Advertising the DJ

Last year on the day the Edinburgh International Tango Festival started I asked who the cafe DJs were as they were not advertised.  Shortly afterwards they were advertised on the EITF site. This year with a month to go the festival DJs are still not advertised. The first time I wondered if it was an oversight, if a serious one. Now I'm inclined to think it's perhaps if not policy then simply that the organisers just don't think that the music is all that important. 

It says here from here only “Each evening will feature an international DJ and a dance performance from our world-class maestros”. This non-advertisement of the DJs is astonishing because the DJ line-up at any festival that attracts good social dancers is a prominent, probably the most prominent feature of a festival.  But then many good social dancers tend to avoid festivals where the home page features show dancers preferring events that seem to be more obviously about embrace and connection. E.g. Encuentro Porteño.  I heard over a month ago who the DJs will be at the EITF from a friend who enquired and was disappointed when local DJ Claudia Esslinger (who DJd here recently) was not one of them. But so far the message is: this festival is for people for whom the music isn’t really the main thing, for whom the music isn’t really important enough that you’d much care who the DJs are. No surprise though when it was only after public request (now hidden/deleted) last year to the Edinburgh Tango Society that the rotating DJs were at last advertised on their calendar.

On the other hand, the EITF is hosting the orchestra La Juan D’Arienzo, which is great news. So this mismatch between not advertising the DJs and this great orchestra feels like a right hand/left hand situation.