On MamboCity's 5 Star Salsa Congress 2011

Overall

Great congress. Well organised, great location and fantastic music. It was like a big SOS with more people, more time to dance and better artists. Pitfalls were a serious lack of powerful air conditioning and rubbish after parties (at least there were after parties though!). The location is great for anyone coming from Heathrow but doesn't really favour those who live in the centre of London. Still, it's so close to home that it's unavoidable and totally worth the small hassle of getting there!

I only did the parties this year so cannot comment on all aspects, but here are my thoughts regarding my common congress-comparison criteria.

Prices

1. Flights - Easily accessible from Heathrow, the ultimate transport hub. Free buses from Heathrow too (5mins down the road). What's not to love? No flights needed for Londoners!

2. Pass prices - Not at all bad. Party pass was £55, which seems cheap, but note that this didn't include shows (well, there was a video screen outside if you really wanted to see them). Also while the after parties ended at 6am, barely anything other than kizomba and bachata was played. Full pass prices are reasonable, especially given recent weakness of the pound. Moreover, the Radisson (venue hotel) is affordable and the room prices include a buffet breakfast.

3. Hotels - I would recommend that anyone coming to the congress stay at a hotel on Bath Road (i.e. within 10mins walk of the Radisson), with the ideal solution being the Radisson itself. Breakfast opens at 6am following the after party. It's a buffet style food offering and smells amazing. Not as great as the breakfast I raved about in Karlsruhe but well timed and plentiful all the same. The single beds in the Radisson are very narrow, but do the trick. Most of my friends appear to repeatedly stay in the Ibis, which I understand is cheaper.

4. Water - Jugs of water all around the venue for dancers to rehydrate between dances were much appreciated. Especially since the air conditioning clearly was not made to handle hundreds of dancers and it was pretty steamy on the dance floor!

Venue

1. Floor - Built for the congress. Temporary wooden floor, no one had any issues with it. It was one of those rare events where the floor was so right that no one even bothered to talk about it!

2. Number of dance floors - Three. Mambo floor, Cuban salsa floor, Kizomba/after party room. I once went hunting for water in the Cuban room and it seemed to be quite busy, but otherwise I was so happy with the mambo room and the bar/water/hang out area just outside it that it never occurred to me to go looking anywhere else. There may well have been a bachata or other room, but I was too busy dancing to find it!

3. Workshops vs. parties - All in the same venue. I believe there were 5 workshops per hour, but you'd have to check the website for full details. Last year, some of the more popular workshops (e.g. Juan Matos, Santo Rico, Karel Flores) were really busy, but others were somewhat smaller and more intimate. Workshops started around 11am and went through to 6pm. There was a power cut at around 4pm on Sunday afternoon, but the workshops continued anyway, despite delaying everything by about an hour.

4. Show seats. I missed the shows this year because I only had a party pass. Last year we all piled onto the floor at the front of the stage. I remember there being a great vibe from really being able to cheer the performers on. VIPs are given seats (and perhaps those who are really quick to enter the room as well, though not sure).

5. Show visibility. Great in my past experience. You actually also had a great view from the screens they set up outside if you found yourself outside waiting and badly timed your arrival. This happened to us on Sunday because of the power cut which delayed the shows. The only thing you couldn't hear was the microphone chat, but speakers played the music during the shows. Missing out on the various intros and jokes wasn't too bad and at least we didn't feel rude for ignoring the speaker!

6. Workshop visibility. No comment, I was fast asleep during workshop hours. Or busy having breakfast and serial drinking mugs of tea!

7. Workshop organisation. See above.

Crowd

1. Workshops. No idea, I guess you had to be there!

2. Parties - Medium to high level of dancing. Apparently there's a rumour in among Paris dancers that only old ladies can be found social dancing at MamboCity. Let me just say that that is categorically untrue! Level-wise, it's like SOS but multiplied in numbers and with a much larger contingent of on2 dancers. I might have danced on1 twice over the course of the weekend and maybe a bachata (not by design!) but I can't say I remember either. In my personal opinion, there were not enough foreigners, but there were some very readily available and friendly artists who contributed to my dance floor happiness. I like discovering new and amazing dance partners at congresses and generally find that this doesn't really happen at UK events, however, this lack of surprise was surprisingly comfortable and relaxing.

