Sandy - in England, the scottish word ceilidh has been hijacked and an English ceilidh is a purely dance event where the dances are of the english country dance / barn dance variety and the music is lively. The term got adopted because saying 'country dance' reminds people of twee dances they learned at school and 'barn dance' makes people think you've got to have straw bales and checked shirts...

Sarah - I play with english ceilidh band Hekety and would have to say that I'd be a bit wary of an event like this - in my experience a lot of the people who like dancing at ceilidhs would rather do that all night, and a lot of the people who like sitting in concerts don't like to dance. I'm not saying there aren't people who like both but particularly on the ceilidh side of things you really need a critical mass of people keen to dance before it starts being fun.

That said, if you've got the right audience there's no reason it _shouldn't_ work, guess I'm just a natural pessimist. Good luck with it!   

We've also found the same thing that John J mentions - it's always hardest to get the audience on to the dance floor for the first dance after a break. If you have lots of breaks, it means there's that difficulty every time. So I'd definitely be in favour of at most two or three dancing slots of at least 3/4 hour each (preferably longer, bearing in mind one dance can take 10-15 minutes or more if you're teaching novices), with the concert slots arranged round that as you wish. Muppitz suggestion makes sense - finishing on an energetic high sounds like a good plan to me.

Let us know how it goes?