Re: [Callers] Scheduling/programmer Question

Well, BACDS books some dances on short lead time, and some with long lead time, but most kind-of quarterly. There are good reasons that apply in different situations. I can amplify a bit on what Kalia and Jim have said about the San Francisco BACDS dances (I booked and essentially ran the Saturday Palo Alto contra from 1983 to 2009, and started the Wednesday Berkeley contra in 1983). And since 2010 I've been Manager of the BACDS American Dance & Music Week ("AmWeek"). Here's more information than you probably want, but maybe everything in here is useful to someone even if not all to everyone. BACDS has 25-30 dances a month, counting both contra and English. At one time the "Bay Area" in the name BACDS ranged from Sonoma in the north to Monterey in the south. That was just plain ridiculous. Now there are 3 different CDSS affiliates covering that 3-hour-driving-time region. I say this to point out that BACDS, its dance events, and the programmer/bookers have situations, problems, and blessings that can be quite different from those experienced by a group that puts on one contra dance series with dances once a week, or every 2 weeks, or even once a month. As is often said, YMMV. Because our printed calendar is printed on a quarterly basis, the deadline for having all the blanks filled in comes every 3 months. That means that for some dances (beginning of the quarter) there is much less lead time than for others (at the end of the quarter). So, for example, the first dance in October is first publicized at the beginning of September. The drop-dead deadline for printing is the week before, and there are still some appearances of that ubiquitous band "TBA". (they sure do get around...) We like to feature the performing staff at camps and weekends also at our regular series dances, for many reasons: - to increase their exposure (and enhance the profitability, or at least increase the liklihood that their trip is at least more heavily subsidized); - to help spread the travel expense we are covering over more events; - to give event participants another taste to help ameliorate their "post-camp depression"; - to give dancers who couldn't attend the camp or weekend a chance to hear & dance to the bands and callers Those "satellite" dances need to be booked at the same time as the dance camp or weekend. Some of those are booked a year or more in advance, so some regular series dance evenings might well be filled in far in advance of the normal quarterly schedule. We also like to support traveling/itinerant bands and callers. Just because it takes more advance planning to put together a tour that makes sense, some of those dates also might get filled in ahead of normal schedule. And if someone contacts us after a date is booked, we may talk to the band/caller already booked and see if they are willing to move to another date. Sometimes a slight shuffle makes room for more. But most of all, we know that we need to support our local bands and callers because that's where tomorrow's Hot Dance Band and Hot Caller come from. So we like to keep the scheduling as late as possible for as many regular dances as possible, with the requirement that we list actual bands (with musicians' names!) and callers on the printed publicity which comes out quarterly. There! Much more information than you ever wanted :-) But maybe some of the reasoning behind it will be useful. -Eric -- Eric Black eric(a)eric-black.com http://www.eric-black.com/Caller New CD: http://AmWeek.org/WBB2/ BACDS American Dance & Music Week: http://AmWeek.org