[Organizers] When to cancel dance?

[Orin Nisenson via Organizers]

I don’t understand the principle behind having the fans blow air into the hall. Are you not just adding the hot outside air into an already hot room? 
By blowing the air out the air movement will draw cooler air from the basement, or other cooler areas, into the main hall.
Orin

> On Jul 22, 2016, at 1:44 AM, Walker Sloan via Organizers <organizers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
> 
> Deanna,
> 
> It is imperative to understand what dew point is and means.  Humidity is less important.  Briefly, skin temp is mid 70's.  If the dew point exceeds mid 60's, humans get kinna miserable because sweat does not evaporate well.  This not only leaves people feeling sweaty and gross, it also means they are getting minimal to none evaporative cooling, which is our first cooling means.  When dewpoint reaches mid 70's, life is really miserable.  That's tropical.
> 
> wunderground.com will give you local weather.  You have to customize it to get dewpoint.  Dewpoint will be substantially lower in a hall with AC.  Besides cooling, AC condenses humidity out of the air, lowering the dewpoint.  You could get an instrument to measure dewpoint, or get a temp/humidity instrument, and a data sheet on line telling you what dewpoint is for a given temp and humidity.
> 
> You can see how awful it is for yourself dancing at what kinds of dewpoints, and calibrate when you have zero interest in dancing.  My guess is that when HALL dewpoint exceeds 65 degrees your attendance will fall off.
> 
> At our dance in Concord MA, we get 12 cans of lemonade and 40# of ice at our higher temp evenings, which are cooler outdoors than GA.  This is for 140-180 people.  When outdoors exceeds 90, our committee chair gets frozen treats.  We have only fans, no AC.
> 
> My own expectation is that 75-78 degrees in the hall should be quite survivable.  With AC the dewpoint will probably be in the low 60's.  My experience is that dancers are far more concerned about air moving over their bodies than about temperature.  Lots of controversy about fans blowing in and fans blowing out.  We always have all fans blowing in, and a big cupola fan exhausting at the peak of the roof.  Again, without AC.
> 
> I once calculated that at Scout House in Concord with 14 window fans blowing in and the cupola fan blowing out, we get an air change in the hall every two minutes.  BUT with a room full of 100 watt generators dancing vigorously, they raise the room temperature 12 degrees over the outdoor air blowing into our un-air conditioned space.
> 
> At mid 70's with AC I doubt your attendance will fall off much.
> 
> Good luck.  If you ever get around to quantifying your temp AND humidity or dew point, I'd be _very_ interested.  Particularly when your attendance starts falling off due to heat.
> 
> I once danced in a hall in Maine that had maybe 6 square feet of window space.  I sweated _through_ my leather belt.  But the crowd had a great time.
> 
> I would not be surprised if southerners all used to strong AC would be less tolerant of heat than us northerners without AC in our halls.  :)
> 
> Mac Sloan
> 
> 
> 
> On 7/21/16 18:47, Deanna Palumbo via Organizers wrote:
>> With the current temps in the US at an alarming high, our dance hall has
>> been running hot, with their one A/C unit cooling to 75-78 degrees while
>> dancing.  We keep it pretty windy, with lots of fans (quietest ones in
>> the hall are small Lasko units and louder ones in the back).
>> 
>> 
>> That being said, at what point do you cancel the dance because of heat?
>> Dancers are already complaining and all we can do is keep it windy.  Of
>> course, we could cut our losses if minimum capacity of dancers are not
>> coming because of the heat.  In the past & at another hall, we used to
>> cancel all of August because of heat, but I don't know how you can make
>> that call because you really don't know how it will feel (or how many
>> dancers will attend) until you get there.
>> 
>> 
>> Deanna Palumbo
>> /Chattahoochee Country Dancers, Atlanta, GA/
>> 
>> 
>> 
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