It's been a month and the official numbers are in! The first annual San Francisco Salsa Rueda Festival, which took place at the Hotel Whitcombe on February 20-22 2009, was a great success. The first cuban dance congress of its kind, it featured TIMBA in over 40 workshops, 3 classrooms, a large class in the main ballroom, live music and a full international spread of instructors. Congratulations to organizers Serena and Nick (pictured above) of SalsaValeTodo. The festival included a few distinguishing features like musicality classes -how to find clave and the different sections within a timba song, and plenty of afro-cuban folkloric dance and rumba instruction. There was casino partnering, rueda, listening classes, son and cha-cha-cha dance styles. 300 people pre-registred and the Saturday night ballroom featured 550 dancers. They have outgrown the place already! Stay tuned to www.salsaruedafestival.com or call Serena at 415.608.6180 to find out the latest. See a bunch of videos from the festival here.