Queen Salsa Festival Bremen had No Money to pay Artists Part 1

This is the first part of an anonymous artist telling the reporter of OnlineSalsa.com about the numerous efforts the Salsa Artists who were booked to instruct and perform at the Queen Salsa Festival had to undertake in order for them to get paid.

With so many Salsa Festivals being organized simultaneously in Europe, it was a matter of time before some of them would fail dramatically.

The organizer of the first Queen Salsa Festival, Gervais, originally planned the Salsa Congress to take place between Thursday May 13 and Sunday May 16 in the German city of Bremen. There would be two dance workshops on Friday evening starting at 8.30 p.m., and the first shows with the international artists would start at 10 p.m. Some of the international artists were sitting together in the lobby of the hotel of the artists. They had just heard their rooms were booked for 2 nights instead of three; all of them planned to leave on Monday 17. Gervais had scheduled Asis and Sev from Belgium to give a workshop at the congress venue – The Bell -, but no one came to pick them up, and they could not contact the organizer.

The artists discussed on the possible reasons why Gervais did not contact them. One plausible theory was that the organizer did not have any more money to pay them. He had only sold 70 Full Passes a month prior to his congress. It is a well-known fact artists ask organizers for their full wages when working for small congresses. They ask less money from the organizers of larger Salsa congresses because they get more exposure, which translates into more performances.

Finally, one of the artists got hold of a person assisting Gervais. He said they were sitting in a car on their way to the airport in Hannover to pick up Adolfo & Carla of the Latin Soul Dancers (New York & Italy). By then the artists had been waiting for 5 hours at the airport. Dave Paris and Zoe Klein from Paradizo Dance New York said they took a taxicab from Bremen Airport to the hotel. They were lucky at that time: they did not know the name of the hotel in which the artists would stay. Their first pick of the list of hotels happened to be the right one. Dave and Zoe’s luck would change over the weekend, which turned out to be quite disastrous. They had already advanced the payment of their own return flight tickets from New York to Bremen (1500 Euros).

Normally the artists receive a mail a couple of weeks in advance including their personal schedule for workshops and shows. None of them had received such an email. The international Salsa Dance instructor speaking on the phone asked Gervais’ assistant if he knew when he was supposed to perform. Gervais, driving the car, said he did not know. They would arrive at the hotel in about an hour. The tension was clearly building up among the artists. Gervais finally arrived around 10 p.m. He told the Salsa stars he did not have any money to pay them. Everything would turn out fine because the sponsors of the congress had yet to pay.

The performers had a meeting after Gervais’ announcement. They concluded that they would not see any money at the end of the weekend, but decided to behave in a professional manner by going to party to see how things would unfold.  Gervais told the instructors some of them had to perform that evening. The organizer did not arrange for a shuttle, so they all went together in several cars driven by the European Salsa teachers. There were about 150 people at the party, and the entrance fee was 35 Euros. The artists performed, they stayed at the party for some social dancing, and agreed to meet up the next morning to come up with a battle plan.

This was just the beginning. Stay tuned for part 2 of this article narrating the following events going from bad to worse. Do not miss the investigative work of the artists, which can be compared with an exciting episode taken right out of a famous detective series. Everyone can leave comments, especially the participants of the failed Queen Salsa Festival.