice over the
weekend in Timisoara, I felt a distinct internal smile while dancing. Not from
the dance itself which was wonderful, but as the thought “it doesn’t get much
better than this whole weekend” passed through my mind. Fantastic DJ sets and
unbelievable social dancing all night long. Really chilled atmosphere. Really
great time. I’m battling the idea of spreading the word vs. keeping the secret
of this awesome festival to myself to preserve it from change. I can’t wait to
go back.
Priceless moments:
-
Dancing
with Terry to one of my favourite songs (and randomly being asked afterwards if
I was a bachata teacher?!)
-
Feeling
like a princess from a dance with Nuno (he has that effect on people)
-
Having
more “wow” dances than I would have timidly asked for with Brian Lieber
-
Dancing
the most amazing cha cha with a Romanian DJ and being asked whether I was a
west coast dancer (not yet, but I want to be!)
-
Multiple
westie dances to zouk and mini westie tuition moments
Prices
1. Flights – Cheap flights
to Timisoara via Luton on Wizzair, but only if you fly out on Thursday and back
on Tuesday. Otherwise it’s double the price via Munich.
2. Pass prices – I think I got
my full pass for about €90 doing a double pass combo deal. Very reasonable I
think given that that’s how much some party passes cost these days.
3. Hotels – I stayed in the
official congress hotel, the Boavista. It is a 5 minute walk from the party
venue and the closest hotel. The hotel costs c.€40 per night per room but I
think you can get 50% off by booking via the SAF website.
4. Water – It was 6 lei
per water/soft drink, that’s about £1.10 for a water bottle or Pepsi. You could
bring in water during the day or night, but they clamped down a little on this
practice at the Sunday night party.
Venue
1. Floor – Perfect wooden
floor (large) put down for the occasion. No reason to dance anywhere else. The
conditions were perfect in my humble opinion.
2. Number of dance
floors – The main floor
was salsa which was mainly LA/NY style. The odd Cuban, bachata were thrown in.
There was a separate kizomba/bachata room but having not bothered to peek
inside, I’m not sure how large it was. Apparently they played sets of 5 kizomba
then 5 bachatas – I understood from feedback that it would have been better if
these had been mixed up a bit more. On Sunday night, there was no
kizomba/bachata room so they played a lot more in the main room to keep
everyone happy. This actually worked quite well.
3. Workshops vs.
parties - Same venue for
everything. Bit of crowding in some of the more popular workshops (e.g. Alafia)
which should have been afforded a bigger room.
4. Show seats. If you arrived
early, you got a seat. They were open to everyone. The others could stand or
perch on tables on the side.
5. Show visibility. Very good from
where I was sitting!
6. Workshop
visibility. Great
in the main room and less crowded workshops. I gave up on the Alafia workshop
because I couldn’t see any of them.
7. Workshop
organisation. Depends
on the teachers I guess but no real crowding issues at the front.
Only issue with the
venue – People are allowed to smoke inside in Romania! Not great for asthmatic
friends of mine. But ultimately if you stayed away from the bar, it was ok.
Crowd
1. Workshops. Good level,
busy classes.
2. Parties – Massive French
contingent, busload of Croatians and a whole lot of Romanians. Quite a lot of
dancing artists also taking up the floor. High level of social dancing, lots of
musicality brimming around!
3. Size – Medium to large
– You could pretty much always see where people were and grab them for dances
when you wanted them. The boy/girl balance was such that I never had to run
after anyone for a dance and at times even felt like I was being sought out. When
Mauri played one of my favourite songs I turned around and found Terry happily
ready to dance with me. This sort of thing would never happen in
Berlin/Amsterdam/Rovinj/Zurich. But in Timi, we locked eyes, he put his hand
out and I got to have a awesome dance with one of the most musical men out
there. Bliss. And I have multiple such stories from the whole weekend!
4. After parties – The parties
ended at 7am. Breakfast opened at 7am. Call it perfect. The Boavista breakfast
had yummy fried eggs, breads and then cereals, cheese and meets and spreads as
well…Lots to choose from but the friend eggs were the best!
Line-up
1. Quality of teaching – Great list of
artists, not too much riff raff. Great classes all around.
2. Choice of workshops – 4 workshops per
hour, usually at least one or two were bachata/kizomba/semba etc.
3. Number of shows – Enough. Not too
many, but enough. I
actually saw them all (for once!). No shows on Thursday, only 4 on Sunday (no
chairs) but about an hour of shows on the other two nights. There were some
quality performances and some premieres in the mix as well. Some stage
accidents unfortunately (boob issues, falling over, choreo problems) but good
recoveries from all.
4. Artists on the
dance floor. The congress
generally had a really friendly vibe with few snobs and show offs. The artists
were surprisingly present on the dance floor and I think only Adolfo and Tania
put in a very limited showing by coming out with sneakers on and practically
only dancing with each other before disappearing again. Didn’t even see much of
them at the bar!
5. DJs. Great lineup
with little drinking on the job. Willy (AMS), Willy (FR), Mauri, Romy and
Marten (Cluj). Honestly could not have asked for better music. Generally medium speed, not
overly fast, not quite enough cha cha (but realise that is crowd dependent).
There were times when I had to stop dancing to wipe my brow but had the sweat
not stopped me, my feet would have likely started sending me messages!
6. Bands. No live music.
Location
1. Central location? The venue was
c.5 minutes walk from the hotel. From the hotel to the centre of town it was a
20 minute walk, 15 minutes in a cab and a cost of £2 to the sole shopping mall
(Lulius Mall) on the other side of town – free wifi, foodhall and shopping!
2. Distance from the
airport – 20-30minutes by
car depending on the time of travel. Roughly 40 lei, so £8 in total to be divided amongst passengers
3. Time to London - Approximately
2.5 hours on a direct flight.
4. Number of days off
work. Three
to four days required, depending on whether you want to go to work after
landing at 8:30am at Luton on the day after a congress. I took the day off, had
a 2 hour nap, went to bed early and finished recovering. Overall taking a
little bit more time off just helped the whole experience be more relaxing and
enjoyable!
For more information,
check out the website here: http://www.salsaaddictedfestival.com
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