A now edited draft from 20.8.15, also about giveaways.
Edinburgh University Tango society at the time had some slick video footage of performers, which no doubt draws people in, but to what? I am sure people join the society primarily because they want to learn the social dance, not to watch shows or to become performers.
The piece than compared it to a link from Thames Valley Tango, probably meant something like this (new venue). I felt at the time that this was one Britain's best milongas for good music, excellent and careful floorcraft on what is usually a very busy floor and good dancing. This picture shows it less busy than when I have usually been. From the photo you can tell there will be tables, chairs, atmospheric lighting, busy but not overfull. The suggestion is, enough tables and seating for the attendees. Actually, there is insufficient seating on busy days - both at the old venue and the new, at least at the special events.
Tango West Midlands no longer seems to have the website I had linked to where there was apparently a great example of the tango dancing they're selling. So I don't know if the good image I archived for their milonga was meant to be an ironic contrast to the advert, or not. As far as the physical conditions for dancing, apart from the show pictures on the wall, it looks pretty much ideal.
It is surprisingly hard, certainly then and even now to to find a social dance advertised with a picture of the venue, especially with the dancers rather than a stylised photo of a performance dance. Marketing 101, the photo emphasises what they are selling, their focus. You can have a pretty good idea of the kind of dancing there will be at events advertised with a performance pose. There will be guys trying to pull performance style moves girls, or shoving them into ochos pushing them over a sandwich, pistoning them in and out of ocho cortado, whipping them into voleos, demanding they do ganchos and dropping them off axis into volcados that make the stomach feel as though it's in an elevator and give the woman no choice.
It's 'island tango' where you go from one move to the next with dead sea between. There's a harsh, dry wind blowing there and no music.
Let's take a 2024 example. Belgrade encuentro - you can tell from the home page it is about a lot of people, teachers and performers. Come to think of it, an encuentro typically didn't use to have teachers and performers - that's why they call them festivals instead. Anyone who has attended an event that looks like this knows the dancing can be very hit and miss and trying invite or be invited is a nightmare in such a big venue. They claim "big yet cosy" but I've got no idea how they are going to pull that one off.
Their Youtube video preview shouts, You wanna real party? You you get the picture and thank goodness.
Belgrade must have done a lot of work on prioritising their results because their images are all the first ones to come up in a search of tango encuentros.
There's a very different vibe in the Hobart encuentro photo for 2024. It's an odd, stylized picture that on the one hand detracts from reality, which is always a worry, but at the same time gives it a retro feel, meaning traditional, which could be good. The suggestion is olde-worlde glamour, elegance, respectful. There are tables and chairs. It seems like the men are expected to wear suits, again suggesting a traditional, Buenos Aires formality and yet the seating is not separated. The floor looks good. If it has all these good elements, I'm asking myself, why don't they show the real photo, instead of manipulating one?
There is an interesting photo of Tango Secreto Encuentro Milonguero from 2016 which may or may not have been used for advertising. All you see are women's legs. But you can tell it's dressy, it looks like segregated seating for men and women, hence traditional. The women are looking and chatting. What about? Probably the men. It suggests femininity which attracts the guys and the bonding of female intrigue and the dressing up draw in the women.
A local one to finish. The headline photo is one I took inside Paisley tango's recent festival. The venue looks quite glam - it was in a new, elegant venue and that was a draw for curious local dancers. As such it was quite expensive. They had performers, but it was a festival so that's what you expect. The floor was good. It was dark, so it was hard to invite, the space was big, so, ditto, and same again because the tables were huge, not intimate as in a BA milonga. You had to prowl or dance with people on your table. Or sit and wait for ages in the hope of a prowling leader.
How does that compare to the advert? When you land on the festival you get a popup with photo of the organisers thanking you for visiting. On the one hand it's a personal touch, and they are very much the face of the festival, well known for working hard to build up Paisley tango from nothing, overcoming personal setbacks on the way. Make of the vibe in that photo what you will. The festival home page is all about the performers and a singer they brought in. They want people to be, or think their target audience will be attracted by the workshops and performances rather than the dancing. And my goodness, I don't know if that's the way festivals are nowadays, but both this and the Barcelona Queer Tango festival had performances that lasted about an hour.
Luckily, it was the opportunity for that great chat about breath.
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