pennsicdance: Floor

[Annikki Weston]

A sick Adele responding to both Lyev and Flip's comments.  How nice of my
upper respiratory infection to wait until after Pennsic to attack! :P

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003, L.J. Sparvero wrote:

> It actually *was* officially scheduled that way, but the dancers almost

Right.  Officially scheduled for the barn, not the tent.  Mind you, I'm
one of the folks who'd rather dance in the dance tent as much as possible,
as I've reached the point where the concrete barn floor really makes me
hurt.  So anyhow, the suggestion from one of the dissenters was to
officially schedule it for, say, Sat-Tues in the barn, Wed-Sat in the
tent.  And after that, we tend to have split dancing opportunities.

Also mind you, the first complaint I heard about the barn/floor situation
was overheard as I passed by a familiar dance face who was talking to
friends.  And while familiar to evening dancing, I don't recall ever
seeing that face in the three years of work on the dance floor.

Which brings up some interesting questions:  should decisions be made by
the "dance community" as a whole, regardless of contributions back to the
community?  Or is it a matter of "if you help, you're heard?"  How do
those people who dance but do not volunteer get their say heard?  Does it
matter?

I heard some complaints that the atmosphere in the dance tent was elitist.
"Dance Nazis" was a phrase heard, too.  I didn't understand it much,
cause I thought we had a good mix of easy-to-intermediate items, with very
few _hard_ dances.  Things were taught, too.  No goopy stuff.  But then, I
could very well be considered biased and a "dance nazi" as well. :P

> + Much closer from the tent to waterbearer's point to refill the coolers to
> get water for the populace/musicians. Many thanks to the people who took
> the time to lug those heavy things from the barn all the way to get them
> filled.

This was way cool and definately not something easily done in the barn,
although there is a sink at the back.  One of the "I don't like it in the
dance tent" complaints was that people liked being close to Cooper's store
(although it closes at 10 PM) and the vending drink machines, however.

> people camped in the western areas (the new zones as of Pennsic 30, don't
> know what they're called) it was getting  harder to make it. Having the

The battlefield blocks.

> crates to make a shelf? I don't know where the bandshell budget stands,

We have a bandshell, it just hasn't been put up the past two years.  I
brought some paints and stencils and such to try things out on it, but a)
all my time was sucked up by the new floor pieces and b) any money for
enough stuff to actually do the whole thing was used up by the new floor
pieces.

> During the English Revel (2nd Thursday), the tent seemed to be a maximum
> capacity, with a full floor and nowhere to sit. There was room for more

Does anyone have a general headcount for that night?  I roughly counted 75
at the pre-1603 party after the first crowd-thin-down, so I'm guessing
that had about 100 maximum.

On Tue, 19 Aug 2003, Philip Edward Lewis wrote:

> I've made a general request to Frog for doing so.... but it wasn't
> "official"... just a "hey, if you happen to have ground moving
> equipment around.... could you take a scrape or two at the dance tent
> area..."  Unfortunately he went off, as he thought we (dance
> community) had left entirely, leaving the tarp we left out to dry, and

Uhoh.  I'll write him an apology, letting him know that we had made
arrangements for someone to finish up after things had dried out and
hadn't meant to cause him any additional stress.

> the paint cans (BTW alternate arrangements for storage were
> veto-ed by the folks...so i ended up with them again).

Blast.  I'm sorry, Flip. :(  Part of me says we should just go along with
Pennsic Tech's opinion that paint is considered expendable and should be
bought new each year, but that'd be $40-$100 a year depending on what
stuff we're painting.

> BTW, we have our first event request:
> the Blue Feathers want to host their (open) ball in the tent on
> the last Thursday. They keep getting shunted to a place where they
> can't dance... and I wanted to make sure we know about it early so

If they don't have a lot of dancing, dance is effectively killed Thursday
night because Midrealm court is typically everlasting (Peter and Nan
Astrid sailed through it this year, which was unusual).  Do we have any
assurances that if this ends up to be the case, next year will have a
dance party against court again?

Adele