The last time I posted on the Forum was when I returned from the first Skeggy, and at that time I left what I thought was a balanced opinion of Skeggy. In brief, I thought the battle of the North was less about Jive Addiction versus Ceroc, but Skegness versus Southport as both operators offer pretty much the same and the superior venue would win the day.
However based on this weekend’s offering at Skeggy both operators do not share the same skills. For me, and my friends we have returned home early for the first time ever from a weekender. Skeggy was simply not a good weekender. I think I flattered Jive Addiction when I said that they and Ceroc are capable of offering the same product, because clearly they can’t. Jive Addiction might be two nice guys, but they were not able to learn from the mistakes of the first Skeggy. The floor in the main room was probably worse than the first event, the DJs simply not good enough to play at a weekender and the gender balancing clearly ignored.
I appreciate that Wes and John are just a couple of dancers, but this is a commercial event, and people have paid a lot of money and some of us travelled a very long way, and therefore there is no excuse for still not getting the dance floor sorted.
Ceroc might purport to be a big organisation, but when you see Mike and David in action at Southport you know it’s really just a couple of guys not too dissimilar to Wes and John hosting an event, and yet they have had almost no teething problems at Southport and in my opinion moved the event forward.
Like I have said in the past I am not brand loyal to anyone, I just want ‘value for money’, and I pretty much don’t care who the operator is, but Skeggy was again a major disappointment and I can’t imagine my ever returning.
I also said after the last Skeggy that I didn’t think there were enough dancers to go around to fill Skegness and Southport six times a year, and that a price war was inevitable. Well based on Ceroc’s new prices for Southport it looks like that’s precisely what’s happening. Although based on this weekend, and the success of May’s Southport event ( I refuse to use the silly names ), the masses will be returning to Southport with or without a price crash.
it IS strange that that is never mentioned
Brand loyal, maybe not. Biased, clearly yes I don't care why you are biased, but it certainly seems that you are and that you are strangely unaware of it.
Yes, clearly that is trueOriginally Posted by thread title
Maybe he IS biased 'now' because he's just come home early, from a weekend he was clearly disappointed with.....
I think if anyone comes home feeling disappointed with a weekend they've spent money on and looked forward to, then they might be biased too.
I hope people will be allowed to write honest and constructive reviews, GOOD or BAD, without being accused of being biased towards one organisation or another.
Most of us have only got a certain amount of time and money to spend of weekenders and the only way of finding out what we're to expect before parting with our cash, is by people writing honest reports.
Also, we can see if the organisers have listened and taken measures to rectify past criticisms.
This has worked well in the past, for the organisers, as well as the punters.
I hope scotttwins experience wasn't shared by many and lets hope people come on here and share their positive experiences too but please let people feel free to tell it, how it 'really' was for them!
MODERATOR AT YOUR SERVICE
"If you're going to do something tonight, that you know you'll be sorry for in the morning, plan a lie in." Lorraine
What a brilliant weekend ! Thanks a lot to all you lovely women (and men) for such lovely dances.
Its the comments i quoted that show the bias, regardless of his personal enjoyment. Calling Wes and John "just dancers" when they have ran very successful events for many many years is hardly constructive, and seems out of place in either a GOOD or BAD review
Also, as far as reviews go, scottwins is more general complaining and comparing to ceroc rather than any substantial review of the event it is supposed to be reviewing - the floor, the DJs and the gender balancing are not good - I get this from one sentence...and that's it. No detail. As I have not been to Skegness, I may well base future decisions to go on reviews, but not this one, it only makes me want to go to Ceroc Southport instead (but can they be so directly compared ? different time, diferent teachers, different venue, different part of the country?).
Its really funny, as 'I' took that to be a compliment directed towards them..
.. 'they're just a couple of dancers' as apposed to being a big faceless organisation, trying to take over the world...
..in the same vein he said, when you look under the surface at Mike Ellard and Dave Bradley, they're not too dissimilar. which I took to mean, they're just a couple of dancers too.
Hmm, its all in the interpretation my friend!
MODERATOR AT YOUR SERVICE
"If you're going to do something tonight, that you know you'll be sorry for in the morning, plan a lie in." Lorraine
Got back early morn as didn't want the drive during the day and have to be back for classes tonight.
