DanceSport requires comparably little in terms of venue and infrastructure for its competitions to be staged properly and conducted according to the rules. Any sports hall with sufficient seating, a wooden floor and a solid sound system would generally do. In the case of The World Games 2013 Cali, TWG 2013, the World DanceSport Federation, WDSF, was assigned the “Coliseo El Pueblo,” by far the biggest indoor venue in all of Cali and part of the centrally located Alberto Galindo sports complex. The four International Gymnastics Federation’s events would be held there as well.

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An imposing concrete structure inaugurated in 1971, it was first used in the Pan American Games of same year and for the World Basketball Championship in 1982. The colosseum had everything that was technically required – and then some – but it fell short in one decisive area: atmosphere. Too somber an environment, too poor the acoustics! That is why SAI suggested that WDSF move the three DanceSport events of TWG 2013 to the outdoors, to an entirely different setting: the “Plaza de Toros de Cañaveralejo,” the Cali bullfighting arena. Capacity: 17,000.

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It was risky business and rather difficult to pull off, but when the curtains went down on two nights of dancing under the stars, everyone agreed: it had been pure magic! Andrés Botero, the Colombian State Secretary for Sports and a member of the International Olympic Committee at the time, summed it up: “It was something spectacular, something never seen in Colombia or in South America: watching the best dancers in the world compete in the Waltzes, the Tango, ... the Salsa! Beautiful! And that we were able to sell out the Cali bullring with DanceSport - something that had not happened in the last 17 years! That was the most spectacular event for me ...”