Carousel Sessions Details

Extra details about the Carousel sessions.

Planning for a successful Carousel session.

Speaking as a rehearsal studios that has had 35,000 sessions as of January 2020, we understand what musicians are needed for each session to be successful, and we will work hard to accomidate that. For example, if the second guitarist drops out then that session can still go on with the rest of the band, with a drummer, bassist, guitarist and singer. But if the drummer drops out then it's not to easy. We'll put the time in to juggle those considerations. We also have x2 bass guitars at the studios, should all of the guitarist slots be taken, and a guitarist want to fill a bass slot instead.

We the split the whole session into x4 sessions of 45 minutes each*, with time in between to swap over studios, which are all within 30 second walk of each other. So (depending on how many people book for each session), the schedule can look like this:

*If less people book the schedule may be reduced, if more book it may be expanded. We'll always let you know in advance if this happens.

If we book up 2 full sets, which will need 10-14 people to sign up:
- The price will be £12 for 3 hours of sessions. (Shorter than usual to accommodate the fewer people that there are).
- Each person plays with an average of 9.67 people each over the sessions.

Each person gets to play with an average of 75%-77% of the other people that it is possible for them to play with, (depending on the instrument).
- There are 89 different combinations of people who can play with each other, and we have manged to pair up 66 different combinations of people together. This is the most that it is possible to do, given the limitations.

If we book up 3 full sets, which will need 15-19 people to sign up:

- People will pay £15 for 4 hours of sessions.

- Each person plays with an average of 12.94 people each over the sessions.
- Each person gets to play with an average of 92% of the other people that it is possible for them to play with, (depending on the instrument).
- There are 153 different combinations of people who can play with each other, and we have manged to pair up 141 different combinations of people together. This is the most that it is possible to do, given the limitations.

If we book up 4 full sets, which will need 20-24 people to sign up:
- People will pay £15 for 4 hours of sessions.
- Each person plays with an average of 16.375 people each over the sessions..
- Each person gets to play with an average of 75% of the other people that it is possible for them to play with, (depending on the instrument).
- There are 258 different combinations of people who can play with each other, and we have manged to pair up 194 different combinations of people together. This is the most that it is possible to do, given the limitations.

If we book up 5 full sets, which will need 25-29 people to sign up:

- People will pay £18-£20 for 5 hours of sessions. (Please note the longer length of the session to accommodate the extra possibilities from having more people)
- Each person plays with an average of 21.96 people each over the sessions.
- Each person gets to play with an average of 100% of the other people that it is possible for them to play with.
- There are 312 different combinations of people who can play with each other, and we have manged to pair up all 312 different combinations of people together.

We've put over 80+ hours of planning into all of this to make sure that everyone can play with as many different people as possible. We've made graphs and tables to make sure that there's as much variation as possible. For example, here's the combination table that we used in the event that we book enough people for all 5 studios. As you can see, nearly everyone plays with each other, and in the cases where people don't play with each other, that's because it's physically impossible to accommodate these combinations. (For example, if 5 studios are booked with 2 guitarists booked, then there's 10 guitarists at these events, so each guitarist has 9 other guitarists to play with, 1 in each session. However, there's only 5 sessions, meaning they'll only be able to play with 5 of the 9 other guitarists. This is why there are certain combinations that are not possible.)

Here is a graph to show the possible combinations of who can play with who when 29 people sign up to an event. Each column/row relates to each person who signs up to the event, (Drummer 1, Drummer 2, Bassist 1, Singer 1, etc).