Greetings! Welcome to Leeds Swing Exchange 2018! This helpful little pack will give you lots of important

information about the weekend. In an effort to save trees we will not be printing this out for

everybody, so please either save it to your phone or print it out yourself. Information will be

available at all events should you wish to check the schedule.

The Schedule

Friday 24th August 7.30pm – 11.30pm Registration and Welcome Party

Principal Met Hotel, King Street, LS1 2HQ

Saturday 25th August 11.30am – 1.00pm Photo Challenge

Leeds City Museum, Millennium Square, LS2 8BH

1.00pm – 4.30pm Swing Picnic

Kirkstall Abbey, Abbey Road, LS5 3EH

7.30pm – 12.00am Saturday Swing Ball

Leeds University Union Refectory, LS2 9JT

12.00am – 3.00am Saturday After-Party

The Terrace, Leeds University Union, LS2 9JT

Sunday 26th August 11.30am – 1.30pm Helena’s Guided Tour of the City

Leeds City Museum, Millennium Square, LS2 8BH

12.15pm – 1.00pm Tap Taster Class with Ceris

HEART, Bennett Road, LS6 3HN

1.00pm – 5.00pm Sunday Afternoon Chill Out

HEART, Bennett Road, LS6 3HN

7.30pm – 11.30pm Sunday Evening Dance

Left Bank Leeds, Cardigan Road, LS6 1LJ

12.00am – 3.30am Sunday After-Party

Crowd of Favours, Harper Street, LS2 7EA

Monday 27th August 11:45am – 12:30pm Stretchy Yoga for Tired Dancers with Rachel

Thackray Medical Museum, Beckett Street, LS9 7LN

12.30pm – 5.00pm Monday Tea Dance and Goodbyes

Thackray Medical Museum, Beckett Street, LS9 7LN

Additional Event Information

Registration & Welcome Party Steph Birks-Thelier is in charge of hosting. If you have requested or offered hosting, please speak to Steph on Friday night if you need help finding your host or hostees.

Photo Challenge In groups, you will take on our (in)famous photo challenge. Whoever takes the best photos (as judged by us) will receive awesome prizes! Expect to see your snaps posted on facebook for us to have a good giggle at! This year’s challenge will feature an exciting meme-based twist!

Swing Picnic Weather permitting (!) we shall return to the beautiful grounds of Kirkstall Abbey for a picnic. If a monsoon occurs, the picnic will be cancelled. Look out for announcements on the LSX facebook page or website for suggestions of alternative activities you might like to do instead! Picnic food will be provided, but please feel free to bring your own contributions.

Saturday Swing Ball This year’s Saturday Swing Ball is once again being run jointly with Leeds University Swing Society at Leeds University Refectory. The theme for the Saturday Swing Ball this year is Adventure and Adventurers! We’re looking forward to seeing your movie-themed costume creations, the best of which will win a prize in our costume competition! We will have our Swing Gauntlet competition, which will take place in between the band sets. Sign up with a partner at the registration desk on the Friday or Saturday nights – maximum of 20 couples permitted. You’ll face a series of dance challenges, which will be revealed to you on the night! This is open to dancers of any level and you will be able to dance Lindy Hop, Balboa or Shag!

Afterparties! We’re refreshing the format of our afterparties this year! Saturday night at The Terrace will be a blues afterparty (transitioning gently from swing early on). The Sunday afterparty at Crowd of Favours will feature an eclectic mix of swing, funk, soul and any awesome tunes the DJ fancies playing to keep you all energised! There will be fooooood at both afterparties!

Helena’s Guided Tour of the City Join Helena for her fact-and-fun-filled tour of the City and find out all you ever wanted (or didn’t) about the wonderful city of Leeds! There’ll be ghosts, urban myths, important inventions and other highlights that you might not otherwise notice! Definitely recommended!

Tap Taster Class with Ceris Ceris from The Dance Studio Leeds will be running a tap taster class on the Sunday at HEART. You do not need tap shoes, but please wear secure, smooth-soled shoes (your regular lindy hop shoes will probably be fine). But no rubber soles as these will be too grippy. The class is aimed at absolute beginners in tap (although some solo jazz, e.g. the Shim Sham, knowledge will be helpful, though not necessary here)! This class will be run on a pay as you feel basis.

Sunday Afternoon Chill Out In addition to a room for dancing, the café will be open for drinks and snacks (no meals/hot food). We will be providing some fun games to play in the café space, but feel free to bring your own. Please note – the car park will be locked after we leave, so please do not leave your car there!

Sunday Evening Dance The Sunday Evening Dance will play host to the ALTAR OF CAKE! Please bring your baking contributions for the enjoyment of all. The theme for the Sunday Evening Dance is Vintage. There will be a stall selling gentleman’s vintage accessories from Thrifty Welldressed and Thrifty’s Vintage Photo Booth will be available for you to grab some excellent vintage-y looking shots of you and your besties. We will also have massages offered by local dancer and massage therapist, Alex Reid. Sign up for these slots in advance by emailing leedsswingexchange@gmail.com – first come first served. We will be arranging a car share to get people to the after-party at Crowd of Favours. First come first served – just put your name on the list on the front desk.

