Festivals vs milongas

Three track tango tandas are usually orchestrated by DJs and milonga organisers who think they know better than the dancers themselves what such dancers like.  Unsurprisingly, this tends to manifest in other heavy-handed ways of which perhaps more another time.

 Adrian Costa played three track tandas when he DJd for the Edinburgh festivalito recently: 

"I asked why the tangos were in threes and whether they were going to stay in threes - thinking perhaps he was waiting for more people to arrive. He said they would stay in threes because he didn't know the people and wanted them to dance with more partners, or, I think he corrected himself, to have the opportunity to dance with more partners."

This “I know what’s best for you” attitude happens in (usually) teacher-led or teacher-inspired milongas.

A festival milonga is a very different creature to regular milonga, hardly warranting the same name:

A: “Festivals are a significantly different case [compared to a milonga], wherein probably more attendees are indeed looking to dance with many different people.

A key difference is that at a festival, few know each other, so might hope to find a good partner amongst many, so want to try many. At a milonga few don't know each other, so want to dance with those they prefer, being necessarily few.

Herein lies the fundamental reason that, other variables being equal, festival dancing is generally of lower standard than milonga dancing, and I believe satisfaction amongst good dancers is much lower... unless they treat the festival as a milonga and dance with few.

Festivals are better for bad dancers; milongas for good.

Teachers wanting people to dance with many is actually them wanting their class students to dance with many, since customer satisfaction leads to sales. They do not favour non-classeros dancing only amongst themselves. Threes v. fours [tango tracks to a tanda] is basically bad dancing business v. good dancing socially.”

B: I think part of it is that the pressure is on on DJs at festivals: they want people up and dancing all the time so they, the DJ looks good (even more so for those with a performer mentality). They think that playing three [tango] tracks [as opposed to four tango tracks to a tanda] will increase the energy and the hype and keep people up. I think it’s the same logic that is behind why I often hear too much strong/rhythmic music and vocal drama at festivals and music that is too loud. But it’s true it just leads to poor dancing, a sense of broken music and a messy floor. But then, I generally like milongas and dancing low-key and by definition a festival nor even a festivalito is intended to be a low-key affair.