[SCA-Dance] [SCA-dance] Notes from the Future of KWDS meeting

[Mary Railing]

These are my notes on the meeting held Sunday morning at the Known World Dance Symposium. Corrections and additions are encouraged.


--Urraca

Post-mortem
on this year:
   Publicly KWDS 9 was a success.
People enjoyed the event. There were lots of tracks of classes. They were able
to bring in non-SCA professionals to teach. The Ohio Union people were great.
The bad news is that it lost about $1800. They were planning for 200. They got
about 175. This is about what the event has been getting, but they were hoping
for more. The schedule included a lot of Middle Eastern and World Dance
classes, which they had hoped would bring in people from the belly dance
community that don’t normally go to this event, but then a major belly dance
event got scheduled opposite it in Columbus.
   The event budget was around
$9000. They had to put down a deposit of $4000 more than a year in advance to
lock in the site. This is necessary for a venue like this because other people
are trying to reserve space well in advance. They tried to get interest from
the university music department, but that was unsuccessful. They did get money
from the SCA, Inc. to pay for bringing in pros. The swag [water bottles and
tote bags] was not expensive. It only added $5.25 per person.

Advice for
future events:
   Don’t be afraid of a big site.
This is not a typical SCA event. It is a conference. 
Ask the
Corporation for help. There is something called the Bone bequest which is money
specifically for promoting music and dance in the SCA. Take advantage of any
student discounts you can get. Start early with your site contact. Ask for
trade-offs. Often a site will give you discounts on room rental if you buy
catered food or book hotel rooms. Be wary of how things are priced because
sometimes there are extra fees for things like setting up tables and chairs or
requiring that an employee be paid to run equipment.  Ask Laurels who they would like to learn from.

The next
KWDS:
  Mistress Deonna von Aachen will be
running the next one in Saratoga Springs on June 20-23, 2013. There is a
Facebook page. Look for Knowne World (with an “e”). There will be a website
soon. The date is on the kingdom calendar. 
   The evening site will be
Universal Preservation Hall. This is a historic site with wooden floors and
wonderful acoustics. They are used to having dances because Dance Flurry is
held there every February.  The
down side is that it is one large room, so other space will be needed for
classes. It is also old enough to not be up to current fire safety and
accessibility standards, which means there has to be a fire marshal. There are
two possibilities for more space, neither of which is nailed down yet. A couple
blocks away there is a former school with 14 wooden-floored classrooms that is
rentable, with us having the room keys all weekend. It is not air-conditioned,
but Saratoga Springs is cool in the summer. Neither this site nor the hall
requires catering, so it would be possible to have a dessert revel and
dayboard. The other location is Skidmore College. We will definitely be able to
use their dorm rooms for $63 per person per night. This includes a shuttle
trolley ticket. We will be able to have late night dancing there. There are
vending machines, so drinks would be available all night. It may be possible to
have classes there as well, instead of the former school, but we won’t know
what space, if any, will be available for a while yet, because they haven't set
their schedule yet, and they have a lot of stuff in the summer. Their
classrooms are carpeted.  Saratoga
Springs is also home to the National Museum of Dance, the Horseracing Museum
and other attractions. It is a small city, so lots of things are within walking
distance.
   Deonna did not have the site fees
available, but it will have a discount for pre-registration and a site fee for
attending the ball only.  They will
have online registration through ACCEPS. (People noted that some have had problems
with ACCEPS, but Darius said it now accepts Canadian credit cards.) The
assistant autocrat is not a dancer and will be focusing on administration.
Wilhelm is the class coordinator. Deonna may be able to get John Tyson to teach
music classes.

Scheduling
Classes:
 There was some discussion of whether it
is better for all the classes to begin and end at the same time, or whether it
is better to have the option of different length classes. The music people felt
the classes were too long. A lot of people felt that having skewed class tracks
was bad. Having all the longer classes in one time slot was suggested. Deonna
said she was considering having a half hour break between classes, especially
if people have to move between sites. Some people thought the lunch break was
too long. People liked the long dinner break. Felice asked if having green
rooms was helpful. No one knew they were there. There needs to be a place to
store instruments. Monique asked if it would be better to have only one track
of music classes, so the classes wouldn’t be drawing against each other.
Someone else noted that in that case, if that class isn’t something you can do,
you are out of luck. Deonna wants to have a track of non-dance music. Would it
be a waste to try to have another music class opposite someone like John Tyson?
Someone suggested having a master class day, perhaps on Thursday, with just one
track.

Future
Events:
   Phillip asked if there were any
other future bids besides Drachenwald. There is some talk of the St. Louis
area. 
   Darius said that Judith told him
that she intends to put a bid in for Drachenwald in 2015 at the same site in
Miltenburg, Germany where they have the Academia della Danza event. That event
is normally held in March, but she did not tell him any dates. People stay in a
youth hostel. They would expect a smaller event. When KWDS was in Lochach about
thirty people came from the US. People asked about the possibility of getting a
travel agent to put together a tour package because having someone to make
travel arrangements would make it more likely people would go. 
   Someone asked whether it would be
two years after that before there could be another KWDS. The consensus was that
an annual event is not a good idea, but since fewer people would go to a KWDS
outside the US, it would be good to have the next one in 2016.

Permanent
Web Site
   Darius and Gwommy are working on
a permanent website for KWDS. Darius has registered kwds.com and kwdms.com as
domains and is hosting the site. They have a start on constructing the site,
which they showed on a laptop. It has not gone public yet. It will include the
ability to give event staff and teachers accounts, so they can update content
themselves. People were impressed enough to ask if the template could be made
available to adapt to other events.