Flutterby™! : Square dance community musings

As I won't shut up about, Charlene and I obviously had a good time at Sactown Stomp this last weekend. Re-energized us on much of what we love about square dancing and the square dance community. Some good conversations there, and the drive home involved discussion about what we could do short of trying to start a club again to help bring more of the energy we love to our participation in square dancing. Which made us ask what makes the square dance fly-in format so much more sense of community than the club event, and I think we settled on a few things:

1. The longer time period (all day, or more) means we end up sitting out and chatting more.
2. Bonus if there's a little bit of space for socialization. In this case there was the Friday night party, and, though we bailed on the announced place and went elsewhere, the "whole bunch of us are going to this place for dinner" vibe.
3. Multiple rooms means there's a bit of option. Even for programs we don't dance, it's sometimes fun to sit and watch.
4. The sense of destination means that rather than driving 2+ hours each way for half that in dancing, we're willing to extend things out a little bit more and explore a bit. But I think part of this is that the context needs to allow for socializing; it's not like we go down to Palo Alto early for an ECR dance, even though I'm sure there's stuff there we haven't seen or done that might be open on a Saturday evening.

So we're trying to think about what this means. Would it draw anyone, for instance, to rent a hall for the day before an evening dance and inviting some callers you may not have experienced before to play? Are two rooms important for that?

Is there a way to get the sense of "sitting down with friends for dinner" without completely overwhelming a single kitchen by bringing 3 squares of people into a restaurant at one time? Does catering work? (This is where a few hundred people and a walkable region around a hotel works.)

No answers, just brainstorming. Thinking about venues (a walkable downtown would be cool for so many reasons, so could ya, like, rent Out West Garage for a weekend?). Thinking about ways to piggyback on existing events. Thinking about the SCVSDA Jubilee and other similar events...