I met with ILHC co-director Tena Morales a couple of weeks ago who was in town too nail down some details for this rapidly approaching event. Just being in the hotel with the rest of the DC based ILHC staff was enough to get me psyched for August. I visited the hotel for the first time a couple of months ago and this place is so nice that I had to call Tena to make sure I was in the right place. This place is swanky. From the artsy clock in the foyer to the pimp board room where we met. Honestly, it almost feels a little too nice for a Lindy Hop event, but never let it be said that we don’t at least try to class up the proceedings.

We got a pretty good break by getting the rooms to be the same price as the old hotel. Part of that comes from having an event in DC in August which is a relatively dead period for tourism in the area. A lot of people don’t want to brave the heat and humidity, but that won’t matter to ILHC attendees since they’ll be chilln’ inside most of the weekend.

It's a great location too, just a couple of metro stops from National Aiport and just a 5 minute walk from the King Street Metro Station in Old Town Alexandria. There are plenty of places to eat in the area and even a Whole Foods grocery is just three blocks away.

It’s hard to fiddle around too much with an event like this. It’s pretty straight forward. People dance, listen to great music and get inspired. We adjust some things here and there to make every thing run smoother than the last event, but for the most part you leave room for the dancers to dance.

If you’ve been keeping up with our announcements, you know that we did add a new feature called LED Talks. Based on the wildly popular TED Talks, the concept is pretty straight forward. Get smart and creative people to talk about smart and creative things.

ILHC is one of the few events that gets most of the leaders of our scene together under one roof. We thought it would be a great idea to take advantage of that. Plus ILHC draws a very diverse array of dancers of varying skill levels. Quite a few of them don’t really have an interest in taking workshops, but would still like something to do during the day. I think this will fit the bill. Check out what we have lined up so far:

Sylvia Sykes: "The Craziest Things That have Happened While Judging"
Naomi Uyama: "Magical Moments in Movement" (Non-Lindy Hop movement, that is)
Incredible ILHC Musicians: "So You Want to Lead a Band?"
Jonathan Stout: "Breaking down a Charlie Christian Solo"
Skye Humphries and Peter Strom: "Our Idea For a Shoot-em-up Western Screenplay"

(Topics subject to change, especially the last one)

We also have Nick Williams, Carla Heiney, Valerie Salstrom, Andrew Thigpen, Mark Kihara, Hilary Alexander tentatively committed to presenting topics.

That's a pretty talented line up for any event, and that's only just part of the staff. That's not including all the talented dancers coming to compete. I hear we already have as many teams registered as we did last year including some from Europe.

Not registered yet? What are you waiting for? Let's Get It!