Tango in Torquay, 2012... One: And We're Off

15th January 2012

Tango In Torquay One | Tango In Torquay Two | Tango In Torquay Three | Tango In Torquay Four

Introduction

This is a review of my trip to Torquay for the Rockbottoms Tango weekender, 13-16 Jan 2012.

"Rockbottoms" is a group who organise weekenders, primarily for the Modern Jive (MJ) market. By MJ standards, these are small-scale events (200 or so people). By AT standards, these are quite large-scale.

(If you're interested,

(I did a similar set of reviews in 2011 - see "Tango in Torquay 2011" - and here's my review from 2009 for comparison purposes)

Torquay

The weekender was in Torquay, in deepest darkest Devon.

Getting there

It's a bit of a schlep from London - it's about 4 hours' drive, and that's without any major traffic problems and only one brief stop. The instructions on the Rockbottoms site are pretty good, however.

The venue

The Derwent hotel is part of a hotel complex (TLH). It's a nice experience to have a room at the same venue as the dance area; no need to change shoes or grab a coat at the end of the evening, and it's only a couple of minutes walk to your nice warm room. Most Tango weekenders either ask you to find your own accommodation, or give you a choice of some hippy-sharing-floor type of thing. As for most Modern Jive weekenders, one word: Pontins.

The hotel is part of an interlinked complex of 4 hotels - which means that there's a lot of facilities (pool, gym, a couple of restaurants and so on) in the complex, although you can also get a bit lost occasionally.

It's also pretty good value for money - £189 per person, half board, including all classes, is pretty good value I think. Parking is available in hotel car parks, but these fill up pretty quick on Friday afternoon - although there is street parking nearby, it's much nicer having your car locally available.

Checking in

I've never had any problems checking-in; any more than checking in to any hotel - the whole thing usually takes about 5-10 minutes, most of which is taken up by chatting and gossipping with Hev.

The Classes

The class schedule is quite busy - nearly 30 classes over the weekend.

The classes are mainly Tango, but there are a few others (Blues, West Coast Swing and Modern Jive) there as well. The Tango classes are at three levels: beginner (up to 1 year), intermediate (1 - 2.5 years) and advanced ("good").

Levels of classes are always problematic - someone studying intensively for 1 year may be more advanced than someone attending a class once every 2 weeks for 5 years. But it's best to have some levels, and some accompanying definitions, than none at all.

The teachers

The teacher rosta is a good selection:

I'll review the individual classes in the next entry.

~ David Bailey, 15th January 2012