File Photo: Desiree Carver | The Valdosta Daily TimesRoy and Hannah Frierson made their annual trip to Valdosta in a file photo for the 2016 Father-Daughter Valentine Dance. 

VALDOSTA — The 21st Annual Father-Daughter Valentine Dance is scheduled again for early February.

Tickets go on sale Jan. 16, said Jeff Stewart, the dance’s founder and organizer. All tickets will be made available online.

With 6,000 tickets available, participants have the opportunity to attend one of four dances scheduled for 6-8 p.m. and 9-11 p.m., Feb. 10, 11.

The dance has grown nearly every year since its inception, Stewart said. 

Last year was the first time when ticket numbers leveled off with the previous year. For 2014 and 2015, Stewart said sales were within 100 tickets of each other at about 5,300 sold.

The dance has grown from a three-hour event to two two-hour sessions to four two-hour sessions during a two-night period each year.

Dance participants include some fathers and daughters who have attended each one. Some fathers and daughters have attended once, and have told Stewart they view it as a one-time Disney World-type event. Each year, fathers and daughters arrive for the first time.

While the event is ready to accommodate as many daughters, fathers and father figures as possible, Stewart reminded the public the dance is not an event for mothers or the entire family.

Stewart started the dance in 1997 with wife Becky and the congregation of First Presbyterian Church.

The concept goes back to the origins of the first dance. The reason there is a Father-Daughter Valentine’s Day Dance.

The dance is intended not only as a time for fathers and daughters to bond, Stewart said, but for a father to demonstrate to his daughter how a man should treat her on a date.

Father-Daughter Dance tickets go on sale Jan. 16 for the First Presbyterian Church’s 21st Annual Father-Daughter Valentine Dance scheduled for 6-8 p.m. and 9-11 p.m., Feb. 10, 11, James H. Rainwater Conference Center. All ticket sales are online. To purchase tickets: Visit www.FatherDaughterDance.org.