How is your city's swing scene compared to two years ago?

[RaleighRob]

The Raleigh area scene is growing on some ways and declining in others. The number of intermediate/advanced dancers is definitely growing. The number of beginners is dropping, but we're doing a better job of keeping them in the scene, I think.

[BryanC]

Heh, if you had asked "one year ago", I would have said "a lot smaller" for Calgary because it was really down to a trickle. There's always been a lively live music scene on weekends (three out of four weekends), but the number of dancers was plumetting due to the fact that the consistent "DJ'd" venue was in the middle of nowhere in an industrial park in Calgary. We're slowly doing a rebuild from the ground up, it seems, with a new generation of beginners getting hooked on the music and the dance, and the availability of an accessible venue seems to have breathed new life into our scene. Mind you, two years ago, our scene was only about 30 dancers large anyways.

It sounds like we're closer to being like Atlanta (in transition) than anything else. Mind you, I've only been dancing for about 2 years.

[Lawrence]

My question is if a good deal of dancers are leaving in various scenes, where are they going to? Can you get them back?
Tina

They leave because they are tired of watching the same people show off in Jam Circles after the first three times. (I'm kidding... but had to say it....)

Attrition is always a problem in ANY form of entertainment. Keeping it new and fresh--including being open to evolving tastes in music and what "REEEEAL" Lindy Hop is or should be--helps avoid attrition. But always engaging in constant marketing to draw new people in is the only way to sustain a scene from the inevitable attrition.

Moreover, recruiting new people is not that difficult. Even in a smaller city like Austin that has a rather disproprotinately large and healthy Lindy Hop scene, probably 90-95% of the population STILL does not know what Lindy Hop is. Many of them don't "bite" at first learning about it, and even many those who do "bite" don't end up following through.

Put it this way, any scene that could attract just HALF of a routine Div I college football crowd to learn how to dance (not even including the television crowd) would be a Lindy Hop mecca. You don't even need half of a Gator game; I'd take half of the 25,000 or so that show up for Illinois games this year (in a stadium built for 65,000). There is virtually no end to the supply of "newbies."

To put in in perspective, one local group BRAGS about the fact that they just had their record attendance for a weekly dance... at 280!! That's an average if not weak night for a mid-sized Blues venue here in AUstin. They are out there, we just need to recruit them.

[Nate Dogg]

To put in in perspective, one local group BRAGS about the fact that they just had their record attendance for a weekly dance... at 280!! That's an average if not weak night for a mid-sized Blues venue here in AUstin. They are out there, we just need to recruit them.

Yeah, and the Austin American-Statesman also wrote that swing was dead awhile back. 280 for a weekly DJed dance is pretty good under the circumstances.

Ten years ago, when I was a UT student, there was zero Lindy hop in Austin.

Back to your main point, in general I do agree with you. The lifeblood of any entertainment venue is the recruitment of new people. If you take a snapshot of any group, you will see a lot of turnover. If groups don't add people to replace those who leave, they start to perish.

In our scene, a common comment among the people who leave for a year and come back is that they see so many new faces. They also notice the lack of some of their friends, folks who have moved on.

The weekly regulars don't notice these changes as profoundly, since they happen slowly over time.

Nathan

[gatorgal]

My question is if a good deal of dancers are leaving in various scenes, where are they going to? Can you get them back?
Tina

They leave because they are tired of watching the same people show off in Jam Circles after the first three times. (I'm kidding... but had to say it....)

Lawrence... sometimes you're an absolute riot!

Tina

[russell]

My vote is the "a lot larger". Two years ago in Canberra, Australia there was no lindy scene. A few of us, mainly for work reasons, ended up in Canberra around the same time. We needed a lindy fix so started up a scene - running classes, promotion etc. We even had a mini-exchange. We started classes in around May and now have about a core group of 20 with an average attendance at class of around 40-50. There was a lindy scene in Canberra a few years ago but that died out. Canberra is the capital city of Australia but is not a huge city - only about 240,000 population. Main problem we have is the lack of social venues to dance. There is a really good 10 piece swing band but they play mostly corporate gigs. We also had social venue at a club but the small numbers we can draw meant that the management pulled the plug on it. We are in the process of formally setting up ourselves as a society. You can find us at
http://www.jumptown.org

[gatorgal]

Good luck Russell!

Tina

[KevinSchaper]

We've got a great group of people running stuff in eugene now, and the scene is growing like crazy. I realized this weekend that the resources we have are just awesome - we have a real graphic designer doin the flyers and promo stuff (press releases even), we have me for DJing, and probably more importantly for owning PA equipment, and we've got a grad student in the music department who hooked us up with some phenomenal musicians to play our first big saturday night dance this past weekend.

It's almost an entirely new scene, there are a few people that were dancing two years ago in eugene, but not many, and it was all but dead in the middle.

[sonofvu]

Hey Tina, you better keep the South Florida scene alive. I need a place to dance when I go visit my family in Pembroke Pines.

[gatorgal]

Hey Tina, you better keep the South Florida scene alive. I need a place to dance when I go visit my family in Pembroke Pines.

A girl can only do so much! I actually may be in your neck of the woods in December.

Tina

[sonofvu]

Hey Tina, you better keep the South Florida scene alive. I need a place to dance when I go visit my family in Pembroke Pines.

A girl can only do so much! I actually may be in your neck of the woods in December.

Tina

I hope we don't miss each other. When are you coming? To Austin that is...

[Shanabanana]

I don't really have the numbers to say whether "A lot larger" or "A little larger" is the right choice, but in Denver, it is definitely a lot *better*.

We hit a critical mass of talented dancers a year or so ago that has resulted in a pretty large leap of the overall dancing ability of the scene. At a recent S&V workshop, there were 30 people in the advanced class, and probably 20 of those would qualify for the advanced track at a camp. There are plenty of good teachers, which I credit for the rapid improvement of dancers. We also have more than our fair share of quality local DJs (I'd say 5 that could hold their own on the national circuit and probably 5 more that are local favorites).

I think I may have written this in Ron's last poll, but I'll say it again. There's a sense of non-territorialism that has really helped our scene thrive. There are frequent guest DJs at most local venues, and from what I can tell, most teachers encourage their students to take from others. I think this sharing attitude keeps the scene from stagnating. Dancers are well-rounded and have a taste for a wide variety of music, along with a desire to hear new music, which keeps things interesting too.

It's been exciting to watch, especially in the context of watching other cities decline.

[Drew]

we have a real graphic designer doin the flyers and promo stuff (press releases even), we have me for DJing, and probably more importantly for owning

I've got to say, the PDX stuff from last year looked pretty cool...as do the tattoos from this year.

[Zot]

This topic makes me wonder whether anyone has ever attempted to do a swing map with some kind of guide as to how big a scene is. I guess by big I mean the number of dancers, but it would also be worth looking at the number of regular social nights and the difference between social and non-social dancers.

Here in Melbourne the scene is definitely a lot bigger than it was 2 years ago. We're now at the point where we're probably in the top 3 cities in the world in terms of the number of dancers and regular social events.

[Bob the Builder]

You tell them Zot.
I know there was a survey on Yehoodi on a thread that some one started.
Not sure how much detail it went into.

Brian