City of Angels 2013 – Update #2

What a beautiful ballroom! Looks just like the way Ronnie and Brandi dance! Clean, elegant, thoughtful, attention to detail, tells a story, creates drama, atmosphere. It’s intelligent, artistic, understandable.

What a gorgeous wall-to-wall backdrop! Classy black and white like a tuxedo, with those great angels’ wings at the center (what a cool logo!) The entire wall covered from one end to the other so looking at the stage one sees only a clean canvas rather than a mess of ugly doors, exit signs, sprinklers, fire extinguishers, swamp-green wallpaper; and in some ballrooms the backdrop consists of spectator tables littered with sweaters, Starbucks cups, candy wrappers, water bottles, and people snarfing off hunks of sandwich, caught mid-chew behind a dancer trying to perform on the “stage” that’s two feet away.

Great lighting, too! The room is bathed in dim blue spotlights and there are rows of stage lights, too, which I’m sure we’ll see used tomorrow. The ceiling is speckled with rows upon rows of pretty little rectangular lights arranged as if they were planted in a garden.

I love the configuration of this room. Something feels very familiar about the way this room is arranged. It feels right – the Feng-shui, the vibe, just feels right, like this is the way it’s supposed to be.

You enter from the side and Boom! Voila! You’re inside a blueish trance zone of non-stop music and dancing – you’ve entered our world, where you don’t have to explain why you’ve spent hours on a plane, and your entire life, to get here.

To your left an ocean of floor with dancers weaving against a glowing backdrop on the horizon. To your right a sea of tables and behind them, way back in the dark, you can barely make out a few lights sparkling on and off where our high priests, the deejays and video crews, float on risers above the rest of the room, flickering back there in the dark.

I have been dancing to Ernie Halter who sang Cyclone and lots more of his own songs and covers of favorite standards. What a treat!

I am already loving this event.