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Moira Furnace Folk Festival is a small event usually held in late-August in the North West Leicestershire village of  Moira  which advertised a ceilidh: For comparison here's  video of the 2019 event which shows the same band, venue and number of dancers as at the 2021 event.  It's typical of many smaller festivals in that the ceilidh is a small event with a local band and attracts a crowd of  30-40 people.  So, does this imply that Covid-19 has ceased to impact public dance events? Almost!  I saw just one face covering and the wearer did not attempt to dance  Hand sanitiser was available and I saw a few people use it  The caller asked at the beginning if we were Ok with dances involving touching other people and did we mind changing partners?  There was no dissent and many accepted "Dance line it's 2019" stickers from me On a couple of occasions, the caller made  (possibly humourous) concessions to infection control such as calli...

This post is written to document what is and is not happening as of early August 2021 at a festival that usually sees lots of dancing. It's hoped that the observations will help dancers, organisers and others to plan for the future. Introduction In normal years, this festival has a lot of social dancing in the form of ceilidhs, contras, American squares and the odd Bal or two. Typically, theses events are in marquees or local community halls. The number of  different people dancing over the course of the week probably approaches 1000. By the time the festival started in 2021, "dancing like it was 2019" had been legal for several weeks  but due to the long lead times for booking infrastructure, etc. the cut-down festival planned no indoor events and no dancing.  The Anchor Ceilidhs One of the pubs, The Anchor Inn put on their lunchtime ceilidh series. Differences from 2019 included: No late-afternoon ceilidh Another row of tables on each side of the dancefloor which reduce...