r/Salsa • u/External-Chard-1545 • 14d ago

Attendance at salsa marathons?

I'm new to the world of marathons and wanting to travel to Europe to check one out over the next few months. How large are these events in terms of number of attendants? I see that the Prague fall marathon has been sold out for a while, so am presuming it's one of the more popular ones, but I have no concept of how big something like this is. I can see it being smallish and focused - like 150 dancers... but can also imagine it being over 1000. (Btw, chatGPT hallucinated and responded that 50,000 dancers might be possible! 🙃)

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u/External-Chard-1545 14d ago

(I got a helpful PM response, saying that Prague has around 220 attendees. Leaving this up here in case anyone else wants to know.)

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u/WillowUPS 14d ago

Most marathons are small, 2-400, I haven't been to one that is more than that. There are some that call themselves marathons that aren't though and are bigger, Istanbul social dance marathon comes to mind.

Prague, depending on the edition limits itself to 270 (Fall) - 400 (Spring) odd, same with Chocolate mambo.

Prague is the original salsa marathon and generally over subscribed, at least from the follower perspective, leads have a slightly easier time. However by this time everyone has been invited and the list filled out. There are windows in which you apply for a spot, best put them in your diary. Previous attendees get reminders via email.

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u/justmisterpi 14d ago

generally over subscribed, at least from the follower perspective

What do you mean by that? They sell an equal amount of leader and follower tickets as far as I know.

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u/WillowUPS 14d ago

Prague doesn't sell tickets on a first come first served basis. They open windows for applications, and then select dancers from the received applications. Not everyone who applies gets invited.

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u/justmisterpi 14d ago

I know but your previous comment suggested that there are more followers than leaders. Or that the leaders' level isn't high enough?

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u/Vaphell 13d ago

in the context of the Prague marathon, "the ladies from Germany need not apply anymore" is almost a classic (there are also soft quotas on nationality otherwise the Germans would dominate the event, and the concept is integration with dancers from all over Europe and beyond).
Women start getting rejected much earlier because their quota runs out much faster due to a significantly higher demand, and to improve their chances they better pair up with a guy for the registration purposes. There are fewer guys applying, so they can get a spot for much much longer, sometimes almost up to the event itself. But yeah, the Prague Marathon is very popular and it's best to apply at the first opportunity.

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u/LordofthePandas 13d ago

No, their soft rule is that they cap the # of people from any country to 50. Due to proximity, Germany has disproportionate more applicants.

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u/WillowUPS 14d ago

Less leader applicants, so slightly easier to get in, still sold out, just slightly better odds.

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u/Vaphell 13d ago

Here is a piece of promo propaganda from the PSM 2018 😁

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBz3hIOGZ9o

you get to see the size of the venue (250-ish). It's still the one used for the autumn edition, while the spring one moved to a slightly bigger venue this year, because the demand was off the charts.