To the Minneapolis tango community:
Hello Tango Minneapolis!! My name is Grace Evitt and I am one of the organizers of the Midwest Tango Festival. I'd like to first apologize to all for not having communicated to you sooner. With everything that is involved with organizing an event from a distance, this was an oversight on my part. I am sure there are many in the Twin City tango community that are curious as to who we are and what this festival is all about. So, let me share how this festival started.
A few years back, my friend and co-organizer, Mark Dy-Liacco, M.D., had moved from Chicago to St. Louis to become the Surgical Director of the Liver Transplant Program at the St. Louis University Hospital. Shortly before this, St. Louis' popular Hot Winter Tango Festival had it's last hurrah. Just like your community, St. Louis had a small but thriving community and with the loss of Hot Winter Tango, the influx of fresh dancers stopped. Mark and I had several conversations about running a festival when he lived in Chicago, but I wasn't too keen on doing another Chicago event. Even though organizing such an event can be fraught with drama and politics, Mark and I are passionate about Argentine tango. So we organized St. Louis and it was a success. We did it again in St. Louis, and it was an even bigger success. Then we were asked to bring the festival to Indianapolis and that was a success. And we did it again in Cincinnati and once again, success. What do we mean by success? We broke even for the most part, everyone from the participants to the teachers and the staff enjoyed the festival, and we get repeat attendees! Add to that the numerous compliments we received for exposing these smaller communities and inspiring out of towners to consider revisiting. This is one of our major goals.
In the history of our festival, we have had visitors come from all over the Midwest, from Tennessee, North Carolina, to Michigan, Wisconsin, from Pennsylvania, Ohio, to Nebraska, Kansas. It always amazes us how many states can be represented in a festival, and it's all in the Midwest. So, we decided to continue our journey with this festival. This year, someone from your community suggested that we consider Minneapolis as our next host city. I reached out to all my Minneapolis friends who are organizers and the TSoM Board and when we visited, we sat down and discussed whether this festival could be hosted by Minneapolis. Both Mark and I felt very welcomed and thus agreed that Minneapolis could be the next host city.
We had other communities that invited us so we had to do the homework, but after some long discussions and weighing out the pros and cons, we decided on Minneapolis. For us, it just made sense that we should come here. Most of the organizers as well as the TSoM Board were made aware of our decision as soon as we figured out ourselves. And thus, the planning had begun. However, for the first two weeks of our promotion, I had requested that the information regarding the host city should be kept under lock and key until after the contest that we usually run for people to guess where the next festival would be. We get a lot of responses and we find that it excites people to figure out what skyline they're looking at. We did get a few Minneapolis people to guess (and one guessed incorrectly!!) and we also had several people register as well. The contest was on our Facebook page and it showed a really nice silhouette of your skyline backed in Prince purple. People who were interested in participating sent an email with their guesses and those who guessed correctly received a HUGE discount on a Full Festival Pass. The contest ran only for two weeks and only the first 25 people who guessed correctly won the discount. After that, the Early Bird pricing began, and will be running throughout October. We are a little behind because initially, Mark and I had almost decided NOT to do the festival. Because of Minneapolis' heartfelt welcome and the numerous invitations we received from other communities to host the festival, we just felt that this was a sign that we needed to continue doing it. So we were, and are still, running a little behind...but we're getting there!!
Our website is up and running (www.midwesttangofestival.com), and Early Bird Registration will run until the end of this month. You can also check out our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/MidwestTangoFestival/?fref=ts) for updates regarding the festival. We will hopefully and finally have the venues announced, we are just waiting for agreements to be signed. As you may already know, Scott Chase has been our "festival crier" getting the word out there about the festival and offering people who might be interested in volunteering to step up and help out. We already have several volunteers that have taken the initiative for some tasks, like hosting options for out of town volunteers and participants,. I've also asked Eric Li to assist in spreading the word and being a go to for local access about information regarding the festival.
For those of you who are wondering how this affects the standard milonga schedule for that weekend, we have spoken to all the organizers who normally have their events for that weekend and they have all been gracious about cancelling their event in support of the festival. While we have received such a helpful hand from the TSoM Board and most of the organizers, we don't want to leave you, the community, out of the loop, because this festival is, after all, about you, your community, your city. We hope that you will enjoy the fruits of our efforts in promoting your community to our followers throughout the U.S. and reach out to your tango friends and invite them to your lovely city. If any of you desire flyers, I will be bringing some with me next week and you can either pick them up from your milonga organizers or ask for them directly from me. Many of our festival attendees are repeat attendees and it's always so nice to see them year after year. And now, we have the honor to present you, the Minneapolis Tango community, again to the U.S. tango circuit. We thank you for being our host city and we so look forward to working with you!! If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to use our website or our Facebook page to contact us, I have been to Minneapolis on a few occasions, attending the milongas, and will be there again a few more times before the festival, so feel free to pull me aside and talk with me. Really, I don't bite...at least not right away!! :D
One last thing...if anyone is interested in being a part of our team and volunteering their time to help at the festival, please send me an email to gmonny@yahoo.com. OR friend me on Facebook...Grace Evitt. I already have a small group of local volunteers and will be bringing in some volunteers from other communities who have helped in prior years, so we only need a few more. If you could please do this before the weekend is over, I would appreciate it.
Once again, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to stand on my soap box. I hope I haven't bored anyone! See you on the dance floor!!
Grace Evitt
Midwest Tango Festival
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