Tango Etiquette for Organizers

Learning etiquette at a Greek restaurant 

If you want to have examples of the etiquette of good tango organizers, go to a traditional Greek restaurant in Europe.

Watch how Greek restaurant owners organize things! In my experience, they go around and make sure that everything is going well.  The same sort of etiquette happens at milongas of all sizes in Argentina--active oversight and supervision of how things are going.

An organizer can make or break a milonga even before the first tanda starts if they are passive and don't consider their crucial role in tango etiquette for organizers. Good preparation includes being excellent communicators to guests and saying what is expected from those who come.  Organizers who have a community of dancers who are untrained by their teachers in the códigos de tango may need to explicitly mention what the expected basic code of conduct is before the milonga starts.  

The concept is simple:  Wise organizers take care of basic needs.  

• Temperature:  Is it too hot or cold?  Men can take on jackets if they are too cold, but women should not have to look like Eskimos so men can wear T-shirts.
• Water:  Can people hydrate easily and at a reasonable price (or for free)?  French restaurants by law cannot charge for tap water.  If there is a charge, it should be very little. Hydrate or die.
• Food:  The best milongas have either some basic goodies out or a bar that serves food for a reasonable price.  That's what hosts do. An early milonga after work, perhaps on Friday, needs something to eat.  Charge extra! We don't need hangry dancers. 
• Safety (Traffic control):  Wise organizers know dance etiquette (los codigos) and redirect rouge and dangerous dancers. Also, wise organizers create a good traffic flow by having at least four entry points to the dance floor. Milonga traffic control causes less frustration and is where organizers can shine.
• Sleep:  Paying attention to sleep is a wise business decision.  Starting earlier allows people to travel to your milonga from farther away without reserving a hotel. Organizers who advertise well in advance that the milonga starts earlier and ends earlier are astonished by how their attendance goes up. Also, more organizers are paying attention to a general public understanding of good sleep discipline and the circadian rhythm.  Organizers risk a future "super-spreader event" when many people's immune system is compromised by poor sleep. That's bad business.  
• The need to communicate:  This basic need is a bit complicated.  It has three parts:  The ability to hear at a milonga, the ability to listen (being silent), and the ability to speak. 
    > Hearing:  Could you imagine if the organizer had a single small speaker at an event and you couldn't hear well? Now, imagine being deaf as a permanent condition because of going deaf early from micro-damage from loud music? Unfortunately, nearly every organizer I know is not taking charge of protecting the hearing of his or her customers.  A good organizer has an app that monitors decibels and requires that DJs do the same.  Dancers eventually will stop coming to milongas if they are deaf or have tinnitus.
    > Listening:  Communicating social etiquette throughout life sometimes means remaining silent more than 50% of the time. That percentage could be 95% at a milonga. Organizers can help at least 70% of listening to happen by insisting on two times to be silent:  First, avoiding conversations while standing right next to the dance floor because people are trying to listen to the music.  Second, it's best to be silent and not talk while dancing at the same time.
    > Speaking:  In tango, we request and accept dances without talking; we don't talk while dancing; polite guests don't talk while standing next to the dance floor.  So, at least for tango, hearing and listening in silence outweigh the need to talk.  Because the main communicator at a milonga is the orchestra!
  
  

Those are the basic needs. Additionally, I suggest three issues that are entirely the responsibility of the organizers: 

• Role-balanced events:  Etiquette in this post has been suggested as a way to be more socially sophisticated and customer-oriented behavior.  Customers want to participate. Marathons and festivals have picked up the importance of role- or gender-balanced events because participation is important for everyone.  This participation balance was what one first saw at encuentros.  But now there is another etiquette issue for small and balanced events . . . .   
• Private Events need not be advertised:  Encuentros have become very popular; so some encuentro organizers have stopped advertising, making their event a private weekend event. The Newport News encuentro became so popular that Andy made his event by invitation only and did not advertise.  This was good tango organizer etiquette because advertising only makes a lot of people sour about trying to get in when they had just a one-in-a-thousand chance to be accepted. 
• Wise festival organizers focus on dancers and not stars.  Would a restaurant owner have a group of his friends take over the ambiance of his restaurant?  Nope.  In the same way, tango organizers who are wise would avoid having tables for tango stars or special friends right up front near the dance floor. The organizers who are thoughtful put the stars in the back of the room or give them their own room to get drunk and loud as they tend to see the milongas as an after-work affair. Stars don't need their own table near the dance floor; they hardly dance. 

Organizer Etiquette has nothing to do about "tango police"; etiquette is a natural outcome of being present, mindful, polite, empathic, and as a result, a good business decision. These qualities are only briefly operationalized above. Please add other ideas in the comments or email me at mark.word1@gmail.com if you have trouble making a comment. 

Photo credit:  https://www.thetravel.com/top-rated-restaurants-to-try-in-greece/