Emily, Groups I have worked with has done this kind of thing in various forms. With the goal of being able to having open band dances locally, we organized a kickoff event of a five hour contra dance musicians' workshop after consulting with Laura Lengnick about what she thought would be necessary to get started having open band-style events in our area. She put together a curriculum and arranged for a four-piece band she is part of, the Skytones, to lead a workshop about playing contra dance music. During the five hour workshop, there were two classrooms and during some of the timeslots, the group split into interest area to work on different aspects of playing. At the culmination of the kickoff workshop, the workshop attendees played for an evening contra dance with the Skytones, with a peak of 14 on-stage. Over time, and doing a variety of these kinds of events, we have collected a shared repertoire collected in a tune book based on well-liked recommendations primarily from the bands who have put on workshops or led rehearsals. When pitching the idea to a traveling band, that makes it possible to send the repertoire and transcriptions ahead of time to ask if they know those tunes and also ask them to propose any that they might like to add to the list. The repertoire might also also helps give an idea a series' flavor. Before this kind of event, we typically announce a tunes party to be held a few days prior at someone's house, including with the tunes the featured band has selected and a link to the tune book. That way, the players can practice beforehand. On the day of the dance, a common plan has been to announce 30 minute warmup for local players that afternoon, followed by a 60-90 minute rehearsal with the evening's featured band on shared repertoire. Together, the local players and featured band pick out a preferred tune list, trade tips and discuss any arrangements they would want to try (e.g., solos, different instrument sections playing different ways for different times through, etc) Usually the large ensemble would play for 4-6 sets together, then the local musicians leave the stage to join in the dancing while the featured band played for the remainder of the evening. It's true that certain bands are more interested in this idea than others, so it's a good idea to try to gently feel out what the interest level might be before proposing it. If it's a band's first gig, for instance, it's a pretty safe bet they are probably focused on their own performance and would find it really distracting to put on a rehearsal for others that afternoon. Likewise, it can happen that a band who is less than enthused might agree to such a plan, but emphasize that they can't be held responsible if everything breaks down. (As a counterexample, one instructor said to the group at a rehearsal that it is OK to make a mistake as long as it is loud and in-time!) In other words, this idea only works if the featured band is actually into it and not only agreeing because they think it's required for a booking. I found it best to get to know the featured bands a bit and their preferences for this type of setup. When determining whether to approach a visiting musician we had never worked with before, I found that searching for the performer names + music workshop and sometimes found old announcements for some of the week-long music events. In my experience, this type of event can work better on a dance that happens a Saturday, so mentoring and skills exchange and warmup can happen prior to the evening dance. I have read articles about some cities having open bands at weekly dances on weeknights where they have regular, committed rhythm and melody leaders locally, though. One of the articles mentioned the local leaders hosting regular tunes parties to work on skills and playing as an ensemble. Sound is different from the typical 2-4 piece contra dance band and is something you would need to talk to the local sound people about. My preference is usually to try to have everyone individually in the mix, but that for the local players here, that required obtaining enough mics and a mixer with 16 plugins. I have been using a dbx AFS224 feedback suppression unit for the monitor mix, too. Having lots of open mics increases feedback potential and it can be more likely to encounter musicians who are still developing their mic technique. Other options are a single mic for the local player ensemble and the featured musicians connected normally, and having mics for sections, e.g., if their are three flutes, having a shared mics with them working out which one gets to take a solo at a given time. Peter On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 10:37 PM, Emily Addison via Organizers <organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: