In an ideal world...

- A whole post about the entrance to a milonga? The entrance is the door!?

- No! The entrance is a big deal.

How you are greeted sets the tone and where you sit can define your afternoon or evening. This post is about how I like the entrance to be. It is heavily influenced by how I often found it in Buenos Aires.  How I wish we would learn more from them:

You pay the entrada ideally - but not necessarily - outside the salon. It is how it happens in BA and I remember it at eg. the Stuttgart milonga weekend, La Redonda (run by an Anglo/Argentinian couple), the Cambridge Spring Festivalito (St Paul’s) (once) Tango West. In Buenos Aires I love the thick curtain, which in memory is usually red, that separates the street and/or the area where you pay from the salon.

Nobody makes you give your name, still less write it down on a piece of paper. Nobody makes you sign in. If I found out an organiser’s name, it happened most naturally when I was introduced to them by someone else. 

There are no rules, posters, leaflets or notes on display about how to do, well, anything. 

You are greeted - perhaps by the host or the person who seats you. The host may introduce themselves - but not necessarily. I find it hard to imagine a scenario where a dancer would not reciprocate in those circumstances. Then if the host really wanted to note down peoples’ names discreetly I suppose they could - but why would they? If people like a milonga they will come back and tell their friends. There is no other way more successful.

If you are unknown you are told where the facilities are including where to change shoes/leave coats.

If you are unknown and arrive alone it is assumed (for seating purposes) you are alone unless you say otherwise - as you might in a restaurant. 

Also as in a restaurant you are taken to the seat which is yours for the time you are in the milonga. If I am somewhere I do not know, especially which turns out to have difficult conditions, I appreciate this even more. I do not enjoy walking in to an unknown milonga and wasting time and energy trying to figure out the dynamics of the room/seating/invitation or wondering if I am taking some regular’s spot or committing some other mistake or faux pas. I like to be given a seat, a democratic seat and get to the business in hand. I have never been to a milonga in Europe where things happen this way. 

I liked being seated with other single women. If I am alone or new somewhere being seated and being seated with women takes the pressure off.   Once only in Buenos Aires I was taken to a table with a single man. It felt extremely odd.  It was an evening with live music in Club Gricel (not Daniel and Juan's). I didn’t like anything about that milonga and left after about an hour.

Upon arrival, people acknowledge each others’ existence inside the salon. Some of us in Europe can be so bad at that and it creates such a poor atmosphere.

Bar staff come to the table and take your order.