As I contemplate how to relate my experience of the Baltimore Tango Element Festival itself, I can say that this was my 30th festival and is 2nd from the bottom of my ranking of quality of festival experiences.  I am only talking of MY experience, not necessarily the quality of the festival itself.

I take many arenas into consideration when I consider my festival experience such as: quality of DJ’ing; who attends; level of snobbishness/ cliquishness; navigation skill and following of navigation codes; how other Tango codes are used; seating arrangements; quality of entrance/ exit from milonga floor; temperature controls; food, snacks, water, coffee availability; performances and their quality and length; quality of announcements; milonga lighting quality; sound quality; organizational quality; meet and greet quality; experience of tracking participants’ payment and milonga/ class entrance; timeliness of events’ start and end; hotel quality including timeliness of staff response to issues, bathroom upkeep and quality with other customer service issues; venue quality, variety and ease of transportation to and from venues; how teachers conduct themselves on and off the dance floor…  The list goes on.

Even though I do not formally assess on paper, I could assess and assign a number on a scale for each arena similar to many other industries.  I wonder if others would be interested in this information?  Just knowing the arenas of ranking would give a festival organizer valuable insight and information to make their festivals better.

Of course, everyone has different experiences at a festival, including what is important to them.  However, everyone would probably experience some level of discomfort and frustration with the lack of air conditioning in a hot and humid milonga hall.  How festival arenas effect each individual varies.  And some of these festival arenas outweigh others.  If five of my favorite tangueras showed up and danced a lot with me, low rankings in other arenas just would not matter much.  In addition, festivals are experienced different from a follow’s perspective vs. a lead’s perspective.

With all this said, I did have many wonderful dances, connections and creation of memories.  Even though I probably will not attend again, I am glad I attended and want to share some of the memories that were created in addition to what I shared in my last entry- Baltimore Tango Elements Festival Part 2- Creating Memories.

I hung out with my good friend and first Tango festival buddy, Sarah.  Such good memories of several festivals we both traveled to, and our sharing of all that happened during so many milongas.  I have enjoyed all the debriefing of Tango happenings.

I also had a spectacular dinner with a professional coach.  Our conversation contained sharing of personal growth/ transformational technologies and methodologies.  This brought up many memories of my participation in these organizations- both positive and an acknowledgement of restrictions in fundamental cosmologies.  I treasure befriending people like her, for all of the shenanigans of Tango melt away while connecting with my good Tango friends.

Another mention are the performances Sabastian Arce and Chicho gave, which astonished me, inspired me, and thrilled the participants.   The thunderous clapping got 5 dances out of Sabastian and 6 out of Chicho.  WOW!  The expertise and cutting-edge explorations certainly showed me some of the places Tango can go.

And, one of my favorite memories is how at 5:15 AM in the Baltimore airport I met up with 5 other Tangueras/os.  If we all had not been so tired, we would have probably danced.  Just hanging out with these friends supplied me with a deep sense of community and well being.  Yum!

Now, onto the Denver Labor Day festival…