Cuba Alaaf Festival

The name is a Cologne joke. Alaaf is what the city shouts at carnival, as in Kölle Alaaf, and the organisers turned it into Cuba Alaaf with the tagline porque la vida es un carnaval. It tells you the register before you arrive. It is deliberately small: three rooms, a hundred and eighty places, and passes limited to keep it that way. The first edition sold out two months ahead, and the size is the point rather than a constraint. The practical side is unusually tidy. Workshops run at the Cologne sports university, and the accommodation they sell is on the same grounds, so there is no commute between bed and floor. Food and drinks are included during workshops and parties. The nights move out into the city, to the Bürgerhaus Stollwerck and the Roonburg. Entirely Cuban, with no second room and no bachata. It is run by Azuca, a Cologne school, and billed by them as a passion project rather than a business.