Tango Festival Tips from Jay Abling and Rachel Moon to make them more fun:

1. Go into a festival/milonga with zero expectations.  Don’t expect to dance with any one person or hold the festival up to some standard.  Just go and take it as it comes (Jay’s Zen influence).  What will happen will happen.
2. Go with 3-6 friends to a festival or marathon so that your tango network expands
3. Think about the energy you want for the evening and bring that to the milonga.  If you can, seek out that energy in your dance partners.
4. Do not tie money with expectations.  A lot of people try and dance as much as possible at festivals due to the money they spend or the limited time they have in that city.  Don’t do that.  Rachel added that she thinks of having fun rather than having a certain number of great tandas.  Visiting and observing is just as important as dancing to Rachel, and by flowing with things, her tandas are actually of higher quality.
5. Don’t dance every tanda or even most tandas.  Jay typically dances about eight tandas total with four or five people per evening (a four hour evening).  Jay usually sits out the first 3 tandas.  He emphasizes quality over quantity.
6. If you want to make a rough plan, think about 2 or 3 people you would like to dance within the next hour.  Think about the type of music you would like to dance with each person.  If the cabeceo does not work, let things happen as they do and keep that person in mind as a possibility for later in the evening.
7. Keep your ego out of it.  Disregard egotistical people—they are not important.
8. Take care of yourself and the people there you care about.  That always helps.

Enjoy your tango festival!