A couple of people have asked me for this, so I may as well put it on the Web
This is supposed to be a list of dance weekends or weeks people might want to go to in England.
IVFDF (Inter Varsity Folk Dance Festival)
End of February / early March
MayHeyDays (Evesham)
First weekend of May (the weekend before the first Monday in May)
Chippenham
Last weekend of May (the weekend before the last Monday in May)
Lichfield
June - the weekend starting on the third Friday
Sidmouth
First week of August (the week containing the first Monday)
Broadstairs
Second week of August
Whitby
Third week of August (the week before the last Monday in August)
Southam
Last weekend of August (the weekend before the last Monday in August)
IVFDF is not very ECD - more Contra in US-speak, aimed at the lunatic student audience
IVFDF, MayHeyDays, Lichfield and Southam are purely dance festivals, the others include other folk activities. IVFDF and Lichfield are just weekends, the others are week-long, or include a public holiday Monday
I recommend Chippenham to people who want to sample a festival since it has everything, but is only a weekend. Sidmouth is enormous (which you might regard as an advantage, or not); the other week- long summer festivals are much smaller so you tend not to get much choice of dance so if there is some band or caller you positively hate then you might find it difficult to avoid them (but then, why would a festival book anyone you hate?)
There are also various dance weekends, in particular at Halsway Manor, but also at assorted Adult Education residential centres and hotels. From time to time people organise days of dance with workshops in the day and evening dances, and of course lots of clubs organise dances so you can usually find somewhere to dance on a Saturday evening.
US visitors may want to see Bob Archer's page at
http://www.bobarcher.org/dance/uk_us_comparison.html
or Colin Hume's advice at
http://www.colinhume.com/american.htm