pennsicdance: RE: Pennsic Dance Summary

[L.J. Sparvero]

At 11:13 PM 8/30/2004, Catherine Dean wrote:
>Third, if I understand correctly, part of the problem was that many people 
>volunteered to teach classes last year after the deadline had passed, 
>causing dissent because the slots had already been filled.  Obviously, 
>then, that places a burden on me (and others who were affected) to help 
>get the word out when the time comes.  Lyev--don't let me forget to post 
>announcements in LoD and to forward reminders to the Atlantian dance list, 
>the Calontir dance list, and to every dance instructor I know who doesn't 
>already know.

That's a great idea -- I don't think I actually put anything into LOD other 
than a one-sentence announcement with our webpage. What would a full/half 
page ad for Pennsic dance cost? Please send me a private quote that I can 
pass along to the Pennsic higher-ups and see if they'll approve it as 
"advertising".

>  I will, however, say that for some folks (and I speak here from personal 
> experience) were slow to submit classes because they weren't sure when or 
> even whether they would be going to war this year.

This is the crux of the matter ;-) Many of the uber dance-geeks already 
plan two weeks or so of their summer a year in advance. As such, they are 
more likely to request classes to teach early. Doing dance at Pennsic *is* 
our big vacation of the year, so we know that we're going to be there a 
year in advance. And probably part of the reason that we became dance geeks 
is being able to spend lots of time at Pennsic year after year. But many of 
the rest of the people (including lots of the promising new instructors) 
can't just do that. By the time that they know for sure that they can get 
some time off for Pennsic, the class deadline has already past.

Short of finding good jobs for all of you in the Pittsburgh area with two 
weeks off in August, there's not too much I can do ;-) But pushing the 
deadline for class requests as far back as possible is a great idea. Now 
that I've got the hang of this, I can probably schedule everything in an 
afternoon. The catch is I won't be able to tell people things like "You can 
have 3pm or 11am for your Tuesday class, which one would you prefer?" and 
such. When I find out what the A&S schedule deadline is, then I can set the 
final date for dance class requests as, say, a day before that.

>And to end on a positive note--thank you once again to all of the 
>wonderful instructors, callers, dancers, and MUSICIANS who made this 
>year's war such a memorable one for dance.

Yes, thanks to everybody! Despite a few minor hiccups (the leaky spot on 
the tent right over the floodlight being the most scary one), this 
certainly was a great dancing war.

Yay dancing!