Aberdeen venues

[John McAulay]

As a new member to this web site, I was pleased to see so much debate re OÕDonoghes and wish to add my tuppence worth.

I have already intimated to Lorna, that whilst I am more than happy to taxi dance at Culter Mill SC.
I feel my dancing days at OÕDonoghes are almost over. At my age my knees find it hard to recover from dancing on the cobbles at the bar,
a location I choose because of the lack of room on the dance floor best described by another lady on this site as murder on the dance floor
And the fact that some nutter polishes it prior to Thursday night.

On Thursday night (21-03-02) I was disappointed by the lack of experienced lady dancers
and found very few who had been dancing more than 6 months.
The ladies it seems are voting with their feet and choosing not to dance Ceroc on a Thursday night.
I myself also want to dance on a Thursday but on a bigger dance floor

I was interested in the option in one of Franks earlier replyÕs on this subject,
about Culter on a Thursday and the Forum on a Tuesday, as for the option of a third night that would not suit me.
The divorce lawyers would have a field day with ÔÕme lord the accused spent most of his nights dancing Ceroc.ÕÕ
It would be better to have 2 good well attended venues than 3 venues of lesser numbers.

Frank (as I know he does read this)
Further to the lack of a suitable venue of the right size in Aberdeen.
The new owners of Oscars bar and the Capital theatre have just had permission to
convert both of these venues into a 1800 capacity nightclub.
could be a venue for the future.

[Niall]

All,

I really enjoyed another excellent night at the Culter Mills Club. Stating the obvious, I know, but plenty of room, the music was good and best of all, plenty of good female dancers to dance with. This was not the case last Thursday, 21 March, in O'Donoghues. Whether through bad fortune or design there was hardly any intermediate level female dancers at the class and I left early which I very, very rarely do. With the Summer approaching, I sense that I will find it easier to say 'no' to Thursday night in O'D when there is a clash of interests. This would not have been the case last year.

I would really encourge Franck to come up some viable alternatives to this venue for Thursday night class. I really do believe that putting on a third night would result in really splitting the class up. I sense from others that 2 nights a week is the right number. However, you want to believe that there is a high probablility of getting the opportunity of dancing with partners of a similar standard. This opportunity would be diluted by putting on a third night and would split the class up to the satisfaction of nobody.

Right, back to the day job. Need money to pay for these trips to Blackpool, London, Edinburgh etc etc.

[Franck]

Originally posted by John McAulay
As a new member to this web site, I was pleased to see so much debate re OÕDonoghes and wish to add my tuppence worth.

Hi John,
Welcome to the forum and thanks for your views and input to the debate.

Originally posted by John McAulay
It would be better to have 2 good well attended venues than 3 venues of lesser numbers.

While the dilution aspect is a very good point, it rarely happens in practise. As you say, people vote with their feet... With a third night in Aberdeen city, if O'Donoghues was so unpopular, then it would die out as a Ceroc venue.
It is quite possible that we would have 3 successful venues in Aberdeen.
At this stage, the monthly parties would become the place where all Cerocers can get together from the regular weekly nights.

Originally posted by John McAulay
Frank (as I know he does read this)
Further to the lack of a suitable venue of the right size in Aberdeen.
The new owners of Oscars bar and the Capital theatre have just had permission to
convert both of these venues into a 1800 capacity nightclub.
could be a venue for the future.

This is really helpful, thanks for the suggestion. I will investigate it further. Unfortunately if they only got permission, then it will be a while before they open...

I would like to emphasize again that while O'Donoghues is not the best venue for everyone, it is a fantastically successful venue in the sense that it attracts new members to Ceroc who would not necessarily have tried it otherwise.
The Tuesday night in Culter was opened last year to answer the limitations of O'Donoghues and offer an alternative. I am very pleased that most of you think it is a brilliant venue / night. and it is... When we opened the Tuesday night in Culter, I expected the Thursday nights to take a hit, instead, they have doubled in number... and the Tuesday night is going from strength to strength (with over 80 Cerocers most Tuesdays...).

If I had a choice, I would move the Thursday to a better venue AND open a Monday night in O'Donoghues. Unfortunately, I do not have a suitable alternative on a Thursday (and nobody else has made any other suitable suggestions) and I reckon a Monday night in say the Forum would be the best solution.

Franck.

[Bill]

I agree with some of the comments made by both Niall and John and as I've noted before I'm not a huge fan of O'Donoghues and I do miss the experienced dancers on a Thursday.

