How to organise a dance party

How to organise a dance party

L’organisation d’une soirée dansante est un chal­lenge. Pour­tant, en suiv­ant quelques étapes sim­ples, vous pour­rez pro­pos­er à vos par­tic­i­pants une expéri­ence inou­bli­able.

Content

    1. Types of dance par­ties
    2. Choice of venue
    3. Equip­ment
    4. D‑Day

1. Types of dance parties

Before get­ting start­ed on the logis­tics of your dance par­ty, you will need to define its out­line in order to adapt its con­tent. Ask your­self the fol­low­ing ques­tions:

a) What style of dance will the party feature?

Often, dance par­ties are designed around one or more dance styles. Those who like to dance usu­al­ly pre­fer to know in advance what kind of moves will be expect­ed of them at the par­ty. For instance, a tan­go dancer might feel out of their depth around hip-hop dancers, and vice ver­sa.

Select­ing a main dance style also makes it eas­i­er to pro­mote the par­ty if you invite all those who like that par­tic­u­lar style.

b) Is there an age limit for your party?

Some dances are not open to under-18s. You can either do this or choose to open your dance to every­one. It’s impor­tant that you spec­i­fy these cri­te­ria in the reg­is­tra­tion form for your event.

Also, remem­ber that the rules will change depend­ing on whether your event is open to under-18s.

c) Will you offer a dance class?

It’s not uncom­mon for dance par­ties to start with a dance les­son giv­en by a pro­fes­sion­al in the cho­sen dis­ci­pline.

This for­mat allows all dancers to warm up, dis­cov­er the style or remem­ber cer­tain steps.
Atten­dees of all lev­els will be more relaxed and more like­ly to dance togeth­er through­out the par­ty.

d) Do attendees need to have a certain level of skill?

Whether you’re organ­is­ing a class or not, you will need to decide whether your event is open to all lev­els of dancers or advanced dancers only.

To allow every­one to have fun, with no risk of stress or bore­dom, you can offer dif­fer­ent groups of lev­els. To do this, add a mul­ti­ple choice ques­tion to the reg­is­tra­tion form linked to your online tick­et­ing sys­tem.

e) How do I manage the allocation of dance partners?

If you are organ­is­ing a par­ty where the dance is done in pairs, you will need to con­sid­er how best to man­age the allo­ca­tion of part­ners.
To ensure that every­one can have fun at the par­ty, there should ide­al­ly be as many ‘lead­ers’ as ‘fol­low­ers’. As with the man­age­ment of the dif­fer­ent lev­els, you can sug­gest that your atten­dees choose one role or the oth­er when they reg­is­ter for your event.

Once you have answered all these ques­tions, you will have a bet­ter idea of how your event will take place and what you’ll need.

2. Choice of venue

The ide­al dance par­ty takes place in the ide­al venue. You must ensure that your atten­dees enjoy the best pos­si­ble con­di­tions while remain­ing with­in your bud­get. To do this, you can explore sev­er­al options:

a) Renting a room or hall

If pos­si­ble, you can plan to rent a room or hall espe­cial­ly for the occa­sion. What­ev­er region you’re organ­is­ing your dance par­ty in, you will find halls for hire for all types of bud­get, either by the hour or by the evening. Either free of charge or for a con­tri­bu­tion, venues will often offer equip­ment to guar­an­tee your event’s atmos­phere with music and light­ing.

b) Agreement with a business

Busi­ness­es some­times organ­ise joint events with anoth­er organ­i­sa­tion. You can ask bars and restau­rants in your com­mu­ni­ty to organ­ise a joint event. You will then ben­e­fit from the use of a room, and the estab­lish­ment will ben­e­fit from the pur­chas­ing of drinks at the venue.
You can also con­tact busi­ness­es that are more removed from the dance sec­tor to organ­ise a unique, orig­i­nal joint event (e.g. thrift shops, muse­ums, record shops).

c) The local authority

If you rep­re­sent a char­i­ty, con­tact your local author­i­ty to explore the options avail­able to you. It’s like­ly that the author­i­ty has one or more munic­i­pal halls which can be used free of charge or at a low cost. The more peo­ple a town/city has, the more in advance you’ll need to book the ide­al slot. Ask the local author­i­ty a few weeks or even months before your event.

d) Public places

Although it might seem sur­pris­ing, it’s not impos­si­ble to organ­ise dance events in pub­lic places. How­ev­er, you will need to rep­re­sent a not-for-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion in order to be issued with an offi­cial per­mit. To obtain this autho­ri­sa­tion, you will need to make a pri­or dec­la­ra­tion to the town/city hall between 3 and 15 days before your event. This dead­line is extend­ed to two months before the event if it’s to be held in the city of Paris.
This autho­ri­sa­tion gives you the right to organ­ise your event in a pub­lic place, but also con­fers on you sev­er­al respon­si­bil­i­ties relat­ed to order, respect and clean­li­ness.

What­ev­er venue you choose, check how late you can hold your dance par­ty until, as well as how easy it is to get there by pub­lic trans­port or pri­vate vehi­cle.

3. Equipment

Once you’ve decid­ed on the venue for your dance par­ty, you can turn to the issue of equip­ment. Some venues pro­vide this, but oth­ers are what we call ‘bare’ or ‘unfur­nished’ rentals, and require you to equip them.

Depend­ing on your wish­es, your bud­get and the fre­quen­cy of your dance par­ties, you can rent or buy the nec­es­sary equip­ment. Don’t hes­i­tate to seek pro­fes­sion­al advice to ensure you make the right choice.

  • Sound sys­tem: It will be dif­fi­cult for your atten­dees to dance if there is no music. Make sure you have equip­ment that’s pow­er­ful enough to prop­er­ly fill the event venue.
  • Light­ing: To cre­ate a pleas­ant atmos­phere, avoid clas­sic bright lights. Instead, opt for a sub­dued atmos­phere, which will make your atten­dees feel more com­fort­able.
  • Food & bev­er­ages: To delight the dancers, be sure to offer them enough water. If you have the nec­es­sary per­mis­sion you can pro­vide alco­hol, but dancers will often pre­fer soft drinks. Also pro­vide light snacks for your atten­dees, who will be hap­py to take the chance to refu­el.

4. D‑Day

On the day of your dance par­ty, be sure to remind your atten­dees of the main infor­ma­tion about your event: what time they’re expect­ed to arrive, how to get to the venue, what to bring and what’s not allowed, details of what will be pro­vid­ed on site (e.g. drinks, food), and any oth­er infor­ma­tion you think is impor­tant.

To make their arrival as smooth as pos­si­ble, use an access con­trol solu­tion. This will allow you to check their tick­ets and reduce wait­ing times at the entrance.

It’s rec­om­mend­ed that you call on a pro­fes­sion­al or ama­teur pho­tog­ra­ph­er to take pic­tures of the event. In just a few clicks, you can use mail­ing soft­ware to send a fold­er with the best pho­tos of the event to all atten­dees. The dancers will be delight­ed to receive beau­ti­ful pho­tos of the dance par­ty they attend­ed.


Organ­is­ing a dance par­ty is a great way to bring togeth­er dance enthu­si­asts and offer them a fun and fes­tive time in your com­pa­ny. Make it easy for your­self by using a few sim­ple tools, such as an online tick­et­ing sys­tem, an access con­trol solu­tion and a mail­ing tool. This will ensure your event is a suc­cess, and allow you to quick­ly and eas­i­ly re-invite atten­dees to the next edi­tion.

Organ­is­ing a dance par­ty

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