BIDA, the contra dance that I
help organize, has now had two dances since resuming. These have been
with masks, proof of vaccination, boosters if eligible, email
addresses for contact tracing, and as much ventilation as possible,
which isn’t that much in our hall. There were a few surprises for us,
so I wanted to write up a bit about how it went.
Overall, it’s been really good. People are happy to see each
other and happy to be dancing again.
Attendance has been much higher than before
the pandemic (~215 vs ~130), with lots of people who used to attend
occasionally. I expect this will fall off as people return to
thinking of dances as something they can go to whenever they want, and
when other area dances restart.
With checking proof of vaccination and getting people to put
down their emails for contact tracing, we expected to need additional
people at the door, but even with three people there was sometimes a
line. This is a lot slower than just collecting money.
No one has informed us that they were infectious at the dance,
or that they think they got sick at a dance. I’m not sure when it
would make sense to stop collecting emails for contact tracing; maybe
when we expect that attending a dance is only a small portion of
someone’s weekly exposure and that most other sources aren’t contact
tracing?
We are having people write their emails on paper, and if
someone did tell us they were infectious it would be a daunting amount
of work to email everyone: bad handwriting, lots of addresses. On the
other hand, we could split this among the board, so it isn’t that much
per person.
We are including a place on the email sheet where you can mark
if you would like to be added to our mailing
list. I feel a bit conflicted about this, for the general reason
that you shouldn’t mix security/health with promotion, but people
don’t seem to mind.
We expected that callers would need to start with easier
dances, because after two years people might be a bit rusty, but it
was really the opposite: the balance of experience in the hall is
really shifted toward long-time dancers.
At our first dance about 2% of people hadn’t noticed that we
would be requiring boosters for people who were eligible, and we did
have to turn a few people away. This was really hard. If you are
organizing a dance you should talk in advance with your co-organizers
about whether you will make exceptions and have someone prepared to be
bad cop. One thing to consider is having rapid tests available
(potentially for purchase) and including those in an exception
process.
Several dancers asked if they could bring air purifiers, which
we were happy to have. In retrospect, especially given how little we
can ventilate this hall, putting out a call for people to bring them
could’ve made sense?
People vary a lot with how much they mind dancing in
masks. Personally, while the mask is a bit annoying I strongly prefer
dancing with a mask to not dancing. I’m not sure yet how we should
decide when to stop requiring them, and am open to suggestions!
We aren’t doing snacks at the break or allowing eating in the
hall, but we’re still putting out water. The marginal harm of
dehydration from making access to water less convenient is probably
higher than the covid impact. We’re not seeing people hanging out
with their masks off while drinking water; we have a good culture of
taking a sip and then putting their mask back. (If we’re going to
require masking I want us to be doing it properly.)
There was some concern in advance that masks would get wet
(sweaty) and not be useful, and we made sure to have a large supply of
free masks (both surgical-style and N95). This didn’t seem to be much
of an issue, and not very many people wanted our masks.
We didn’t have any issues with people not being willing to wear
masks, or not wearing them properly. We lined up volunteers in
advance who were prepared to talk to people not properly wearing
masks, if necessary.
Experience Restarting Contra
Link post
BIDA, the contra dance that I help organize, has now had two dances since resuming. These have been with masks, proof of vaccination, boosters if eligible, email addresses for contact tracing, and as much ventilation as possible, which isn’t that much in our hall. There were a few surprises for us, so I wanted to write up a bit about how it went.
Overall, it’s been really good. People are happy to see each other and happy to be dancing again.
Attendance has been much higher than before the pandemic (~215 vs ~130), with lots of people who used to attend occasionally. I expect this will fall off as people return to thinking of dances as something they can go to whenever they want, and when other area dances restart.
With checking proof of vaccination and getting people to put down their emails for contact tracing, we expected to need additional people at the door, but even with three people there was sometimes a line. This is a lot slower than just collecting money.
No one has informed us that they were infectious at the dance, or that they think they got sick at a dance. I’m not sure when it would make sense to stop collecting emails for contact tracing; maybe when we expect that attending a dance is only a small portion of someone’s weekly exposure and that most other sources aren’t contact tracing?
We are having people write their emails on paper, and if someone did tell us they were infectious it would be a daunting amount of work to email everyone: bad handwriting, lots of addresses. On the other hand, we could split this among the board, so it isn’t that much per person.
We are including a place on the email sheet where you can mark if you would like to be added to our mailing list. I feel a bit conflicted about this, for the general reason that you shouldn’t mix security/health with promotion, but people don’t seem to mind.
We expected that callers would need to start with easier dances, because after two years people might be a bit rusty, but it was really the opposite: the balance of experience in the hall is really shifted toward long-time dancers.
At our first dance about 2% of people hadn’t noticed that we would be requiring boosters for people who were eligible, and we did have to turn a few people away. This was really hard. If you are organizing a dance you should talk in advance with your co-organizers about whether you will make exceptions and have someone prepared to be bad cop. One thing to consider is having rapid tests available (potentially for purchase) and including those in an exception process.
Several dancers asked if they could bring air purifiers, which we were happy to have. In retrospect, especially given how little we can ventilate this hall, putting out a call for people to bring them could’ve made sense?
People vary a lot with how much they mind dancing in masks. Personally, while the mask is a bit annoying I strongly prefer dancing with a mask to not dancing. I’m not sure yet how we should decide when to stop requiring them, and am open to suggestions!
We aren’t doing snacks at the break or allowing eating in the hall, but we’re still putting out water. The marginal harm of dehydration from making access to water less convenient is probably higher than the covid impact. We’re not seeing people hanging out with their masks off while drinking water; we have a good culture of taking a sip and then putting their mask back. (If we’re going to require masking I want us to be doing it properly.)
There was some concern in advance that masks would get wet (sweaty) and not be useful, and we made sure to have a large supply of free masks (both surgical-style and N95). This didn’t seem to be much of an issue, and not very many people wanted our masks.
We didn’t have any issues with people not being willing to wear masks, or not wearing them properly. We lined up volunteers in advance who were prepared to talk to people not properly wearing masks, if necessary.