On the positive side it's only by dancing with the more experienced men that the 'new' women will advance and quickly become experienced dancers themselves. For the newer people it must also be like it was for us in the early days when we were all new and there was no-one to look to for experience and support.........but also no-one to look to and be put off by thinking they could never be that good

The one issue I would take with Franck is the constant reference to O'Donoghues being so popular............hugely popular ?? If it is so popular then wouldn't there be well over 100 people every week ? It was quite quiet last week - relatively speaking and it's quite clear that a lot of new people are not coming back. If they did there would be over 200 !!!!!!!!!!!! But I suppose if the numbers stay steady at 80 or so then that would satisfy most folk. In the English clubs the venue managers write down each member's card number so I suppose they can do a check on who turns up and how often. None of the Scottish clubs do this.

Thursday will always be a preferred night because it's the approach of the weekend and in a sense Ceroc in Aberdeen is fortunate that there is little in the way of direct competition - apart from Salsa. In England there is not only Le Roc but Blitz and a variety of dance franchises and clubs so the competition is much more fierce.

The new venue at the Capitol could be ideal but it'll be quite a while before it's open so for the time being looks as if it'll stay at O'Donoghues.

[Franck]

Originally posted by bill foreman
The one issue I would take with Franck is the constant reference to O'Donoghues being so popular............hugely popular ?? If it is so popular then wouldn't there be well over 100 people every week ? It was quite quiet last week - relatively speaking and it's quite clear that a lot of new people are not coming back. If they did there would be over 200 !!!!!!!!!!!!

The reason I keep repeating that O'Donoghues is so popular is plainly because the evidence is there.
Since we moved to O'D. numbers have spiralled up in a way that no other venue had managed in Aberdeen (and possibly Scotland !).
The success of O'D has definitely helped the rapid growth of the Culter Mills Club as indeed more people choose to dance on a larger dance floor, or dance twice a week.
Sometimes you have to accept that location / atmosphere can have as much (if not more) of an impact on a night than the size of the dance floor / sprung floor etc...
There were about 100 people last Thursday, I would say that was pretty good.
As to why we do not have 200 people going? This simply just does not happen (based on statistics from the last 10 years across Scotland). Two things happen every week:
- The first thing is that, after a year or two, some dancers drop Ceroc in favour of another priority, by then they can dance and Ceroc becomes a lower priority. They might still attend parties or the odd night, but will stop being regulars.
- Second, out of all the new members we get on any given night, we typically do well to retain 50% who will then become regulars. This happens for a variety of reasons: Ceroc is not what they are looking for, they find they are too busy to go to classes, their friends are too busy and they will not come on their own, etc...
The above explains why (with new members averaging 20 earlier in the year) numbers have grown by 50% over the last 6 months, and should now remain stable unless we get another wave of new members...

I get a lot of feedback both via this forum, by email and directly on the night, and some of it from people who love O'Donoghues.
I simply do not accept that O'Donoghues should be closed as a Ceroc venue.
I have already expressed my willingness to offer alternatives (Tuesdays in Culter / Mondays in the Forum) as soon as practically possible. I will be spending a lot of time in Aberdeen over the next few months, and will therefore be able to monitor the situation very closely.

Franck.

[Bill]

I think the issue of O'donoghues is now exhausted although no doubt there will still be some comments and opinions expressed here and elsewhere about its relative merits.

I think it is an ideal venue for about 50/60 people and especially for new dancers but I think the number who were there last night - down on recent weeks indicated that quite a number of dancers are - as others have said - voted with their feet !

I had a look at the people last night and I reckon only about 15 were recent members. At least 80 folk must have joined at O'Donoghues since Christmas and there were very few 'old' faces but equally very few recent recruits.

I stayed till the end last night but at the last record there were only 6 couples dancing - and no-one else standing about chatting or drinking. Everyone else had left which is highly unusual. Usually on a Thursday and certainly on a Tuesday lots of folk sit for a while chatting and finishing drinks. I think this is a bad sign Franck and with next week as a Freestyle night I think a number of folk could be lost to Thursday nights.

Everyone realises how difficult it is to find another good venue but unless the new members can be retained I think a third night may not be required. With fewer experienced dancers going on a Thursday the Tuesday night may become more popular at the expense of O'Donoghues but it may be that sufficient new people continue to join to make it an enjoyable night for those who do attend.

[Franck]

Originally posted by bill foreman
I think the issue of O'donoghues is now exhausted although no doubt there will still be some comments and opinions expressed here and elsewhere about its relative merits.

I think it is an ideal venue for about 50/60 people and especially for new dancers!

Thanks Bill. I agree, most of what could be said has been said now :sorry

I agree that O'D. is fine for lower numbers, and was selected when numbers rarely went above 80!
How times change.

I look forward to seeing you all in Aberdeen when I'm back from sunny France

Franck.