North by Northwestern

In case you missed it, we completely revamped our site for its annual Dance Marathon edition. But if scrolling through more than 30 hours of North by Northwestern's coverage doesn't appeal to you, check out the highlights below.

For the second year in a row, Dance Marathon broke the million dollar mark, raising a total of $1,107,607 and topping last year's total of $1,019,130. We also broke down Dance Marathon's finances with an interactive infographic. Unrelated to finances, we calculated what you could spend your time doing in 30 hours – that's a lot of episodes of America's Next Top Model – and tracked two dancers' vital statistics.

Our photographers were in the tent to capture the important moments of Dance Marathon, big and small. Though we weren't there for everything due to DM's media lockout, we were there for plenty of blocks (1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10) and for when DM Battle of the Bands victor Jet Jaguar performed. We also spent some time with Dance Marathon's security team, the Public Relations Committee.

In the days leading up to Dance Marathon, we sat down with Scott Ritter and Kunal Joshi, the DM co-chairs, to learn how they were approaching the final days before Dance Marathon. We caught up with the emcees, Ned Baker and Ashley Thompson, during the event (and we still remember the first time we met them). We talked to a dancer who wouldn't let crutches stop her, and we took a closer look at this year's beneficiaries, The Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation and the Evanston Community Foundation.

The quickest way to learn how things are going inside the tent is to ask the dancers. Well, we asked them all sorts of things, including whether they would rather have sex or take a shower (see all four charts) and what they wanted to eat (we asked twice). We asked what songs saved their lives and what they learned, and we wanted to know what was inside their fanny packs.

Nothing captures the spirit of Dance Marathon quite like video. Dancers told us how they were bracing themselves for kickoff, and they showed us their moves. To nobody's surprise, several hours later, they were still dancing. We watched Jet Jaguar whip their hair, and we were there when Mee-Ow and Boomshaka performed.