CANCELLATIONS AND REFUNDS
Cancellation fees are currently waived! As is the cutoff date for cancellations.
Ticket Transfers
Due to the long waitlist, we are not allowing ticket transfers this year.
Safety and Access
Our goal at Steel City Blues is to create an inclusive and welcoming event where all people can enjoy social dancing and Blues music in a safe and comfortable environment. We welcome dancers of all experience levels, and all people regardless of race, religion, nationality, physical ability, mental ability, gender, sexual orientation, physical appearance, or age. We expect all attendees to treat everyone with respect regardless of the factors mentioned above. To this end, everyone attending Steel City Blues must read this document and abide by its principles. This document is not all-inclusive, but should be treated as a guide to our values.
Blues is a Black social dance, and a Black musical tradition. Our aim is to respect Black culture, history, and artistry in how we dance, and how we exist in community together. Our organizer and instructor team is committed to self-education and anti-racist practices in how we run this event, and welcome feedback on how we can do better. Attendees who share this goal with us are welcome in our spaces!
Code of Conduct
Blues is a social dance, and our mission is to dance with people from many different dance communities! We’ve come together from all over the country and the world to bond over our love of Blues. That said:
- Right to Refusal — Everyone has the right to decline or leave a dance, with or without explanation. Please do not take it personally if someone says no to a dance with you, if they dance with someone else during that song, or if they leave a dance mid-song. Keep in mind that there are many possible reasons for someone not dancing with you, and respect that nobody owes anybody else a dance.
- Romantic Advances — Do not interpret dance connection as attraction. It is not appropriate to ask your partner out while dancing.
- Consensual Connections — Please be considerate of the needs of your partner in terms of closeness, energy level, and connection type. Do not use pressure or force to bring your partner into connection. If you notice non-verbal signals like body stiffening, hesitation, etc., and/or are unsure about what connection is appropriate for your partner, ask. Dance is a conversation — listen to each other!
- Unsolicited Feedback — Speak up if you are uncomfortable, in pain, or at risk of being hurt. Do NOT critique, criticize, or teach on the dance floor unless specifically asked.
- Public Displays of Affection — Please refrain from overtly sexualized activities on the dance floor (e.g. grinding, making out, roaming hands). Dancing can be close; this does not mean it is sexual.
- Aerials, Dips, & Tricks — Aerials are not allowed on our social dance floors. Dips and tricks should only be done between practiced and consenting partners. Please do not do weight bearing moves, such as deep dips, without verbal consent.
- Community Wellness — If at any time you find yourself impaired – by alcohol, exhaustion, distress etc. – in a way that makes it difficult or impossible for you to follow this Code of Conduct, please take time to rest, eat, recover etc. until you can do so. If you need support, please reach out to the Safety and Access team. Please check in with anyone who appears to be struggling!
Safety and Access Issues
If you have a question, comment, complaint or concern, you should bring it to a member of the Safety and Access team, either by approaching them directly or by using our event reporting form. QR codes will be placed around the event that link to the form directly, as well as our email (see below). Verbal or written complaints brought to us will be taken seriously and handled with care and confidentiality, and people who do not follow these policies after an intervention may be asked to leave the event without refund.
If you are hurt or made to feel unsafe or uncomfortable in any way by a fellow attendee, please immediately bring this to the attention of any Steel City Blues committee member or the Safety and Access team. Everyone attending Steel City Blues is expected to respect the boundaries of others on and off the dance floor, even outside the scheduled events and venues.
If someone tells you that something you are doing is hurting anyone, or making anyone feel unsafe or uncomfortable, immediately stop the behavior. We understand that it can be challenging not to take this feedback personally, and we hope that you can see this as a learning opportunity. If you are not sure how to change the behavior, please ask the Safety and Access team for support.
Even if you are not directly involved — if you notice someone is hurting a fellow attendee or causing them to feel unsafe or uncomfortable, we still ask that you bring this to the attention of a Steel City Blues committee member. You are part of the Safety and Access team with us, and we are all responsible for creating an inclusive and welcoming event. We would rather you spoke up unnecessarily than left a problem to develop.
If there is an issue with the space or event that is creating an obstacle to your full participation e.g. an allergen issue or other access issue, please let us know. We will do our best to resolve the situation as fast as possible given our resources.
Safety and Access Procedures
When you bring an issue to a member of the Steel City Blues Safety and Access team, you can expect:
- An initial conversation away from other attendees
- Confidentiality (unless we feel someone is in immediate danger)
- To be asked how you would like the situation to be handled
- The situation to be shared with additional committee members
- The next steps to be determined in consultation with you
- Some next steps may include the reported person being:
- Observed, but not approached, to keep an eye on them for further issues
- Spoken to directly about their behavior and asked to stop
- Removed from the event, and/or banned from future events
- Reported to venue security and/or police
If the resolution of any of these issues is not satisfactory, then you may be entitled to a refund at the discretion of the Steel City Blues committee.
We reserve the right to ban individuals from registering for or attending any part of Steel City Blues. While we will attempt to follow a restorative approach wherever possible, anyone who does or says something inappropriate, disrespectful, overtly sexual, illegal, dangerous, or otherwise violates any of the policies set forth here will face consequences, which may include immediate removal from the event, banning from future events, and legal action.
