There are always likely to be particular venues or events which become more and more popular - the places which make that extra effort to deliver what we dancers want, the places which offer something special, the places which just have a buzz about them. In many ways this is great - the organisers are rewarded by higher numbers through the door, more dancers start to seek out these venues from further afield adding variety and interest, the standard of dancing rises, and a good night starts to become more or less a certainty.

So what is the problem then? Well the dilemma seems to be this; if the event is pay on the door with no limit on numbers (except the venue's fire safety capacity limit) and no gender balancing then eventually the dance floor starts to become over-crowded and gender imbalance may also become more pronounced. An alternative is to introduce advanced ticketing with a limit on numbers which is intended to avoid serious overcrowding and create gender balance (as Utopia do). This also has drawbacks however - tickets can quickly sell out so you have to book in advance and tickets for single ladies sell out very quickly indeed. You have to commit much further ahead and then may face the hassle of having to try to sell tickets if for some reason you cannot attend (for example because of illness).

If on the other hand you simply carry on as a pay on the door event with "unlimited" numbers and no gender balancing then I suppose what happens is that eventually the event starts to become less popular because of the overcrowding and / or the gender imbalance. In other words the reputation of the event has to suffer and some of the customers have to have less than good experiences in order to gradually bring the numbers attending back down to a more reasonable level - either that or some other competing venue / event raises its game and starts to become the new venue with a buzz so people start to go there instead.

I've had a lot of great experiences at the monthly Rugby free-styles and often said so on this forum (perhaps it is all my fault then). So the Rugby free styles are great then, but their understandable increasing popularity is starting to cause a few problems. Last night's free-style probably had the highest ever attendance (I am guessing it was around 150 people) and Rugby isn't a large venue. This meant that the dance floor was very crowded for most of the night meaning that collision avoidance started to supplant enjoyable dancing and you had to spend far more time watching out for other couples than looking at your partner.

I am sure that Rugby isn't the only venue or event that is perhaps becoming "too popular" and I don't know what, if anything, can or should be done about it. Should there be a lower limit on numbers? Would advance ticketing and gender balancing be the best way forward? - or is it best simply to change nothing and let any problems "solve themselves"?

What do others think and are there other examples of this sort of problem up and down the country?