3. Size - Medium. You never got lost, you could always find people. Except Steve. For some reason, I'm always looking for Steve however large the congress. Not sure quite how he manages to disappear all the time since he's not the smallest guy in the world. Generally though, there was always room on the dance floor, however hot it became and there were minimal accidents as a result.

4. After parties - Held downstairs in a smaller room. Terrible choice of music (mostly kizomba, semba et al) and very little salsa played. No choice but to hang around and wait for non-kizomba, especially when you're waiting for the tube to open to head back into London. I was fortunate enough to get a ride from some very generous gentlemen (on all three nights), but still, the yearning for one more dance kept us there much longer than the music should have!

Line-up

1. Quality of teaching - Good from what I could tell: Eddie Torres, Juan Matos, Adolfo all present. Previous years have had Yamulee and Santo Rico instead of Eddie. A great many local teachers too. Doesn't measure up to Berlin or Zurich in terms of numbers, but still some very decent names.

2. Choice of workshops - Not quite enough to make me opt for a full pass, but it's always worth going to Eddie's, Adolfo's and Juan's classes!

3. Number of shows - None on Friday, bunch on Saturday and bunch on Sunday. As a party pass holder, I missed them all. You'd have to ask someone who sat through them whether their bum got sore!

4. Artists on the dance floor. Other than Eddie who no longer social dances and Juan who simply likes to stand around and drink, the Italians were out in full force (Latin Soul Dancers, Marco Ferrigno's Group and Grupo Alafia), Terry from Paris and Brian Lieber never stopped dancing. Others were around and generally willing too. I think the Italian ladies were slightly less available, but the men could generally be found and easily approached on the dance floor.

5. DJs. Big shout out to Julian the Duke, aka "The best DJ in the Universe" for amazing sets on Saturday and Sunday. He was helped by someone else with whom he tried to share the credit, but I can't remember who it was. One of the Italian artists spent most of Saturday on Shazaam (i-phone application that listens to songs and tells you the name and artist) because he loved every song and needed to commit each one to memory! If it weren't for the sheer heat in the main room, I probably would never have stopped dancing to notice this... On Friday, the music was less good, so I won't name and shame the DJs, but there was some annoying track mixing going on and way too much salsa romantica at around 3am. The crowd wanted faster songs at that point and palpable frustration could be felt. It definitely helped highlight the quality of the music choice on the following two nights though!

6. Bands. No live bands. However, the video "La Epoca - The Lost Rhythms in Salsa" was shown on Friday night (instead of having shows). This was a highly educational documentary about salsa music in the Palladium era and would have been great had it been less long winded (by say being 45mins shorter) and less judgmental. Telling 200 dancers that they are doing it wrong prior to a congress doesn't really go down too well…But then again, had I not been desperately hungry and increasingly starving during the whole thing, perhaps I would have been more receptive?!

Location

1. Central location? Multiple conversations I had went like this:

Random person: "Did you have to come far to get here?"

Me: "Yes, I came from London"

Random person: "But we're in London"

Me, uneasy: "No, we're not!"

Random person: "Where are we then?"

Me: "We're in Greater London, Zone 6, or the sticks, this doesn't count as London, it's not central enough"

You get the idea. 50mins by tube from Zone 1 (i.e. "home") is not central. In fact, anything outside of Zone 1 is not central, since by definition, it is not in the centre. Yep, I'm a Zone 1 snob. But seriously, there's not a shop within walking distance, the closest and only pub/food option that isn't hotel related is a 10min walk and there's no way you can walk outside and hail a taxi or even walk to the closest tube station. Having said that, everything (food, beds, dancing, workshops) can be found within the hotel and thus MamboCity qualifies for the "centralised location" criteria!

