Ultra Westie Fest

 The 1st Ever...

ULTRA Westie Fest - The Mother of All Events!

Dance Awesome | Do Good!

Mother's Day Weekend... Join the Family!

- The ULTRA PROSHOW Friday night! - Rising Star Division! - Jack & Jill Divisions Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, Masters, Allstar/Champs! - Strictly A, Strictly B, Generational Strictly Swing Divisions! - SATURDAY Team Challenge - Team Pink vs Team Purple! - SUNDAY Featured Workshop = Mommy & Me - By Samantha Jane Buckwalter & Kelly Casanova! Late Night Parties ..... and more!

THE PICTURE SO FAR:

Event Director: Demetre Souliotes

THE STORY:

For the last couple of years, I have been really inspired to create an event really focused on community, family, juniors, good vibes, and a cross generational celebration of what makes WCS the best community in the world! I just didn’t know when would be a good time and I hadn’t had a solid picture of the event’s character fully formed yet.

Then all of a sudden TWO huge events in May closed their doors... First, Swing Diego. I left there that weekend feeling like a lightning bolt hit me... I just moved to San Diego, it’s one of the top 10 largest cities in the US and in my humble opinion, maybe one of the most beautiful. And now with Swing Diego gone, it was without a full WCS event! It was as though the planets aligned to properly kick me in the proverbial butt!

The only thing was, I hadn’t exactly fully formulated all the details of the event, how do I manifest my goal in making sure this event has the character that will reflect my vision?

Then I went to FreZno’s Grand Finale... after 35 years! On Saturday night during the retirement party, I was lucky enough to hear the incomparable, Steve Zener, reflect on the last 35 years and he told a story about when his event finally hit its stride and found it’s character. He hadn’t originally set out to marry his event to raising money... but one day it hit him...  he had a Memorial Day Event! So he teamed up with the USO and ended up really making some amazing contributions over the years and could walk away knowing he did good. Giving back through WCS has been up my alley for years, I have a not-for-profit group in LA, doing anything and everything to spread WCS... but I never thought about trying ‘Do Good’ with this event until that very moment!!! And again, lightning... this is going to be a Mother’s Day event... what is better than that!?  Family, community, Mothers!!! I want to give back to Moms and Women.

There was yet, one more piece of the pie...

I got home brainstorming and pushing to get all my ducks in a row. While thinking about all my friends who, always have my back and who I’d reach out to for help.. one of the first ones to pop up was, Helen Tocco. Helen and I have been friends in this community for over 10 years, and she’s always there for me. She also experienced her mom and aunt struggles with breast cancer and had just went through a huge ordeal.. ultimately ending up in a mastectomy. And in spite of all that, she has been running philanthropic drives for schools, running for local office, donating possessions, and raising money for... you guessed it... fighting breast cancer! That was it... the final piece, I knew this event had to be a force for good, it had to be about family & community, and it had to be in honor women and mothers.

Helen will be the team lead for our efforts to raise money to fight Breast Cancer. We will be donating half of all proceeds from select competitions (for sure The Generational Strictly... we’re hoping to add one more). We will be holding raffles and will hopefully come up with some other fun ideas to “Do Good”. Also, We’re looking at ideas to allow Moms to bring their kids to the event, or visa-versa, dancers to bring their moms! We need to crunch the numbers here and see if we can blanket open the doors to all the moms, or lottery, grants, etc.. we’ll work that out.

On top of our ‘do good’ initiative, we’re planning on making the ‘Dance Awesome’ part just as epic!!!