What Really Makes A Weekender A Hit?

[Andreas B]

Hey all, hoping some of you can indulge me with some good anecdotes (with as little ribbing as possible please  ) on what has made weekenders of the past the most memorable ones for you. 

 

I am in the midst of organizing Copenhagen's first ever Rare Soul Weekender. I don't want to give away too much nor try to build up something before its fully fleshed out... but I think between great venues, international bookings and local jocks, it has the potential to be a great event. We would love to have guests attending from as near and far as we can, so I'd love to hear what has made weekenders you've attended memorable, or even better, whats kept you coming back to them year after year? 

 

Look forward to hearing a bit from you 

[Roburt]

Good Venue

Good Live acts (for me that is. Don't attend weekenders without a live act)

Decent music (2 rooms > 60's & Modern)

Good atmosphere (combination of music & people > enough of both & both decent)

Good accommodation

Good soul crowd in attendance

Not too difficult to get to (distance, roads, weather).

[Daved]

Agree with the above plus:

 

Good sound system in each room

[Little-stevie]

Good medication... Keeping a good space between other weekenders, not easy as they seem to be every other week... Quality venue and 2 rooms for various styles.. Getting people to help on promotion who know how to get a real buzz going.. Mixing quality local DJs with European guests who still get people moist with a range of sounds....Budget flights and affordable hotels/ apartments....That will do for starters...Live acts makes no difference to me and many others....

Good medication... Keeping a good space between other weekenders, not easy as they seem to be every other week... Quality venue and 2 rooms for various styles.. Getting people to help on promotion who know how to get a real buzz going.. Mixing quality local DJs with European guests who still get people moist with a range of sounds....Budget flights and affordable hotels/ apartments....That will do for starters...Live acts makes no difference to me and many others....Holding event in a city/ Town with some culture too, good places to eat and sightseeing, I am talking of Euro weekends only.. Edited October 7, 2013 by little-stevie

[Ady Croasdell]

Holding event in a city/ Town with some culture too, good places to eat and sightseeing, I am talking of Euro weekends only..

Just as well Steve, the Cleethorpes ballet isn't all that.

[Reg]

What everybody has said so far...not overly bothered re a live act unless it's somebody special.

[Steve G]

Good venue

Good sound system

Good dance floor

good prices for booze and....

Great DJ's

[Roburt]

Just as well Steve, the Cleethorpes ballet isn't all that.

You're wrong there Ady.

If you walk out across the beach for a mile, then you can catch the Cleggy Water Ballet team in training. They can be quite spectacular when a Humber gale is in full blow. 

Edited October 7, 2013 by Roburt

[Guest sharmo 1]

No live acts.

[Guest in town Mikey]

I'd just add to the previous excellent points. Promoters who listen to punters and take their views on board.

Case in point Tef's room at Cleethorpes. It offers a lot of people something they felt the weekend was missing, and IMO is right in keeping with the 6Ts ethos of progressive music. Some promoters would be very antagonistic if an alternative to what they were offering was asked for. Whereas Ady did his level best to make it happen.

 

I like at Prestatyn that there are a number of rooms offering genuine alternatives. It is inevitable that over 72 hours or so, some sets arent going to appeal to you personally. So then it is nice to wander around the other rooms and listen to a varied selection of soul. (Of course its nice to do anyway, but its tough to leave a room when the DJ is playing a set you are really enjoying)

 

Also a nice place to congregate and chat. Whether its a nice bar area, or a cafe on site.

[Mike Lofthouse]

Good venue

Good sound system

Good dance floor

good prices for booze and....

Great DJ's

I only go to two weekenders - one of them is Soul Essence in Great Yarmouth, it has none of the above and I've been to last 20 or so and continue to go 

 

Sorry , I'm being a bit harsh - the sound system is very good

[Kev Cane]

I only go to two weekenders - one of them is Soul Essence in Great Yarmouth, it has none of the above and I've been to last 20 or so and continue to go 

 

Sorry , I'm being a bit harsh - the sound system is very good

   

 

See you in April Mike (actually see you October 20th)

 

Kev

[John Reed]

I only go to two weekenders - one of them is Soul Essence in Great Yarmouth, it has none of the above and I've been to last 20 or so and continue to go 

 

Sorry , I'm being a bit harsh - the sound system is very good

 

Some of the Sofa's and armchairs in the lounge are quite comfy, but you need to be early to get those choice seats.  The downstairs bath is a nice treat.

Edited October 7, 2013 by John Reed

[Little-stevie]

Is there a local soul crowd for an event in Copenhagen/ Denmark.. Its a country I ain't been to and have never met Danes on the soul scene..

[Steve G]

I only go to two weekenders - one of them is Soul Essence in Great Yarmouth, it has none of the above and I've been to last 20 or so and continue to go 

 

Sorry , I'm being a bit harsh - the sound system is very good

 

Hi Mike,

OK it has a really good sound system (until some DJs change the setting)

It also has some great DJs...

 

ATB, Steve

[Mike Lofthouse]

It also has some great DJs...

 

ATB, Steve

point them out to me in April will you Steve!

[Mark S]

What makes a weekender a hit is me not being there moaning

[Guest Matt Male]

Bouncy castle?

[Ladymidnight]

Best of luck with planning/preparations, would love to come down from Stockholm.

