Space!!! & The seperate Marquee
My god. Talk about busy.
Now I like a nice cosy atmosphere when compared with a huge empty room but, for the first time, I thought the blues room this time was particulary overcrowded. Im not putting this down to more and more dancers booking, as I am assuming its always sold out
, but it seems the blues room is attracting more and more people.
At times it got positively dangerous in there. There is no way to walk through without affecting people.
Seperate Marquee - The seperate marquee was awesome. Especially the lighting. Just before the ballroom stint I was gazing at the new star-effect machine that Wes had on. Wow. It's the coolest lighting gizmo thingymee that I have seen.
Trouble is, it doesn't matter how nice it is in there, if it doesn't attract the dancers in freestyle then it only serves half a job. On the Saturday night the WCS section in the marquee worked and worked well. It quietened down the blues room (which is looking more and more like a WCS freestyle) and was great fun to dance in, although no seats. On the Sunday night it all went pear-shaped. The WCS section was due to run for 3 hours from 1 to 4 in the marquee but by 2am there must have only been 10 or so couples in there. Everyone else stayed in the blues room - including me!!
The only reason I can see is because that blinking blues room is so good and unique in the weekender market. The atmosphere it creates, regardless of how hot, stuffy and dangerous it is, is special. It also means that, given the fact that the music in the blues room and WCS marquee was pretty much identical, people just didnt bother moving across.
Cant see how to prevent this though apart from enforcing a definate shift of genre in the blues room when the WCS stint is on in the marquee.
Blues room
Many people's favourite room and one of the things that make Southport so special.
Given that the weather forecast was so good I had a feeling that this time would be even better than previous times. In many ways it was but in some ways it wasnt.
Firstly, when I got there I noticed that actual flooring had been placed on top of the wooden slats on the outside area. Fabulous! Thankyou so much J+W+crew. This worked so well but, unfortunately, nothing can compete with the rain
Its still appreciated though.
On the down side the rain caused another unwanted problem. Trailing water through the bar!!!! At one point the floor of the bar was considerably wet all the way from the door down one side of the floor. I cant really see how this can be avoided as the amount of water falling from the sky was considerable but I felt it really affected things. Not only by spoiling shoes but with the fact that everyone had to push up to avoid it.
Then there was the issue of it being VERY hot and VERY crowded in the blues room on Sunday evening as the outside floor was out of order. What can be done? No idea. I was one of those calling for the removal of the 'attached' marquee as I love dancing in the open air under the stars. This worked perfectly on the Saturday but then there was the trade off on the Sunday.
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