I'm not sure a techno dance would be a good fit for building attendance at your monthly series. The music and atmosphere are so different from what you usually feature that I don't think the enthusiasm would transfer well. If you do want to explain it to people, videos are pretty helpful. Here's one I took Saturday night at BIDA's Spark in the Dark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOf52FQRQoQ On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 9:39 AM, Rickey Holt <holt.e(a)comcast.net> wrote:

Rickey, The best resource I have found for what you're looking for is the CDSS howto guide "Recruit Young People": http://www.cdss.org/recruit-young-people.html Using that as a starting point, my group and I have made various efforts. We're in a similar situation - our area isn't a hub locale and it became necessary to recruit and retain newcomers to stay viable. As others have suggested, I have found that simply throwing a techno contra dance on its own is not necessarily what will make the difference. From an individual event perspective, what has worked better in my experience is to have a mixed live/electronic event. I can see two reasons for that format working particularly well: 1) Since the idea is to recruit people to your regular series, rather than only attracting them to special electronic dance events, presenting some of your typical program will let them experience what dancing to great live music feels like. 2) Live contra dance musicians play in such a way that emphasizes the phrasing and inspiring the motion of the figure being done at any particular time. That is especially helpful for newcomers. Live music preceding recorded electronic dance music gets people in the zone. That could take the form of having a great live band play the first half, then having electronic for the second half, or having a livetronica band such as Phase X or Firecloud, incorporating electronic elements. The musicians in Phase X/Firecloud also play great traditional music and offer great musicians' workshops! than 'techno'. That has taken on sort of a brand status which many people interpret as targeting a mono-generational audience, having more of a nightclub culture and using recorded music (reinforced by most of the top youtube results returned when searching for it). Also, livetronica musicians we have worked with have thanked us for not using "the t word". What really helped turn a corner in my area was holding musicians' workshops. Some local college students became involved, one of whom was inspired to be the necessary second mover to get an on-campus club started. That college now hosts a dance once a month for a local group's weekly series during the school year. At their second dance on campus, two Electroflow sets were called at the end of the evening. Only one such set was planned, but some of the attendees knew that the caller (a student from the group, calling for her first time) had been working with two different medleys and enthusiastically demanded an encore. At a different nearby college, a big group was attracted by an event billed as techno contra, but some of the students gave it only lukewarm reviews citing the lack of live music. Also, having a large group of newcomers and music lacking strong phrasing led to a more chaotic dance floor than usual. Otherwise, settling on a vision and actively pursuing it can really help. In my group's case, the vision involves being a welcoming place where people are kind to one another. Sometimes executing on that means compassionately speaking with a gent who tries to force twirls on newcomers. It has also included communicating with callers to present our vision and request a program that newcomers are likely to find success with. Additionally, it has included inviting callers to present brief demonstrations with pointers. E.g., after the lines have formed, recruiting a hands four as a demo group to emphasize such things as giving weight in a circle. Peter On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 9:39 AM, Rickey Holt <holt.e(a)comcast.net> wrote: