Covid Recovery: Ceilidhs at Bromyard Folk Festival 10-11 September 2021

 In normal years,  this festival offers 3-4 ceilidhs on the greenfield site as well as a "Day of Dance" featuring Contra, etc. at a venue in the town. This year, the "Day of Dance" was cancelled and there were just two ceilidhs.

The organisers were a little coy about exactly what was on offer saying, "Not comfortable dancing in a crowd? Don’t worry! The evenings will start out as an upbeat standing concert and with callers on hand" and the programme billed the ceilidhs as  "An evening with" followed by the name of the band. The Friday event did start with an hour of concert but the Saturday was a dance from the start.

Concessions to Covid included:

• A large container of hand sanitiser near the entrance
• A last minute email from the festival "Please take a Lateral Flow Test within 24 hours before your expected arrival at the site.". This caused some confusion on the Facebook page as people tried to establish what proof they'd need. The answer turned out to be none.
• The ceilidh venue was a "sideless" marquee 
  
  
  

So did people turn up and dance? Yes, they did

I counted 5 sets of 8 couples = 80 people on the floor for one dance and roughly counted 88 for another. I doubt it numbers reached 100 and there can't have been many dances with less than 60. I saw one person wearing a mask on the dancefloor for just the first hour or so of the first dance.

It's difficult to say what "normal" numbers would be because over the years, it's varied a lot. Certainly, the numbers above are near the upper end of normal. A few notes on who the dancers were or were not:

• Around 12 people known to me as "regulars" at this event were absent
• One of those was reported to be infected with Covid
• A few people who I would have expected to attend the usual "Day of Dance" events came to the ceilidhs.
• The average age may have been a little lower than usual

Discussion

• Sideless marquees have a history before 2020. Some summer festivals in France use them and Chippenham used one for events behind the Black Horse for some years. They provide excellent cooling as well as today's much desired ventilation. It worked well at Bromyard but only just. It was cool enough to dissuade people from sitting out dances to any great extent. Had the weather been a little colder, windy or wet it could have been uncomfortable.
• The "turnout" for these events suggests that you can get a similar number of dancers as you would have in 2019.  You won't necessarily get exactly the same people though.
• It seems nice to try and be inclusive of those who have anxiety about possible infection (but not enough to make them stay away). However, recent reports in this series suggest that this group is just about non-existent. People are either going to dances and participating normally or staying away completely. A notable exception was Sidmouth back in early August where there was a minority wearing masks, sticking to one partner, etc.

Covid Recovery: Contra Dance at Alcester 3rd September 2021

 In normal times, this is a series of monthly events attracting over 100 dancers. This was a "restart" event and the intention is that there will be another dance in October and presumably monthly thereafter. Differences from normal included:

• A different hall with around a quarter of the floor area of the usual spaces. I asked the organiser if this was deliberate but she said not. .The usual spaces were not available.
• There were nearly always 32 dancers on the floor and no more than 40. This was low compared to the usual 100+ but fitted the hall well.
• The large number of students normally seen were absent but this is probably because it's still the vacation.
• It was my impression that the proportion of the very oldest dancers was less and the that the middle-aged were more prominent.
• I saw 3 masks being worn by 20-somethings
• Everyone danced normally but perhaps with a little more enthusiasm and joy than normal.