If an attendee is:
- A convicted sexual offender
- Currently being tried for a sexual offense
- Has a Protection from Abuse (PFA) against them
- Has a restraining order against them
This person may be banned from registration, refused entrance, and/or removed from the event. Please notify the Steel City Blues committee if you know of any such individual who may plan to attend the event, or if this describes you.
Scope and Enforcement
Any form of harassment or harm that is persistent, severe, or that continues after feedback, will be responded to as a major safety and access concern, whether or not it occurs at the event itself.
This policy was written by Steel City Blues in consultation with Jaesic Wade and Fen Lastra (Kennedy) of Changeling Spaces. If you wish to use it in whole or in part for your own events you may, but please credit us by name if you do.
You can also email us at saferspaces@steelcityblues.com.
FRagrancE & OTHER
Recognizing that many dancers have chemical sensitivity or allergic reactions to various products with added fragrances, Steel City Blues is a fragrance-free event.
What does being a fragrance-free event mean?
- Showering and using deodorant or other antiperspirants that are fragrance-free or utilize natural scents rather than “parfum” or “fragrance” (as listed in the ingredients)
- Avoiding highly fragranced personal care products (such as colognes, aftershaves, perfumes, lotions, and powders)
- Avoiding the application of fragranced products in the event space (such as hairspray and Febreze)
- Not bringing or wearing heavily scented items (such as live flowers and essential oil diffusers)
Steel City Blues recognizes that fragrance-free does not mean ‘zero smells’. Fragranced personal products are ones that are perceptible to others within your proximity.
Anyone attending our event who is heavily fragranced will be asked to remove the fragrance before being allowed entry. Spraying on a fragrance within the event space will result in discussion with the organizers and may be grounds for removal from the event.
Allergens:
Be mindful of pet dander on your clothing, and try your best to remove any before entering dance spaces. Please wash your hands after eating.
Weapons / Drugs:
We do not permit weapons, firearms, non-medical drugs, or alcohol in this venue. Smoking and vaping may occur outside the building. If you are too drunk to drive, you are too drunk to dance. If you are impaired in any way that limits your ability to follow this policy, please take a break until you can do so again.
Photography:
Wristbands will be available for those who do not want to be photographed. If you would like to communicate your needs to our photographer, please seek Braden directly or ask an organizer to connect you. Attendees are still permitted to take photos during our event. Those who do so, please do your best to not take photos of those with “no-photo” wristbands, and do not publicly post photos of people wearing “no-photo” wristbands, even if they’re only in the background. Anyone who finds photos of themselves publicly posted may request those photos to be taken down for any reason. Please contact an organizer or email saferspaces@steelcityblues.com if you need support.
COVID-19 / Illness
Conditions with COVID are unpredictable at best, and we may need to adapt these policies to be stricter based on the current conditions as the event draws nearer.
Testing
Steel City Blues will require recent (within 48hrs) proof of a negative rapid-test and strongly encourages individuals to show caution when coming to the event.
If you are testing at the door, please bring your own test and remember you will need to allow 20 minutes at the registration gate to test and obtain the test results before entering the event. We will have some tests for sale for $5 at the door.
Testing before attending our event is our best chance of preventing spread at the event given rates of symptomless cases.
Vaccination
Due to accessibility issues acquiring proof of vaccination and changes to eligibility for acquiring the latest vaccines, SCB will no longer require proof of vaccination.
We still strongly encourage people to get the most recent vaccine available.
Masking
We anticipate a mask-optional event in 2024.
We appreciate everyone’s amazing cooperation with masking at various events, but we also recognize that masking attitudes have shifted dramatically in the dance community within the past year. If you’d like to reduce your personal risk of COVID, flu, and other respiratory diseases, we recommend wearing high quality N95 or KN95 masks during all our dances.
We do reserve the right to change this policy on masks, should we deem it dire enough to do so.
SCB will provide colored name tags at the door for individuals to show their dance comfort levels: willing to dance with individuals regardless of mask or prefers to dance with masked-only individuals.
Common Sense Safety
- Do not attend if you feel unwell!
- Do not attend the event if you have had a positive COVID test within the preceding 10 days, unless you have re-tested and received 2 negative results.
- We recommend that all attendees do a self test before the event and also a few days afterward.
- We recommend that you do not visit vulnerable people (the elderly, the unvaccinated, the immunocompromised) right after attending a large event such as this one.
The landscape of COVID is constantly evolving, and so we may need to add or augment these safety measures to adapt to those changes. We will announce any changes via email to all attendees, as well as on this website and our Facebook page.
Contact Tracing
If an attendee of Steel City Blues 2024 is determined to be COVID positive everyone will be informed using the email address provided at the time of registration. Contact information for at the door and one-dance attendees will also be collected so they may be included.
Illness Refund Policy
If you cancel as a result of a positive COVID-19 test, COVID-19 symptoms, known exposure, or other illness you will get a full refund after a deduction of the cost of any dances attended. Our goal is safety and we want everyone to feel encouraged to make the right health choices without financial concern about refunds.