Bugle Dance Festival – Information for 2025 Festival.
Please share this information with anyone you know who is entering the festival.
Dear dance schools principals, teachers, parents, carers and performers,
We are looking forward to welcoming you to Bugle Dance festival this year. It has been 18 months since our last festival and we wanted to give you some information in advance to help things run smoothly over the 5 days.
Our venue, the Keay Theatre within the Cornwall College site is undergoing huge renovations. The theatre stage and auditorium has not changed, but the surrounding space is different and much smaller than we have had in previous years. The entrance to the theatre is now where the emergency exit doors used to be and we will have a space nearby where we sign you in, take entrance money and sell programmes, medals and lanyards.
The changing spaces have been reduced and we will be using the warm up studios for changing this year, meaning that we are unable to offer a warm up space. You are welcome to carry out personal warm up in the changing area, but there is no space for rehearsal, which is not permitted. The new Cornwall Council licensing officer has also informed us that we have to provide separate changing spaces for both male and female up to and including school year 11, male and female for years 12/13 and male and female for those post year 13. The larger of the warm up studios will be split by a curtain and the five changing spaces that we have will be reallocated at each session, depending on the classes taking place. Please look out for the signs and don’t assume that because you changed in one place on Saturday that your changing area will be the same on Sunday! Where we have a space, we will allocate a family changing room, but this will not be available at every session. Please note that performers may only change in the space allocated to their gender and age group and males may not enter female changing areas and females may not enter male changing areas. We appreciate that this is not ideal for 21 and under groups and some duets, trios and quartets who will not be able to change together.
Please do not wear stiletto heels or tap shoes in the changing rooms. Tap shoes must be put on outside on the carpeted area.
Parking arrangements have changed because of the building work and the car park for the theatre now features a small area with blue badge spaces immediately behind the theatre and in front of the main building reception, and a much larger area in the old car park, which is accessed by driving behind the theatre and up the hill. There is only one access road, so you will not be able to miss where you need to go. Parking remains free of charge.
Our usual café space has been removed and we are waiting to hear from the theatre if a new space has been signed off in the building works programme for us to use to serve food and for people to sit and eat. This may mean that what we are able to offer is more limited than in previous years, but there will be hot and cold drinks, filled rolls, toasties, biscuits, cakes and sweets at a minimum and we hope more. We will update you on this as we hear more from the theatre.
We have had a large number of late withdrawals and it is likely that days may run early. Please make sure you are ready to dance 30 minutes before your class time and that anyone who is coming to watch is also aware of this. We will not run more than 30 minutes ahead of published class times. We have rescheduled the times of all classes and our presentation on Wednesday afternoon and the revised timings will be published on the facebook page, the website and displayed in the theatre. We will not give access to the auditorium during sections apart from where someone is supporting a quick change, so please make sure you are in your seat in good time and do not leave the auditorium whilst a section is ongoing.
In large sections, the performers will be split and half of the section taken backstage ready to perform and half will be seated in the front row of the auditorium and supported by licensed chaperones. The groups will swap half way through the section and all performers will return to the stage for adjudication. We think that performers will enjoy watching rather than having a lengthy wait backstage.
Please make sure you have looked at our rules, which are available on the website. We would like to particularly draw your attention to our ‘no photography or filming’ rule in the auditorium and backstage, which forms part of our safeguarding policy and terms of our license from Cornwall Council. To support this, we have introduced a ‘no phones backstage’ policy and we request that you comply with this. Our music system is not operated from backstage, so there is no need for a performer to have a phone in case their back up track is required.
A dancer aged 6 or under may be accompanied backstage by one adult (teacher/parent/carer) if necessary. We encourage performers to go backstage with our licensed chaperones without an additional adult, to support their independence and confidence development. Any other agreement for performers to be accompanied must be requested in writing to the Chair of the committee prior to the start of the festival.
All props should be hand held and manoeuvrable onto the stage by the dancer where possible. The All England Dance rule for the weight of a prop is 10kg and this rule will be applied at our festival.DO NOT BRING OVERSIZED PROPS !
Please do not arrive before 8am each morning as we won’t be there to welcome you and sign you in.
We are really looking forward to seeing all our Bugle festival regulars and meeting the new performers who are joining us for the first time. If you have any questions, please contact karen@peninsulatraining.co.uk.