Thats not Bad Fin.. I would be up for it...

I was only at Salsa school once last year and I really enjoyed it, but I'm not sure would I be up for it so soon after Christmas and the New Year have devastated my wallet.  Depends a lot on the price.  I'm wondering as well how comfortable or lively that place would be in the middle of Winter.

Go for it! Great idea! especially the Halloween time as so many places have parties and taking on board Ciaran's point. Think of it as a recession busting feel-good idea: dancing beats the recession. Now the challenge-can you do it for 100euro a head for a Saturday and Sunday across the bank holiday weekend? Maximise your numbers and you can be on Obama's team: Yes, we can! That's classes, parties and B&B!

Hehe no plans for anything like that at the moment but we'll keep it in mind

Oh and Jak Salsa School is already less than €100 for the weekend if you book the early bird weekend pass..

Sorry to disagree Mike but it's not-it's €95 for the classes and parties but accommodation pushes it well over the 100euro. That's why it would be a challenge! I reckon you could do classes and parties for 50/person-the key bit would be the B&B for another 50.

LOL You find me a good venue with 2 nights B&B that can cope with our numbers for €50 per person and we'll see what we can do but you won't find it anywhere that's easily accessible and has all the facilities you need (like all wooden floors for example, we have never found another venue that has even 2 rooms with wooden floors let alone 6 or 7) in Ireland! Also not sure how you think we could lay on decent teachers at €50 per person for the weekend either...

If you can you should run a weekend yourself, I'd love to see another community run event start up somewhere!

Thanks Mike. On the issue of the teachers as it's the most straightforward: they do it at no cost-it's tremendous advertising and displays good will and a value added feeling for their students. But more than that, people like to volunteer, it feels good to give something back and I know that many promoters are genuinely committed to developing a love of dance among the community-2hours is that alot to ask in a year? In a year when this country has faced the toughest economic recession ever, when people continue to lose jobs day after day, when we need something to help us feel good, to help us sit up and say, yeah, that's what it's all about. So, how about this?! If you're a promoter and you'd be happy to give just two hours for free to run such an event (maybe a one day event might be the way to go) then I'd ask you to let Mike know-post it here or PM him but give him a feel for the goodwill that's out there.

I need more information about easily accessible and what that entails. What's your demongraphic/location-origin breakdown-this is where you need the info and stats to make the decisions. There's also the factor of elasticity as people will travel but there comes a point beyond which they won't, again data required for previous events:where people came from, were they repeat, new etc.

On the B&B you need to be innovative-don't think that it has to be a four star hotel, don't even think it has to be a hotel. You claim this is a community- how about hosting, build that community spirit-if you were asked to take in a fellow salsero/a would you refuse-sure not everyone could do it but it's an option and if the host was getting 50 for two nights wouldn't that be nice.

Venue is location dependent but I can tell you that if we can sort teachers and accommodation and location then venue will fall into place. Put 400 dancers at a weekend and allow 50euro for logistical costs and if you can't do it for 20grand then i'll definitely dance an Uzbekistani polka next time I'm dancing to Ahora Quien in the Garda club

OK, I had started to write a big long detailed reply to this, answering each of your points, but to be honest I amn't going to get into it. After 5 years and negotiations with more venues and suppliers than I care to remember all I can say is that our event is a non profit event. If we could do it for cheaper we would. This year we had over 400 people at the weekend all in and we made a small loss on the weekend (nothing major, as part of running a non profit event each year we are always either very slightly over or under break even and so far it has balanced out.) so if you think that you can run a weekend at €100 per person including 2 nights B&B, International and National teachers, enough volunteer staff to keep the weekend running well and come out at the far end without loosing your shirt then please, DO IT.

