On Istanbul Dance Festival 2011

Overall - Istanbul Dance Festival aka the Car Park Congress was my favourite non-beach congress of 2011. This was a congress where I loved the music the most, had the best dances and was surrounded by some of my best friends. The experience was also heightened by the fact that I did not have to work all weekend and was able to relax and enjoy myself for the first time in a couple of months. The social dance level was very high, the artists were out in force, inspiring and dancing with everyone, the music had some serious flow to it and the backdrop of Istanbul and its amazing Turkish food made this congress more memorable than any other. Oh, and I got to see a full 1.5 hour Frankie Martinez production. Truly memorable!


The general consensus from the artists appears not to have been as positive as my personal experience, with many disappointed with the organisation, the timing, the venue. It's not clear whether there will be another such event in 2012. From my perspective, that would just elevate the Car Park Congress to the mythical once-in-a-lifetime congresses that stand out in memory as unique moments of joy (e.g. Athens). If it does happen again, I'm not sure I'd go, as I wouldn't want to mess with the memories!

Prices

1. Flights - There are direct flights to Istanbul, the most convenient ones I found left from Stansted, taking off at midnight and landing 4 hours later. As Turkey is two hours ahead, you basically land at 6am and get into town in time for breakfast. This is highly time efficient but not great for checking into hotels, meeting up with friends who went to bed 30 minutes before your arrival or getting a decent night sleep before some serious partying! For reference, my flights cost £162, which was a pretty decent deal.

2. Pass prices - We all got full passes as we wanted to take classes with Frankie and because we managed to get a good group discount. Annoyingly, I can't remember how much it was, but it was cheap enough to make it worthwhile getting a full pass and yet only turn up to about 2 workshops.

3. Hotels - There was no official hotel but lots of mini hotels and apartments for rent in the congress area (near Taksim which is rather like the Piccadilly Circus of Istanbul). My wonderful friend organised everything, such that we paid about €30 (or less, can't remember) per night and were staying in a building where 3 flats were occupied by our friends. Our unit slept three and had a large sitting room area. This proved to be a really decent hangout place between touristic trips into town, dinners and parties.

4. Water - Drink prices were reasonable at the venue and water was available at the makeshift bar (it was in a car park remember!) The food on site however was absolutely awful, not helped by the fact that the weekend weather involved constant torrential rain and that there was nothing available within a ten minute walk.

Venue

1. Floor - As mentioned before, the party was held in a car park. The dance floors were sectioned off by temporary screen walls and the flooring itself was brought in specially for the occasion. Within the makeshift rooms, the floor was clean, even and very very slippery - I wore jazz shoes for two nights to get more stability and bought myself a new pair of heals on day 2, as there was no amount of scratching that would give my old heels sufficient grip to finish a dance in a vertical position. 

2. Number of dance floors - While I only danced in the LA/Mambo room, there was a Cuban/Romantica/Bachata/Kizomba room and a hip hop room as well. There may have been a separate bachata room too, but I never went in it, so am not sure what it played! Not sure about the hip hop room, but the others were pretty busy most of the time. Between the dance floors was an open area, adorned with speed bumps (it was an actual car park remember?) in which you could hear a mess of noise coming from the various dance areas. Luckily though, when dancing, you could only hear the relevant speaker system!

3. Workshops vs. parties - Same venue for everything. 

4. Show seats. The venue was a large congress center that went one story up and 7 stories down. The shows were held in a massive (and I mean massive) auditorium at -2, with plush seats and plunging views. I watched the full Abakua production on Friday (and loved it), half the shows on Saturday (they were running late and I had a nap from about 10pm till midnight and timed my entrance perfectly on Sunday to skip all of them. 

5. Show visibility. Fine. There were still loads of seats when I arrived half way through on Saturday, so I sat up front and had a great view.

6. Workshop visibility. Mini stages only, some of the bigger-names' workshops (e.g. Aldofo, Frankie, African Jet) were very busy such that you couldn't always see. Frankie's workshops were disastrous - people crowding the front like crazy fans - if you weren't on the front row, it was a waste of time. 

7. Workshop organisation. No issues from my perspective.

Crowd

1. Workshops. Decent level, busy classes - Frankie's workshop was packed and people generally seemed quite frustrated by it.

2. Parties - Very international crowd, with maybe 40% (or less?) who were local dancers (but many of them still very good). I think I had one bad dance with a Turkish local all weekend (my only bad dance all weekend mind you). I don't think the Turkish dancers were mingling that much, but everyone else was really open and sociable, easily approachable and in the mood to dance. The parties went on till 7am every morning and we had absolutely no trouble dancing till the very last song!

3. Size - Medium - There were loads of people there, but it was possible to dance with friends and favourites more than once per night, to find and dance with the appropriate person for every song (without much fighting) and to make new discoveries every night as well.

4. After parties - No need. The parties went on until 7am with awesome music all the way through. 

Line-up

1. Quality of teaching - High. Great line-up. I personally really enjoyed a styling class with Ana Masacote, but didn't spend much time doing workshops as I wanted to see the city and was enjoying hanging out in shisha bars with friends instead.

2. Choice of workshops - 4 per hour - always a decent salsa option available.

3. Number of shows - About 1.5 hours per night. Quite frankly too many, which is why skipping half of them and sleeping instead was a great idea! 

4. Artists on the dance floor. Half the floor was a Frankie circle, but most of the artists were out and dancing every night - Magna and Terry were tireless as usual. The African Jet boys put up a good effort as did Neeraj, in between running and hiding from the usual flocks and women. Even the Latin Soul Dancers, the Baila Society peeps and the Cobo Brothers came out, albeit for a shorter period of time. 

5. DJs. Fabrizio Zorro (Milan), Willy (NL), Cisko (Belgium), Latin Master (NL) and a host of others. Not one of them played a bad set. The flow was epic - you could dance every song and never stop because they changed the pace such that you could just keep on dancing the whole night through. Complete and utter joy.

6. Bands. No band, but the DJs did such a great job, that it honestly did not matter.

Location

1. Central location? The venue was a conference center about 15 minutes walk from Taksim. The entrance hall was lovely, but the congress was held at level -7 in a car park. I'm told that they had been scheduled to have a proper ballroom higher up in the building, but that a last minute issue with the venue relegated them to the car park level. Lots of people were put out by this, but honestly, it was part of the charm of the congress!

2. Distance from the airport - About 30 minutes in a taxi or bus. Taxis aren't really worth the money unless you share and then it's still cheaper to take the shuttle to and from Taksim. It's probably worth mentioning that Istanbul is so large you practically need to give your taxi driver directions to anywhere that isn't a major landmark. And you'll be expected to pay for the time that they spend driving around looking lost too!

3. Time to London - Approximately 4.5 hours on a direct flight.

4. Number of days off work. 2 days required. Given flight times to Turkey, it's not really possible to work on Friday without skipping the Friday night party (not worth doing given the quality of the dancing!)

For more information, check out the website here: http://www.istanbuldancefestival.org/web/default.asp

On Massilia Salsa Congress 2012

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/