[Ralf Mehnert]

Good medication... Keeping a good space between other weekenders, not easy as they seem to be every other week... Quality venue and 2 rooms for various styles.. Getting people to help on promotion who know how to get a real buzz going.. Mixing quality local DJs with European guests who still get people moist with a range of sounds....Budget flights and affordable hotels/ apartments....That will do for starters...Live acts makes no difference to me and many others....Holding event in a city/ Town with some culture too, good places to eat and sightseeing, I am talking of Euro weekends only..

Steve, exactly this takes place in Hamburg this weekend! Just 4 hours by train from Copenhagen...

[Manfromsoul45s]

Always wanted to visit copenhagen, so would be a good excuse

[Roburt]

Copenhagen is a great place, have visited the city on a few occasions (my son works for a Danish oil company). Have purchased a few soul 45's (nowt rare) there but never managed to find out about any local soul nights to attend while there. 

[Andreas B]

Thanks all for your replies and support. We've had our first meeting with our "planning committee" and we're all extremely excited about this thing becoming a reality.

While Copenhagen, or Denmark as a whole for that matter, isn't known internationally so much for its soul scene, we do have a great lot of DJs here from various clubs playing sounds all over the spectrum. Denmark's oldest, Backstreet Northern Soul Club, has been going 22 years now. Club Mau Mau, handling more the mod R&B/beat territory, is another long runner. The events I do as well as GhettoSoul have a root in Northern but also embrace the more "progressive" sounds of crossover and modern just as much. Soul Systemet plays more in the Belgian popcorn/R&B/jump blues territory and there's others doing straight boogie and soulful house nights in town. It really does run the gamut!

We'd love to see our small-ish but clearly healthy scene blossom a bit more on the international radar as well as on our home turf, so I think doing a truly representative rare soul weekender with some great guests is going to be the best thing.

Please keep your eyes and ears peeled, more info to come shortly!

[Andreas B]

Also, for those of you preliminarily interested in attending, first off: THANKS!

We're looking into an earlier date of mid-April, but this isn't confirmed yet. It all boils down to wether or not we get our dream venue, but if we do, it's going to be one hell of a place to dance away the weekend in!

Again, you'll just have to see as we get closer

[Keeper]

Good venue

Good sound system

Good dance floor

good prices for booze and....

Great DJ's

Spot on with those but DANCEFLOORS...shite ones can ruin a weekend no matter how good the DJ's are.

[Andreas B]

A good dancefloor is TOP priority for us, another reason we're hoping to get our dream venue as its perfect in that regard. 

[Britmusicsoulfan]

I echo all of the above, but having a location that's easy to get to and reasonable in terms of flights is a huge factor for me (I'm in the States).  

 

A weekender is a hit, because it's the only time I get to see some soul friends that live very far away from me.

[Andybellwood]

Also, for those of you preliminarily interested in attending, first off: THANKS!

We're looking into an earlier date of mid-April, but this isn't confirmed yet. It all boils down to wether or not we get our dream venue, but if we do, it's going to be one hell of a place to dance away the weekend in!

Again, you'll just have to see as we get closer

looking forward to hearing more .....been a long time since we visited this wonderful city.

[Guest Chiefy]

Never organized a weekender but had loads decades back. Most important thing is sort plenty of doobs. Friday night promise yourselves you won't get blocked only to find you, v done nearly the weekends supply. Saturday hang around grotty cafs + pubs keeping topped up till the big event starts (hopefully no live acts) ,get to big event only to find you,r running out of gear,so flog any vinyl or clothes or anything less you've the bottle to liberate a chemist .the night will then take off brilliantly as long as you've a top geezer doing the table with an infinite supply of the rarest new dance tracks .Cause you, r obviously off Ya nut spend a lot of the night fending of others who want froth coming from there mouths too as they think Ya must be a dealer. Dance to every record for an hour or so only taking breathers to have a soft drink verballing rubbish with like minded geezers or going to flooded stinking rooms to relieve yaself where much more verballing will happen .Just keep repeating this till that horrible moment when you realize it s winding down. Then you bag a lift to a motorway services where much more verballing will happen while you ruin your fav.sounds by putting them in little boxes with the batteries going flat whilst all agreeing was the best night yet. Grotty pub for a couple of hours fore going round a bed -sit where 5-15 of ya would listen to more classics fore heading to a pub where they played some run of the mill tamla + reggea which all sounded the same as by now ya were completely beyond caring about anything other than squeezing every minute the weekend had left. If Ya were lucky you had a lift home otherwise it was freezing ya nuts off standing roadside with ya thumb out. Now if ya can achieve this ya really have made a top weekender. .

[Liljimmycrank]

Also, for those of you preliminarily interested in attending, first off: THANKS!

We're looking into an earlier date of mid-April, but this isn't confirmed yet. It all boils down to wether or not we get our dream venue, but if we do, it's going to be one hell of a place to dance away the weekend in!

Again, you'll just have to see as we get closer

 

I think if you're aiming for April, you might have left it a bit late unless you're only aiming at a local crowd.

Sounds like the pieces arent yet in place, and theres a lot of jigsaw pieces to put together when it comes to a weekender. Doing a soul night properly is hard enough.

Plus there's the likes of 'Not too young' in Switzerland (April), and Soulshakers Bamberg (early May). Think Achen might be round that time too.

They've been on the promo trail for a good few months already, and will have likely captured Brits/europeans attention.

 

With only 6 months to go, many will be already booking flights