It was different for me as I learnt more this weekend than I norm do but we set out to learn this weekend rather than just socialise.
I did notice the numbers looked a little down but don't know if this was due to having a WCS room as well.
I thought the floor upstairs in the main room was actually better than last time , but they used the old upstairs floor in the WCS (arthurs) room. I prefered it when it was just the hardboard as there were no big gaps.
Teaching wise I only went to the WCS class and even though I have never heard of Christopher and Katrina, I learnt more in 10 mins of their class than I have in all the other weekender classes put together !!!. They were also very very social both grabing as many people for dances as they could in both the blues room and WCS room (or being grabbed too). James McG, Simon and Nicol, Adam Maple and all the other teachers seemed to be equally social too. Somthing I think is important in weekenders.
There didn't seem to be any WCS Snootyness either this time. One or two WCS idiot but you will get that in any dance
Music wise it was the same old stuff in the main room. Blues room didn;t really do much for me either but then I spent most of the time in the WCS room where I enjoy the music (the whole reason I started WCS).
IMO J&W could really do with setting up some kind of outdoor room as that is what most people said they enjoyed most about SP and was missing from Skegvegasb (sorry Scottwin ) But then they would have to close a room so not to spread the dancers too thin amoungst rooms.
I did notice something else this weekend with regards to the whole WCS / Blues / MJ thing.....
The WCS room was where the younger dancers were in general. I wonder what the reason for this is. Is it the up to date music or tha dance itself??
Hmm well it was the "but" that i noticed ..."I appreciate that Wes and John are just a couple of dancers, but this is a commercial event" - which implied to me that "dancers are not capable of running a commercial event"... maybe if you have some knowledge of scottwin, you can say that that is not what he meant, but I'd be surprised if I was the only person in the world that took that as a negative when Wes and John are clearly established and successful commercial operators and the subject of the post was complaining about their commercial event.
But maybe I'm just being scathing for no good reason
MODERATOR AT YOUR SERVICE
"If you're going to do something tonight, that you know you'll be sorry for in the morning, plan a lie in." Lorraine
Skegness for me this time was a true experience in brevity
I arrived lunchtime Saturday and left 4pm on Sunday – and I have to say I enjoyed it much more than last time.
Jaks in the afternoon was lovely and chilled – both Saturday & Sunday was lovely and chilled.
The floor in Arthurs was great – nice and smooth and covered the area well.
I can’t comment on the floor in Reds as apart from a brief look – I didn’t go in there.
Was fab to see so many friends – been far too long in many cases. And lots of lovely dances – special mentions have to go to Wuzzle, Sheepman – oh the bliss of the sheepy shuffle & Spice n’ Easy – our dances were highlight of my weekend – thank you – and thank you to everyone else I danced with as well – and Tessalicious you are a very naughty girl
And as always thank you to Lemoncake & Little Monkey for cake
Thanks to Liz, Julie & Kim for letting me crash in with them – you guys are stars!!
Spent too much money on clothes again – small suggestion - as I had a number of people express surprise that there was a clothes shop and ask me where is was – maybe a sign above the flyer table in Jaks saying where it is would help??
About the only thing I would really change is to make the Milonga longer – because if people stuck to the tradition of dancing of 3 tracks with a partner – an hour is not nearly long enough – unfortunately/thankfully the leads varied in this so I got to dance with pretty much everyone I wanted to.
Only two other disappointments – there was the Soul & R&B music in Jaks at around 3am? on Sunday morning – was completely jarring for me and a number of other people I knew – lovely blues vibe was going on and then wham!! It was blown away
But over all a fun weekend – and wish I could have stayed longer
This was my first Skeg, and I was a little apprehensive about going, as I remember Fraco's last Bognor which was shared with muggles on an 80's weekender and was awfull.I came to the conclusion that dancers and muggles dont mix, my opinion has not changed, but I fear re-enforced.
Although the other punters were generally young families so not really clashing, I felt a bit sorry watching people who were on holiday in a holiday camp being turned away at the door as it was a "private party", they've spent the year working hard and I think they deserve more than that for thier holiday.
I hated what ceroc did to JA, but had to go to Southport, and compared to JA it was crap, the dancers were poor and I hate dancing with women that can't dance, however the weather was great and loads had bbq's out and it was really chilled, which would not happen if a sharred site, so please JA find a site which is not shared
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