Stretchy Yoga for Dancers with Rachel If you have a yoga mat, please bring it along, but it is not a problem if you don’t have one. Wear comfortable clothing that you can move in easily. This class will be run on a pay as you feel basis.

Monday Tea Dance The end of the weekend! We have free access to the museum galleries, so please have a wander round this fascinating museum whenever you like! There will also be tea and cake!

Health and Safety By joining in, you are accepting responsibility for your own safety at our events. Dancing can be strenuous and accidents can happen. Please take care and look after yourselves. We will not accept responsibility for injuries or illness resulting after participating in our events. Please consider the safety of other dancers and do not put talc or any other kind of substance on the floor or your shoes. We advise bringing a range of shoes to suit different types of flooring, but please be advised that most of our venues have slick wooden floors anyway. Putting talc on the floor also means we lose our cleaning deposit, so please just don’t do it! We know you’re here to have a fun time, and so are we. We would, however, respectfully request that you obey any instructions that are given from any of the LSX Crew. We also take your concerns seriously, if you have concerns about the safety of anything at our events or the behaviour of any participants, please let a member of the crew know and we will do our best to help. There will be a photographer taking photos throughout the weekend. If you object to being in these photos or your photo being put on the Facebook group please let us know. If you are lost, confused, or just generally need a bit of assistance give Helen a ring: 07984 398101.

Bands

The Big Easy We’re really pleased to have the Big Easy opening the weekend for us at the Met Hotel! As a Leeds band that has played at many Leeds Swing Exchanges past, we couldn’t think of anyone better!

Echo 42 That’s pronounced ‘Echo Four Two’! Having played at LSX2016, we know their fabulous Big Band sound is going to go down a treat at Left Bank on the Sunday evening!

Jim Wynn Swingtet Our Saturday night band, playing at Leeds University Refectory, is the Jim Wynn Swingtet! We had them last year for the Saturday and liked them so much, we asked them back this year!

David Broad Trio Once again, we’ve got a live band for you at the Monday Farewell dance! We couldn’t think of anyone better to send you on your merry way home than Leeds Swing Exchange veterans, the David Broad Trio!

LSX18 Crew

There are many, many lovely people involved in organizing and running LSX and we can’t mention

them all here. Here are some people you may need to contact/recognise/stalk this weekend.

Helen Forsyth

Helen is in overall charge of the weekend but is also specifically managing the Friday night welcome party, the Sunday afternoon Chillout and Sunday evening dance! Annie Heeley

Annie is in charge of the Saturday picnic at Kirkstall Abbey.

Helena Avery-Clarke

Helena is the originator of LSX! She’s back once again and returns to present her excellent tour of the City! Joan Ion

Joan is helping Annie with the picnic at Kirkstall Abbey.

Georgie Rastall

Georgie is in charge of the Photo Challenge on Saturday. Georgie (aka Cheeky Rastall Photography) is also LSX18’s official photographer! Vincent Pettavel

Vincent is in charge of the Saturday Swing Ball at Leeds University Refectory.

Tracey Campbell

Organiser of Underbeat Blues, Tracey is in charge of this year’s after-parties! Elaine White

Elaine is helping Georgie with the Photo Challenge and Rachel with Monday afternoon.

Steph Birks-Thelier

Steph will be helping to run the after-parties with Tracey and is also in charge of hosting. Al Jones

Al is in charge of making sure music happens by corralling our DJs into some sort of order.

Rachel Gosling

Rachel is in charge of the Monday afternoon as well as teaching yoga on Sunday! Michellie Young

Michellie is Queen of Décor at LSX and is responsible for the wonderful decorations on both Saturday and Sunday nights!

Other Stuff

Hosting Our lovely hosts are very kindly opening up their homes by offering hosting. Please be considerate of your host and other hostees. We also encourage hostees to get their hosts a little something by way of a thank-you. Taxis and Buses City Cabs are black and white and are the only ones licensed to take unbooked passengers. They will be slightly more expensive than the booked firms like Apollo or Amber, but they are very convenient. Or y’know, there’s always Uber! Taxi numbers: City Cabs – 0113 2469999 Apollo Taxis – 0113 2433333 Amber Cars – 0113 2022117 You might want to get a bus from the city centre to Kirkstall Abbey for the Saturday picnic. The 33 and 33a will take you right there. Catch these on the Headrow or Park Row. Buses to Headingley after the City Tour leave from Infirmary Street (Bus no. 1), Albion Street (1, 6 and 97) and the Bus Station (1, 6, 28 and 97). The Thank Yous There are a few other people involved in the behind-the-scenes organisation of Leeds Swing Exchange that we also owe a huge thank you to. In particular, Raphael Colman helped out with opening bookings this year. Thank you to Tina Shield for being the brains behind the Swing Gauntlet competition. Thanks also to Michaela Delmonte at London Throwdown and Normandie Wragg at Mersey Swing Smackdown for offering passes to their events as prizes. Finally, a huge thank you to Laura Knight for agreeing to be our MC for the weekend! All that remains is to say:

Thank You! for coming to Leeds Swing Exchange 2018! We hope you’ve had a lovely time. We couldn’t have done it without you! Thanks also to all the volunteers, bands, DJs and cake bakers for your awesome efforts. Now go home, put your feet up and have a nice cup of tea. Come back to visit us in Leeds soon – we’d love to have you!