On Salsafestival Switzerland 2011 (Review)

So here are my thoughts on The Zurich Salsa Festival 2011:

Overall
Let's break it down:- This is probably the biggest and best congress in Europe and simply unmissable to any congress freak. The artist lineup was amazing, the number of dance floors was unsurpassed but the after parties alone made the whole event worthwhile attending. Was it the best congress ever? No. Why? Quite frankly it was too big. Was it still memorable? Beyond belief. Why's that? Did I mention the after parties?

Prices

1. Flights - Getting to Zurich is easy. As a European transport hub, you can get there from virtually anywhere, at virtually any time. The airport in Zurich is specially geared to getting customers off the plane and into the city within half an hour. It's painless. The prices tend to be expensive, as is the case with everything that's even remotely related to Switzerland, but if you book early, or are flexible with times, it can be done reasonably cheaply. From the airport, a train into Central Zurich takes about 10mins and costs c.CHF6.30 (if my memory serves me right). If you attend the after parties, you will need to take Monday off, but you can happily work Friday and head to the airport after work without missing much of the event.
2. Pass prices - Standard options, high prices, booking early helps, group bookings will get you a reduction of 10%. A full pass is at least CHF 200, so prepare to part with the cash!
3. Hotels - There are loads of hotels to choose from, with the cheapest and most conveniently located to be found in the red light district. These are a pleasant 15-20 minute walk from the venue, maybe 10 minutes walk away from the main station and big supermarket (which, beware, is closed on Sunday, but otherwise the cheapest food option around). We stayed in Hotel Marta this year, a 2 star hotel that was 5 minutes from the station. It's decked out like a hostel, but newly redone and clean. Breakfast was included - simple but plentiful. Staff were friendly despite our breakfast shenanigans!
4. Bottled water - Not even worth it! Ridiculous prices for everything inside the venue. Attempting to smuggle in water bottles to the congress is a great idea, just be careful, they tend to check bags, though they do this superficially. Note that they were also checking for advanced photographic equipment this year.

Venue

1. Floor - Hardwood. Perfect for dancing, but note that dancing all night long will eventually take its toll and you will end up with sore feet anyway! Blame the dancers or the music, not the floor.
2. Number of dance floors - Six! Mambo, Cuban, Romantica, Kizomba, Beginners', Tropical (I think)….Unless you fit into one of the latter five categories, there's strictly no reason for you to leave the main mambo room until they kick you out for the after party. There were some weird sets this year and a number of us spent some time on Saturday night moaning about the music, but this was still not sufficient to push me to go looking for new pastures - there were simply too many good dancers in the main room to be able to walk away from it!
3. Workshops vs. parties - All in same venue so all good. Workshops started at 11am and went through till 6pm. Dancing through the after parties makes morning workshops pretty tricky…6 choices of workshops per hour means there are many options for whatever you like and yet it was well-planned so there were not too many conflicts. My personal beef was that they kept putting Yamulee at the same time as Maykel Fonts. Understandable, but still annoying!
4. Show seats - Maybe 5% of show watchers get seats upstairs and everyone else has to stand. It's worth getting there early to find somewhere to dump your stuff and sit…All in good preparation for the after party of course! Note that the shows pretty much started on time - insert your Swiss clock reference here...
5. Show visibility - Limited from the seats which put you either too far away or at an angle. To be honest, it's a choice between foot preservation and a better view...
6. Workshop visibility - Decent, artists were highly elevated for all workshops.
7. Workshop organisation - Not much need given size of rooms/venue

Crowd

1. Workshops - Good level within workshops means that artists are able to teach according to plan
2. Parties - Very high level of dancing - no complaints. Artists easily accessible on dance floor and happy to dance with everyone (or me anyway!)
3. Size - So large it was difficult to tell whether you weren't seeing people because they weren't attending the congress or because they were on the other side of the dance floor. I'm not kidding when I say I ran into people on Saturday night at 5am for the first time all weekend. It was difficult to grab more than one dance with any one person and if it weren't for the after parties, I probably would not have danced with any person more than once in the weekend. Honestly, it was slightly too big a congress and lost some of its character and charm because of this.
4. After parties - These were brilliant and provided the best memories of the congress. Between 4am and 7am+ every day, this was the time when only the hardcore, brilliant salsaholics remained. Amazing music by DJ Lobo, fantastic dancers, all bachata/zouk lovers relegated to a separate room - the hard core salsa freaks were there for the picking. The music was awesome and it was sheer bliss. Without these sensational little add-ons to every night, Zurich this year would quite frankly not have been as memorable!

Line-up

1. Quality of teaching - Great lineup. Nothing to critique other than the fact that Juan Matos was quite obviously drunk during his final workshop.
2. Choice of workshops - Wide ranging - made it easy to avoid doing bachata/zouk/swing style classes. Note that I actually skived all workshops on Sunday except the final Yamulee advanced class - but I was tired and we were having fun bumming around Zurich...
3. Number of shows - One set on Friday (didn't see them), two on Saturday with only a 45 minute break in between, one on Sunday. The crowd was so large that a couple of people fainted at one point! On Sunday they premiered a new concept - one song, multiple choreographies. 6 shows were put together by some of the world's most recognised names, all to the same song. These were all brilliant and a joy to watch! The quality of the shows in Zurich was generally exceptional. They had thousands of artists yet only the best performed on Saturday and Sunday. As a result, the shows were definitely worth watching and not sleeping through.
4. Artists on dance floor - Yup. Slight grouping around the DJ booth, but mostly accessible to all (by which, again, I mean ME!). Some properly mingled and others were there to party amongst themselves. Most turned out to dance on Sunday night once the pressure of the shows was over. I think I danced with over 10 artists on Sunday, pretty much by accident. My favourites were Adrian and the two Victors - smooth and smiley, it doesn't get much better than that! I had never danced with Victor from HYM before and I have to say, he has gone straight to the top of my list of all time favourite artists to dance with - exceptionally smooth lead, great musicality and winning smile!
5. DJs - Big shout out to DJ Lobo who spun most of the after party music. Wasn't too impressed with the main mambo music, but found it hard to put a thumb on why exactly it felt "off". Can't remember who was behind the decks, and don't want to name and blame anyway!
6. Bands - Victor Manuelle opened on Friday. Amazing sound, amazing showman, fantastic charisma. Completely memorable experience. Maybe that's why the dancing afterwards felt a little flat?

Location

1. Centralised - While not in one single hotel and involving daily walks around Zurich, the city is so small and beautiful that it must be forgiven. Everything is easy to find and easily accessible. Restaurants are expensive, but there's a cheap kebab shop doing fast food on the way down one of the cobbled streets that makes great food for far less money than anywhere else and in no time at all. Definitely a favourite!
2. Distance from airport - 20 minutes hotel to airport - 10 mins on the train form the Hauptbahnhof.
3. Time from London - 1.5 hours by plane
4. Number of days off work - Only one needed - purely for recovery purposes!

For more information check out the website: Salsa Festival Switzerland website