2. Distance from the airport - 5mins ride on a free red bus. Really practical for those coming from abroad, not so great for those who live in London, wish to arrive by Eurostar or are coming via another airport. Personally, as someone who loves flying around the world, I find it pretty difficult to make it all the way to Heathrow and then NOT board a plane. First-world-problem style torture!

3. Time to London. 50 minutes. Or 30 minutes at 7am when your wonderful friend drop you home.

4. Number of days off work. None. Conveniently timed over a May bank holiday, for all my moaning about it being a 50 minute ride out of London, this congress is simply unavoidable. Check for next year though as it's not always over a bank holiday weekend. However, whether you're planning on doing the whole thing, a day or just the parties, it's definitely one that shouldn't be missed!

For more information, check out the website here: http://www.mambocity.co.uk/congress/

On salsa streaming

I’m looking for decent salsa streaming options and playlists.

Essentially, I have a massive personal music library but don’t spend much time at home so have never really looked through it (criminal I know). I accumulated so much, so fast and it’s all spread out in such a random order, that it’s difficult to know where to start.

To explain - my salsa music education is a process which starts on the dance floor and eventually filters it’s way to my ipod. Since I don’t own an i-phone or have access to one of those funky programs that listen to a song and provide you with the song and artist name, the route from one to the other is rather more circuitous than it could be.

In the past, I had been using Spotify to discover music, identify well-known and loved songs and then look for them in my music collection once I had found out their names/artists. All slightly long winded, but when you spend more time at work than looking at your external home hardrive, it makes sense (somewhat)… However, in so doing, since I could never find the exact same versions in my music collection, I fell in love with my Spotify playlists and neglected any other means of listening to music.

The reign of free Spotify has however come to an end. Today, users can listen to any song up to five times, but after that are blocked from listening to it again unless they either buy the track or sign up to Spotify premium. This is a big loss in my book! Spotify really contributed to my salsa artist and music education. It helped me associate artist and track names to my favourite songs, and then expand my knowledge by listening to these artists further and understanding the breadth of their contributions to the salsa music world. You could argue that the discovery function is still there. However, a music streaming service needs to provide for active listening (for search and discovery) and for passive listening (for comfort or background music) too.

Online radio is a fallback solution. DJ Fonseca from Switzerland has a good salsa radio online here. Look under: “NuyoricanSalsa DJ FONSECA”. He plays a good mix of 60s-70s mambo/cha cha cha with some boogaloo thrown in for good measure. The station comes with a few adverts, but these, much like with the free version of old-Spotify, are not too bothersome. It satisfies the mid range active/passive listener since you can write down the names of the songs you like and find them on Spotify/iTunes later. Or you can just listen and enjoy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help you to look further into an artist to hear what else they’ve produced, or to listen to that one song that you will greatly enhance your mood.

The other day, I was introduced to Grooveshark. At a first glance, it’s great! It’s Spotify with a different interface and no audio adverts between songs. There’s a website for converting playlists from Spotify (and other players) called Groovylists. Unfortunately, though Grooveshark has some tracks that Spotify was missing (e.g. Dilema by Johnny Ventura, a personal favourite), it doesn’t have many of my other favourites (e.g. La Palomilla by Joe Cuba & Cheo Feliciano) and I haven’t thus far managed to make Groovylists work for me. The interface also appears to be slightly temperamental and I seem to have managed to lose some of the songs that I had happily found.

So the search continues! Please let me know if you have any recommendations for discovering and listening to your favourite salsa songs!

On Salsa Festival Karlsruhe (2/2)

Overall - Fun and friendly congress with a family feel to it. Sufficient dancers to dance till daylight. The recommended hotel had a delicious breakfast that opens at 6:30am, a perfect time to return home from the after party. Good level within the classes, though I can't say I found any of them particularly challenging. Still, there was always something to be learnt. Strongly recommend taking classes as there wasn't much to see about town and at the end of March, German weather is still pretty dreary! I had a great time, but that was primarily down to the people with me and our internal jokes. Was also thrilled to discover another amazing Parisian dancer - how could I have thought I'd met them all already!

