FAQ | TinkerBal!

How much Balboa do I need to know to attend TinkerBal?

The TinkerBal class format assumes that ALL students have learned and are comfortable with the basic figures and techniques of Balboa & Bal-Swing. In other words, you’re at least intermediate & you know how to do both basics, come-arounds, lollies, toss-outs, swivels, out-and-ins, paddle turns & other ad-lib progressives, and crabwalks — even if you’re still working on making those things feel smooth & swingy. If you’re new to Balboa, we encourage you to take Fundamentals classes and plan to join us for TinkerBal next year!

Yes, in order to keep group sizes small, registration is capped to limit groups to 8-10 students each, with no group larger than 10 students. Additionally, we are enforcing role balance within groups, so that may further restrict the number of available spots.

We will set up 7 groups for the weekend, each with 8-10 students. Within each group we will only allow there to be one extra lead or follow. This means that the maximum difference between number of leaders and followers for the entire workshop is 7 — so it’s possible for us to have less than the maximum number of one role if there are not enough registrations for the other. If we start skewing towards one role, we’ll set up a waitlist until we get better balance.

If you get put on the waitlist for one role, when enough people have signed up for the other role, you will be notified that you’ve been put on the registered list. At that time, you will either be given a link to submit your registration fee via PayPal or an address for sending a check by mail, depending on the payment method you selected.

Note that while there is no guarantee that you’ll get taken off the waitlist, your spot is reserved at the workshop — there will be space for you as long we get sufficient numbers of the other role by the registration deadline. (unless the registration page explicitly stated that the role was at capacity.)

If you are on the waitlist because TinkerBal was already at full capacity when you registered, you’ll only get a spot in the workshops if someone else cancels. We encourage you to consider coming to Boston anyway for the weekend: whether or not you get a spot in the workshops (and people DO get in off the waitlist, every year, sometimes at the very last minute), there will be lots of social dancing and you can do fun Boston things during the days!

Absolutely yes! People DO get in off the waitlist, every year, sometimes at the very last minute, so you never know. Even if you don’t get a spot in the workshops, come to Boston anyway for the weekend — there will be lots of social dancing in the evenings and you can do fun Boston things during the days! Check out our Boston Activities page for ideas!

The “Register both” option used to exist and allowed two people (one person of each role) to guarantee that they’re both registered when they sign up, but it created major problems when registrations started coming in as fast as they currently do, so we eliminated it. If you want to make sure you and your partner both get spots, sit at two separate computers, and each register separately as fast as you can.

Really fast. We were staggered in 2016 when we went to waitlist in well under 5 minutes of opening registration. Set an alarm, warm up your computer, get the page loaded up, and be ready. And remember, being high on the waitlist has a good chance of translating into a spot in the workshops, because people do inevitably cancel. DEFINITELY register anyway, even if it’s on the waitlist!

You should receive an automated email as soon as your registration is completed and stored in our database. We’ll send another email once we’ve received your payment. (or if we haven’t received your payment within 5 business days.)
The code for the registration process is homegrown — so if you think you should have received an email, but you did not, let us know at info@tinkerbal.com.

The Saturday Night Shuffle DJ dance is included in the workshop price. The Balboa Speakeasy on Sunday evening is free. The Friday night BSC dance is not included in the workshop price, but we encourage you to arrive early to attend it and dance with us and the rest of Boston’s Lindy/Balboa scene!

Unfortunately no.
However, if there is enough time before the event, we will allow registrations to be transferred, generally to the next person on the waitlist. If we are able to successfully transfer your registration, due to the effort required in managing the groups, you will be charged a fee — from nominal to draconian based on how close to the event the transaction occurs.