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Although legal restrictions have been lifted, there are still risks, and this page shows how you can help to mitigate some of them. We cannot reduce risk to zero so please read this page and make your own judgement on whether you should come.
Vaccines protect you and those around you. Please get vaccinated as soon as possible so that protection has time to develop before you come to a dance. The protection given by a vaccine multiplies the effect of any other protective measure so this is the single most important thing you can do.
Please stay at home if you have symptoms of COVID-19 or you feel unwell in any other way.
Please do a Lateral-Flow Test (LFT) before coming to a dance. We will ask you to confirm that you have had a negative result within the last 24 hours. LFTs are not completely accurate, but if you get a positive result please do stay at home: this roughly halves the risk of there being an infected person at a dance if everyone does it.
If you are nervous about getting close to lots of people you might choose to stay with one or two partners all evening. We will provide coloured badges / ribbons to help here, the idea being something like:
There will be an area of the floor set aside for 'more distant' dancing as this needs a more spread-out set. There might be a 'mask-only' set as well.
We would prefer you to wear a mask, but there is no legal requirement to do so.
Other people will be more (or less) nervous than you are about COVID-19. Try not to upset them, and please be tolerant if they make mistakes or misunderstand what you want them to do.
Cecil Sharp House is a Covid-Secure venue. Here are some of the things that we and Cecil Sharp House are doing:
There will be hand-gel at Cecil Sharp House, but you may prefer to bring your own in any case. Touch-based infection is much less of a problem than originally thought, but it would be wise to clean hands before touching any part of your face. With that in mind, why not bring a small towel or flannel to wipe your face without touching it with your hands?
Kennedy Hall is 21m x 12m and has a nominal capacity of 400 people. KUCS events rarely attract more than 200 dancers so we expect everyone will have plenty of space. Obviously you will be close to your chosen partner and others in your set, but there should be adequate space between sets.
Kennedy Hall has updated forced-air ventilation. In summer this brings lots of air in from outside. In the heating season some of the air is recirculated through high-efficiency filters. We are not allowed to open the outside doors while music is being played, so we will make sure that the fans are always on.
The risk of infection depends on how many infected people there are and how close you are to one and for how long. If the case numbers rise significantly, or if restrictions are re-applied, we will re-assess our plans.
Much of this text has been copied with permission from the London Barndance Company website.
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Page created by Martin Nail. Last revised 6th April 2022