Big Swing Thing
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The Big Swing Thing is an annual festival in York, PA, showcasing music of the Big Band era, swing dance performance, instruction and social dancing!
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Valencia Ballroom
York, PA
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Our Story
The germ of an idea for what would eventually become the Big Swing Thing was hatched in December 1996 when our festival director Tom McLaughlin visited York while being recruited for a senior information technology position. While spending some time in the city at the Yorktowne Hotel, Tom attended a concert presented by the York Symphony Orchestra at the Strand Theatre, where a chance meeting with the late Ron Rudy, and a conversation about shared love for big band music led to a quickly arranged tour of the vacant Valencia through some friends of Ron’s. Tom’s reaction to walking through the door was initial disbelief, and wonder at why this gem of history was not open and being used as it was intended, and he commented to Ron that the ballroom should be hosting a big band festival, and introducing the public to what the place had meant to the region during the swing era.
Sixteen years passed. The Valencia came and went, through several iterations, In 2010, Tom accepted the musical director position of the Unforgettable Big Band, a community big band he had played in off and on for several years prior. By chance, almost to the day, in December 2012, Unforgettable Big Band performed at the Valencia for a fundraiser organized as a part of the York Symphony’s Musicales series to benefit the orchestra’s programming. The idea returned, and began to grow, but the time was not right. Yet.
In 2013, with the reputation of Unforgettable Big Band growing, after a series of well attended Swing Nights in cooperation with the York Elks Lodge, and the York Swing Dance Club, the band partnered with the Swing Dance Club, led by Randi Stauffer to host “Swing into 2014, New Year’s At The Valencia.” More than 250 attended the successful celebration, and the next logical step appeared to be moving forward with returning regular big band shows, dances, and festivals to the ballroom. But the time was not right, Yet.
For the better part of two decades, the Valencia had been operated by the Altland House, a restaurant, victorian inn, and catering operation based in Abbottstown, PA, under lease from the Kinsley Group, who owned the Valencia property. In 2012, Altland House purchased the Holiday Inn in West Manchester Township, and in mid 2014, relinquished their lease to the Valencia Ballroom to concentrate their resources on renovating and reopening the Holiday Inn as a Wyndham Garden. Most of the contents of the Valencia were owned by Altland, and were either relocated to the hotel, or sold at auction. The ballroom was vacant, and for moment, the idea was on hold. The time was still not right.