I am not in any way being sarcastic, I would LOVE someone else out there to succeed where we have (apparently) failed and maybe teach us something in the process. All we do is collect money from the community and spend it on their behalf to put on the best weekend we can. We say this over and over but no-one involved in the organisation of the weekend takes out a single cent, if anyone knows a way that we can get more bang for your buck then please give us solid details. If you know a better venue, better equipment rental place, better printer, cheaper airline, way that we can avoid paying VAT (legally), ANYTHING that will let us make tickets cheaper or put on more stuff for the same price then we WELCOME that information.

Even better, if you do know all these things and think you can do it then please, please, please, get it going. Start another event. Book your teachers and your venue, get your flyers out there and stick a listing on the site. We are not looking to be the only event in Ireland. We started Salsa School to bring people together and hopefully inspire other people to run great events. I really mean this most sincerely, if you think you can do it then please do it! If you think we should do it differently then you need to give us solid ideas. For example (and this is only one cost at the weekend and not even a major one), telling us that the venue will fall into place is no good, without the right venue you don't have an event so give us some names and locations so we can check them out. If you can find us somewhere that's better, we will use it.. 

After all that I still ended up writing a bloody long post but hey, I think it's something I needed to say..

Mike, great post! kudos! I was offering ideas. I don't know if it's possible to do it for 100, I suspect it is but I would need hard data before reaching the decision. I have no interest in trying to run such a weekend so let me scotch that idea-my purpose is to generate ethusiasm, to challenge and hopefully motivate and provide some ideas that might inspire creative thinking. I've posted before in other threads about the selfless nature of salsa school and how admirable that is so let's not get into a comparison about it, kudos on it and end of!

So, before you rule anything out how about you wait and see if there are any promoters out there who will take up the challenge and give two hours for free-it'll cost you nothing to to do that and if the event doesn't go ahead it'll have cost the promoters nothing-in fact you could agree to publish a list of those who volunteer-how about that to show that they are selfless and willing to pitch in?! If you get the teachers sorted then you've already saved money and we can work on the next issue.

As to venue, I will give it some thought-can you PM me with whatever data you have for salsa school and any other events that run. On the face of it you'll be looking at a region bounded by the M6/4 and M7/8. I'll have a look at possibilities.

Wow - thats a lot of long replies for an initial idea

Let me be clear, its not about the price (90-100-110-120) whatever, I have attended 3 Salsa schools and found them all excellent value for money and excellent fun. Hence the wish for a "mid term" revision course !

I dont know that it has to be as big or that it would be as well attended, perhaps its 150-200 people for 2 days and only 1 overnight. Accomodation for 1 night will save money - surely some of the "ghost hotels" in NAMA have big conference rooms and plenty of spare beds, empty bars etc etc that they would like filled for a few days. Teachers should be paid and there are a number of local and UK teachers that would be excellent if available.

Was in Knightsbrook in Trim recently - huge, great floors, lots of "conference rooms" and largely empty, accomodation was excellent too. There must be 50 other hotels around Ireland that could host the event, most hotels have stopped charging for room hire as they are relying on selling food, drink and beds around events now.

Like all plans, if the interest was there from the dancers to deliver the attendance (the price falls out of that as does the amount available to pay the teachers). I understand that any/ all organisers take the risk if the numbers do not show up of making a loss, not too many want to take the risk in the current environment.

So this thread was started to see what the interest would be in such an event rather than determining a price. Lots of people are travelling for salsa to London, Spain, Turkey, USA etc etc so cost of an Irish event will be lower - no flights, 1 day less accomodation etc etc

Who is interested in an Irish Salsa school/ revision course/ reunion in October or January ?

Instead of having a bar at an event - I love having a bar, but I also fully appreciate the nightmare it is trying to get people at a salsa event to buy booze - how about having something like a coffee dock or a smoothie bar?  I've heard a few people saying that they'd happily buy drink if there was some tasty non-alcoholic alternative - could something like that help to generate an extra bit of income?  Do ye think people would buy enough of those things to make someone like Innocent smoothies think about sponsoring an event?  Or would people just start sneaking in their own coffees and smoothies and start complaining that there's nowhere to buy booze ...