To start a Swing club, you first need a critical mass of Swing dancers.
Since you can't just go out and buy them off the shelf, you'll have to make
them yourself. The fastest tack would be to offer lessons to people who
already like R&B and swing music. Fortunately, these people are easy to
find: they follow blues bands from club to club, they congregate at C/W
dance clubs, they form groups like the Champaign-Urbana Jazz and Blues
Association. You'll find a lot of them at the Blind Pig on Sept 6 when
Debbie Davies and her band comes to town (Ohhhh, I can't wait!!!).
Then you need good instructors, a place to hold lessons and dances, DJ's
etc. You also need to be patient - it takes time to develop a community of
dancers. The popularity of Salsa in C-U didn't happen overnight - it
evolved from yearly Latino festivals & private parties to a few
student-organized clubs & dance classes to late night Salsa in a
restaurant/bar to it's current state of 3 clubs to Salsa per week. Before
it became self-sustaining, it took the work of many selfless, dedicated
people who were willing to share their love of dancing and Salsa music.
It would be ideal if you could find a mentor - say a dance instructor or
club owner who was willing to invest the time, energy, advertising and
money necessary to get the ball rolling.
Brainstorm contribution:
Why don't we take the advice that Enio and Terryl gave us in the teacher
training seminar: teach West Coast Swing instead of East Coast Swing in our
Beginner course? The music is slower, the guys have less footwork to do
(so they might actually learn to lead), and the women still get to dance.
Mark