Attended by over 600 extremely diverse dancers – from all parts of the globe, 2007 proved once again that Directors Mark, Eve, and Glen - yes Glen! ;) have mastered the task of providing "state of the art" MEGA-EVENT weekends. 

Now-a-days its common for events to be reviewed by so many of it's attendees and participants, from instructors/promoters/providers to the very first timer's point of view. 
Since that's certainly the case here, I'll take a different perspective - cuz it's definately worth talkin' about!

Not so very long ago,(2000ish) event reviews or similar types of sharing were limited to a few people - in my area that was primarily done by Mark C, Vivienne S and myself. 
We did much of the reporting for happenings in our area that we attended - way before today's easy internet access to reviews and dance related information, from everyone, everywhere.

I also recall that many of today's perks and standards of excellence designed to meet dancer's expectations have evolved from those types of reviews and comments.  Directors took note and built on what folks wanted - the result is we have tons of options for dancing - from intimate one day, single room venues to massive week long festivals.   Most are run well enough to keep people coming back.  Gone are the days when folks had legitimate complaints or seriously regretted attending.  How nice for us!  It also gives future providers a starting point so they don't have to learn by making the same mistakes.

Speaking of if there were any mistakes over the weekend on the hotel's part, was preparing for fall weather, or underestimating Mother Nature.  Hardly a science!  Had we been outdoors - we'd have thought it glorious!

So the common gripe was temperature - the ballrooms got a lil warm but we managed and KEPT dancing!  Over all it wasn't that bad and neither were the guest rooms...so relief was always close by if needed. 
AND since its was over 80 degrees outside in October in Chicago, we might as well enjoy it! 
Mid-westerners should know better than to complain - it's currently below 50 degrees as I write this.

Years of trial n error experience have evolved the mega events to such an extraordinary level, areas of former common criticism are virtually non-existent these days.  The WC fundamentals never fell short in previous years, and continued to be top notch in 2006, those being:   Great floors (Bob Bahrs), ample space, comfy temps, quality sound & DJs (Louie & Jill), vendor selections, popular instructors (26) w/ a broad range of dances - including level & variety, ideal ballroom layouts, nice accommodations, along with the essentials regarding registration, scheduling, packets, step books/disks etc. In fact things were so well co-ordinated, we might just take those aspects for granted.

Cheers to all the folks that did a year’s worth of planning & preparation, and worked throughout the event so that we could breeze right in and enjoy everything offered.

*Newly added to the event this year was Thursday night’s dancing in the largest main ballroom – wise planning – there were a LOT of people there already, the bonus night is still proving really popular with dancers. Feedback rates it as a favored open dance night too - tho it's all great!

*New hotel policy had no smoking in the snack bar seating area – bet that made 99.5% of folks quite pleased! For us blacksheepies - no big deal, hit the bar or go outside…

Also new was the Pro-choreography challenge – how clever – more on the specific dances later. (Frequently workshops have the pros write and perform routines for the show – makes sense to carry their work onto usable dances – not only was it VERY entertaining, it gave people a chance to participate by learning & voting for their pick, then the efforts of the choreographers can cross-over within the dance community after the event.)

Not new, but more prominent this year was the number of people that took part in Chicago’s tourism offerings. I spoke with far greater dancers that arrived early, stayed on after, who ventured out n about to enjoy the city - whether traveling from near or far - who shopped - ALOT! So we might as well include boosting the local economy in this year’s highlights ;)  And the weather was vacation picture perfect too! 

There seemed to be more distance travelers present this year, esp. from Asia. Hopefully Mark will elaborate more in his review. There were dancers from all over – the UK, most US States, Canada, and as usual, lots of fellow Michiganders - instructors and dancers alike turn out in force.

Thursday’s open dance party was a whirlwind social night combining the dances we love to do, with catching up with the peeps we love to dance with – till 1:00 am with Louie - who played an extra hour for us.

Friday morning blew most everyone back into the ballroom, with schedules & pens in hand for the 9:00 am demos of Friday’s teaches. WC offers 5 ballrooms of primarily concurrent slots that ran from 10am til 7pm on Fri, 9am til 5 pm on Sat, and reteaches 9 am til 4 pm on Sun – which adds up to a whoppin’ 109 sessions of lessons or open dance, along with 10 more competition dances taught.

Variety ranged from beg to adv using many music genres - all the instructors mixed it up. Hard to imagine not finding plenty of somethin' for everyone – whatever your preference! Two ballrooms were dedicated to walk thru reviews both on Fri & Sat nights from 9-12:30. Those got a lot of use and were appreciated by dancers, and kept timely by instructors.

The evening ballroom formats work quite well IMHO. The main hall w/ Louie was intended for "floor fillers" past or present, and everything else ala Louie style. As always Louie did a fabilicious job! He pulled a lot of major faves out of his magic hat that made us all hop to the floor – remembering how much we loved the dances from the past – if not quite remembering exactly how they went ;)

BTW -DO YOUR THING is still one of my all time fun faves! Too many others to list, but it felt so good to dance so many of those again!

BTW -DO YOUR THING is still one of my all time fun faves! Too many others to list, but it felt so good to dance so many of those again!

We headed to our rooms at 5 - in the AM - both nights!  New to me was Louie's 4am group photo shoot of all the late nighters.

Jill’s room offered an "anything goes all request" format. When the 2nd evening ballroom is located further away, sometimes cross-dancing doesn't get utilized as much.  At WC it's always been right next to the main room, so we bopped back-n-forth.  Jill was extremely accomodating with requests, precalled on decks (luv that!) and did a great job all weekend long!  Glad she was so close by!