Tompa Kések by Kiscsillag band
design management, Product design, digital design
2019 - 2020
in a row
As a musician and a lindy hop dancer myself my all-time favourite management projects is Lindy shock. The subculture of 30s – 40s classic jazz-swing music and dancing enthusiasts’ scene is strong, energetic, inclusive and diverse from the start, and we have a lot to learn still from that era and people. Hence this, Lindy shock since 2006 became one of the most important festival on the world in this subculture. It’s not just about the music, or a Gatsby night dress-up, it’s the era and experience in practice. The social interactions, the leading and following-awareness of the dancing, the experience of dancing with the live music and not just to the music, to not just dress up but dress up properly, the competitions, the jam circles, the fun and the awareness of the community and the self-development for each person.
Sound engineers
Scheduling 2 Teams of sound engineers on 3 stages, facilitation with the bands, helping them preparing the the best setup
Bands
Hosting 8 bands from 6 countries with different schedules and needs (7 members per band avg)
Backline
Organising Instruments, amps and needs accordingly, cost-efficient sheduling of the rental and brought equipment
Troubleshooting
The most important part: on-the-spot problemsolving, maintan the flow, do no harm, trust the fellow organisers, dancers and myself
The organisers’ team consisted a project owner / main orgainser (Marcell Bendik), a volunteer and – course schedule manager (Barbara Joó, now one of the main organisers of the biggest European jazz event, the Swedish Herrang Dance camp), a treasury and billing manager (Borbála Kasznai), an account manager (Nikolett Rózsa), an IT developer (Radnai Zsolt) and myself.
The role of each manager was almost impossible, we all working for months before the event, and for weeks after it to get the administrative parts done, but during the the festival each person averaged 16 hours of work every day.
The summary video of the
2017 event
Oddly enough no musicians or jazz loving non-dancers in Budapest know about that there is an event with 7-8 bands for a week in the center of the city with musicians who could fill the Palace of Arts even alone.
This is just beacuse all the fullpasses are sold out in hours right after opening the registrations among the community, and we never needed to advertise anything, and literally we reached the capacity of the ships.
Because we sold out almost immediately and people are coming with different needs we made different admissions for different time slots – There were normal courses, evening courses, there were party passes without courses, and since bands are playing approximately until 2-3am, and the DJ-s until the morning, there was a huge interest for the night-passes that are from 1am, making people sleep during the day, taking the evening tasters, having some lunch, and coming back for the last blasting set of one of the bands and dancing till morning.
We literally had something for everybody
"More New Orleans
than New Orleans itself"
The classic steamboat feeling with the size of the Savoy ballroam was the Europe boat herself, plus two more, the Kassa, and the Zsófia boats connected together right next to eachother in the center of the city, across the Parliament, given the best wiev you can get in Budapest. On Saturday night, Europe boat went on a two hour cruise with live music on the top deck.
Photo by Fürjes Viktória
Teachers
World-famous teachers were holding classes from morning to the evening. People got auditioned into levels, except the invitational level but everybody got the opportunity to change level if somebody felt so. Taster classes were held also for trying out new things or from new teachers.
Awesome DJs
15 DJs played each year during the festival, between the sets of the bands and after their show, so they had to be organised as well. The schedule was done by the enthusiastic Janne Börjesson. To keep up with the crowd, it was natural to schedule DJs even from from 4am to 8am as well, the last survivors are went to have breakfast before going to bed.
(Per Lilljeson, photo by Fürjes Viktória)
(photo by Fürjes Viktória)
Panel talks
The bands and teachers and organisers never really met eachother, since the are invited one or another, but never altogether. So each year we organised Q&A sessions, panel talks, every evening before the concerts to share their thoughts and feelings.
Party people
Concert experience of the jazz era that shows you that this type of music is not for people who are eating, but for dancing and throwing eachother in the air.
The movements shown on the pictures are NOT rehearsed, they are all from jam circles when the live band goes for solos and the audience is forming a circle for dancers doing solos as well challenging eachother or the band itself. You have to be there to belive.
(photos by Fürjes Viktória and Bendik Marcel)
Community
“Did we met at Lindy shock?” – is the worst catchup line, since you probably did. After the classes, since it’s called “university” hence the higher level of the classes, we are throwing hats, but all the activities like the cruising concert, dancing until the morning, having breakfast at the batthyány tér (or trying to pronounce it), meeting with people literally from the other side of the world really made a community that is really rare to experince.
(photo by Bendik Marcel)
(photos by Marcell Bendik and Vikrória Fűrjes)
Vintage market
The music and the people made it clear that this amount of enthusiasm is worth to build up the support of the accessories. The best classic shoes (if it’s good to dance in, it’s also good to walk in), taylor made and second hand clothing, ties, accessories, but even hairdresser, skincare and make up were also availalbe on the boat.