Let's break it down:

Prices

1. Flights - Ryanair fly to Karlsruhe from London. Otherwise, you can fly to Stuttgart but it's an hour away by road. Ryanair flight prices are reasonable, but bear in mind that there's a 30 minute drive into Karlsruhe from the Baden Bade Karlsruhe (FKB) airport. We were fortunate to be accompanying an artist (friend) and thus benefitted from a shuttle pickup in honour of his starry status! Without this, you have to get up super early and find a bus. Not sure that's something I'd be willing to attempt.
2. Pass prices - Slightly cheaper than your average congress, at c.€150 (I think). We were fortunate again to have an artist friend who got us a great group deal thus significantly lowering the price.
3. Hotels - I would strongly recommend that anyone going to this congress stay in the 4 star recommended Renaissance hotel (or with friends if at all possible). The breakfast alone makes this worthwhile, but the congress organisers have negotiated a price with the hotel that makes it reasonable. Packing a third camp-bed into your room will also help to bring the cost down. It works out to c.€40 a night, which includes the magnificent breakfast (worth €19). To give you an idea, breakfast included absolutely everything from eggs and bacon, potatoes and sausages to muffins and croissants, fruit, tomatoes, smoked salmon and even cucumbers. And it was all presented in a plentiful buffet style. I should mention that the beds, for what little time we spent in them, were really comfortable too! The hotel is situated at about 7 minutes walk from the congress venue and across the road from the greatest ever Chinese restaurant. It also happened to be the only restaurant within sight, but having tried the food on two nights, I simply would not recommend for anyone to bother wasting their time looking for anything else. There's a supermarket across the road too, in case you wish to buy supplies - beware though, it's closed on Sunday.
4. Bottled water - €3 for a Fanta, water was about €2 (I think). To be honest, it wasn't the kind of congress where you dance so much that you get dehydrated and desperately need to drink. They also served pasta meals that looked pretty appetising for €5 in the venue cafeteria. However, in the after party, where things got a lot hotter, the bar people were happy to serve tap water on request. A bit of a random thing though was that they didn't let people into the congress until they'd checked their coats into the cloakroom. Many a male had to explain that they liked to keep their stylish jackets on to dance! Luckily the "friends of artists" status that we had, enabled us to waive this obligation and happily park our bags and coats on the stage next to where we were dancing!

Venue

1. Floor - New hardwood. By which I mean "impossible ice rink". Seriously, it was pretty dangerous unless you were wearing trainers! I did a couple of workshops with no shoes on, a couple in socks (pretty dangerous) and then eventually settled on my newest pair of jazz shoes, which had a life saving rubber sole. On the plus side, it was not tiring on the knees. But still, dancing with an amazing performer and almost catapulting to the floor is not exactly how you make your (salsa) dreams come true! Luckily, most leaders adapted pretty quickly so after the first night, the floor was no longer much of a problem.
2. Number of dance floors - Just the one. And they only played mambo. And there was plenty of space. Some bachata, some chacha, nothing else. The music was basically perfect! Weirdly, a number of Italians were dancing Cuban moves on2 - I haven't really seen this before - strange, but good!
3. Workshops vs. parties - Workshps, shows and parties were in same venue and the after party was a 20 minute walk away in the much smaller "Candela" club. Not that there were any space problems by 4am! Workshops started at 11am and went through till 6pm. There were three workshops per hour and these were well spread out so that all the styling workshops were at the same time so that men would not be caught without partners during the partnerwork sessions. The only issue with the workshop rooms was that two had a better sound system than the room in the middle where any sound was pretty much drowned out!
4. Show seats - No seats - We sat on the floor and visibility was fine. The session on Saturday was slightly long though and thus a little cramping.
5. Show visibility - Fine from where I was sitting! On Sunday, the shows and party were in Candela and it was tightly packed with low visibility. For those of us who were close enough, Thomas Guererro's tears during his performance with Santo Rico were plain to see. Totally raw and emotional performance from them, dedicated to a friend lost to cancer. Beautiful stuff.
6. Workshop visibility - Decent, artists were highly elevated for all workshops. Moreover, by Sunday afternoon, there weren't that many people still in attendance so there was loads of space. Furthermore, my somewhat inexperienced partner and I managed to get personal help by three of the Santo Rico team to help us figure out the move. Where else will you get that kind of personal attention and the opportunity to try out what it's supposed to feel like with one of the guys?
7. Workshop organisation - Not much need given size of rooms/venue

