Cuba Alaaf Festival is a new Cuban Salsa Festival taking place in the city of Cologne, Germany, each year. It’s the first of its kind to take place in the ancient city – and, last year, for its first edition, tickets for the event sold out so rapidly that it even took the festival’s COO Betül Büsra Tosun by surprise.
If you’re intrigued about what goes into planning such a brilliant dance festival – one that there’s clearly a huge appetite for – it’s well worth reading our chat with Betül below. There are some really valuable insights here, touching on everything from operational challenges and how to overcome them to finding the perfect venues for a dance festival. Betül also has some very friendly and helpful advice for anyone thinking of organising their own cultural happening in the city they call home. It’s inspirational stuff.
💃Let’s go.
✅ Key takeaways
💸 When you’re just starting out with a brand new event – and have yet to secure any sponsors – financial planning can be tricky, and every little helps. Betül talks about the relief (and surprise) she felt when she discovered Ticket Tailor’s low cost pricing and that there were no hidden fees to worry about, which helped them to manage their budget.
🫶 Operational planning can be another challenging area when setting up a festival from scratch. So it’s really important to build a team you work well with – and it doesn’t hurt to have some family-and-friend type helpers on board too!
⚡ Betül had a lot of ticketing and event-planning queries when organising the event, and so found Ticket Tailor’s super speedy, 24/7 customer support to be a life-saver!
“You guys are amazing. No matter what time I have a question, you have a 24/7 support team that answers every question with angelic patience, even if I’ve asked the same question 100 times before. This is unbeatable. Especially when it comes to quick organisation or fast implementation. I need swift solutions for my problems, and your service really stands out positively in this regard.” Betül Büsra Tosun – COO, Cuba Alaaf Festival
Your festival sounds brilliant! 💃Tell our readers what it’s all about:
Our festival is the first 100% Cuban Salsa Festival in our lovely city of Cologne. We want to create a familiar and friendly setting where people can dance and have unique moments with their friends and same-minded people, who also share this hobby. So if you’re up to dance Cuban Salsa, feel free to come and join us!
Your festival had its first year last year – what made you decide to put on the event?
In our community, it’s common to travel a lot to visit different festivals and share experiences. My partners Yala and Dieter have been known in the scene for a long time as DJs, among other things, and have been organising parties for years. At some point, as an organiser, your fingers start to tingle and you want to go for something bigger; take the next step. That's where I came in and the three of us decided to embark on the next big adventure. We want to use our city and its amazing potential, and build on it. We believe the dance scene should be given the chance to continue to grow here.
So – how did the first ever Cuban Alaaf Festival go? (We hear it was a rip-roaring success! 🫢)
The success of our first festival really took us by surprise. We were already sold out two months before the start of the event with around 150 full passes, and absolutely did not expect this to happen so quickly. Shortly before the festival, there were a lot of enquiries as to whether we could possibly sell more tickets and make exceptions. I’ve organised many things in my life, and I have to say that I was really blown away by Ticket Tailor’s help when it came to thinking of ways to make our life easier during this busy time!
What would you say are some of the biggest challenges of organising a festival like yours?
One of the biggest challenges for us came down to costs and finances. We don't have a sponsor (yet) and have to finance the whole festival from the bare income we make from it. So we have to pay attention to every little detail and reduce every unnecessary expense. That's why I couldn't quite believe it when I read the terms and conditions from Ticket Tailor. Compared to other providers, there were no hidden costs or exaggeratedly high fees, which made things a lot easier for us.
💡Tip: Event creators can check out Ticket Tailor’s simple, flat-fee pricing here >
Another big challenge came down to the logistics and planning of our event. There were three of us involved in the operational planning, which is quite a challenge for such an intensive weekend. But we were able to overcome this challenge because we grew together very well as a team and tackled any problems we faced with a hands-on mentality. In addition, we were able to rely on many friends and helpers, without whom we would have had great difficulties. In the end, it's the little things that make a big difference.
How do you go about curating the line-up for your festival?
My partners Yala and Dieter are the long-time experts here, who meticulously handle the more creative aspects of the festival. They manage to achieve a fine interplay of theme, musicality and artistic desire, which all play together well in the end.
How do you go about sourcing the venues for your festival?
Salsa or most dance festivals in general are organised in such a way that there are classes during the day and dance parties in the evening. So you need a location where you can hold the dance classes, ideally a large room with mirrors – if it's a bigger festival you need several such rooms – and then a large space for the dance party in the evening. You also need a good music system, because a dance party with bad sound is no fun and not unenjoyable!
So you have to look for these criteria and see what the city has to offer. As we don't own a property, after a long and intensive search with logistics and accessibility in mind, we ended up finding and renting two different spaces to be able to run our programme.
Do you have any advice for any budding event planners looking to start a similar, local event?
Feel free to contact me 😆.
I think the most important point to emphasise is that no matter how stressful it may be, you should always focus on retaining full control over every decision, and tackling things with a problem-solving mindset. Because ultimately you are the one responsible for how things turn out. When things go wrong, take a deep breath and look for alternatives, because no matter how hopeless it seems, necessity is always the mother of invention!
Moreover, I wouldn't organise such a festival alone. You need a good team of colleagues you can rely on and who will pick you up if you forget something yourself. And last but not least, you need a clear distribution of tasks among your team, and to ensure that everyone fully understands what needs to be done.
Good luck!
How do you go about marketing your festival?
Marketing is also predominantly handled by my partner Yala. We are very active on social media, collaborate with national and international organisers, and promote our festival at other festivals to attract attention to ourselves.
Now let’s talk ticketing – why did you choose Ticket Tailor as your ticketing partner? 🙂
As mentioned earlier, there are many good reasons why I wanted to work with Ticket Tailor:
- The price-performance ratio is simply unbeatable: I haven't found any other provider that offers such straightforward pricing. Initially, I was unsure about the prices and was surprised if it might be too cheap or if there were any hidden costs.
- The support: You guys are amazing. No matter what time I have a question, you have a 24/7 support team that answers every question with angelic patience, even if I’ve asked the same question 100 times before. This is unbeatable. Especially when it comes to quick organisation or fast implementation. I need swift solutions for my problems, and your service really stands out positively in this regard.
- Your service in general: You offer so much that others would charge extra for. Your team always communicates clearly and logically. You offer features that I hadn't thought of, like offering tickets as a hidden link for a special guest list or similar. You are open to feedback to make the product even better. I get the impression that you truly understand what an organiser needs when I see everything you have taken into account. So, thank you very much for that.
- Practical features: I find it very pragmatic that I can categorise my tickets and Products. It gives me a really clear overview of the various packages we have on offer. Our box office is also integrated into our website through your WordPress plugin, which helps to facilitate better sales.
Feel free to send me a shirt, I will wear it proudly to help advertise you guys 😀.
Haha, we might just do that! Finally, what does the future hold for Cuba Alaaf Festival?
For the next edition of our festival, we hope to collaborate with local clubs and the city, and possibly even invite bands to offer live concerts. But that's all in the future and depends on strategic and financial planning. One thing’s certain – we will definitely stay loyal to Ticket Tailor! Feel free to come by and dance with us! 😊
We’re in! Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us Betül.
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