Crowd

1. Workshops - People spread out nicely during workshops. There was no one who was obviously struggling. The material wasn't really difficult per se, but they weren't easy enough to be boring either.
2. Parties - Great level of dancing amongst the Italians, Croatians and Brits. A couple of very decent Germans and an amazing Peruvian from Paris. Artists were fully accessible and since there were so many of them, they were almost unavoidable. I would say that the general level was below average but people were still competent dancers. You couldn't just close your eyes, spin round and point - the odds of landing on an amazing dancer doing that were pretty slim (you could totally pull this off in Athens 2008 and be blessed with an epic dance every time!).
3. Size - Small. There was never a point where I couldn't see my friends and I never had to queue for a dance either.
4. After parties - These were held in a different venue which effectively felt like a dingy club rather than a temporary sanitised marquis tent. Much more character, lots of dark little corners, two bars to lean against, pillars to hide behind and couches a-plenty. Unfortunately, air conditioning appeared to be amiss, so after the big conference hall dance floor, moving to the Candela club felt a bit like dancing in a dark sauna! We quickly got over that though and warmed to the place, as it had way more character. This was the place that only the hardcore made it to and where we happily kept dancing till way past daylight - without knowing it was daylight too (dancing in the dark clearly has some benefits!)…The music at the after parties was much the same as in the main party, though arguably a little slower. They were definitely worth going to as they provided a more fertile environment for actually getting to know other dancers as well as for simply fooling around!

Line-up

1. Quality of teaching - Good standard, though I would have said the workshops were slightly on the easy side. The fact that I can still remember the Santo Rico styling shine more than three weeks later is a testament to this (for those who don't know, I have the memory of a goldfish). The boys were doing Juan Matos' partnerwork all night and still nailing it a couple of weeks later as well…Surely it shouldn’t be that easy? (or maybe we're just that good?!)
2. Choice of workshops - Three per hour, they ran from 11am till 6pm. They managed to line these up such that all the partner vs. solo workshops were aligned. This way, no men were desperately seeking partners at any time.
3. Number of shows - Only 3 on Sunday (good), a handful on Friday (good), but what felt like millions on Saturday (not so good). Mostly good quality apart from one couple who seemed to be doing an appalling impersonation of Luis Vasquez and Mellissa Fernandez…But still, just a little too many...
4. Artists on dance floor - Once the shows were done, most of the Italians (i.e. the artists) were out in force and social dancing. Santo Rico generally spent a lot of time drinking and were (as a result) very good sports.
5. DJs - DJ Lobo did a great job as did whoever were the others. Great tracks, great songs, never once had a complaint about the music at this congress.
6. Bands - No bands played during this festival.

Location

1. Centralised - Didn't really see much of the town (oops), but the congress venue was 5mins walk from the hotel and the hotel was c.15mins walk from the after party venue. They had some shuttles in between all of these and people were taking cabs too, but it took about as long to walk as it did to wait and hop into the shuttle/taxi.
2. Distance from airport - 20 minutes hotel to airport but only with a pre-organised special-treatment for artists service. Otherwise, a lot longer using a bus...
3. Time from London - 1 hour by plane (from Stansted)
4. Number of days off work - Two required. Ryanair travel at weird and wacky times.

For more information check out the website: http://www.salsafestivalcandela.de/

So here is my constant criteria comparison for the 5th Candela Festival in Karlsruhe (2011 edition):