owie!!! vinegar will take out the sting.. you'll smell like a pickle for a little bit.. but it works.

also shea butter is good.. goes in deeply & keeps your skin from being too crinkly.. you might be kinda peely by the time you perform, tho.

Cool water washes to get the heat out works for me. My hubby swears by vinegar.

It depends on your base color how long it will take for the red to fade. If the color is still redish and the heat is gone you might consider dusting with powder to tone it down. It will need some green in it to balance the red. You will have to play with it.

Good luck

I hate it when that happens!
I found two after sun lotions that I adore, and seem to work really well.
Banana Boat Moisturizing Aloe Aftersun Lotion - boasts pure aloe vera and vitamin E. Found it at Wal-Mart.
Hawaiian Tropic Aloe Forever Tan Moisturizer After Sun - this one boasts vitamin E and cocoa butter. Found it at Wal-Mart, too.
The Banana Boat actually made my son's friend's BAD sun burn go away overnight. Literally.
I hope you can find it - good luck!

A cold wet towel is best right after you realize your roasted, as you need to drop the internal skin temp to actually stop the cooking. Otherwise the damage can continue to build for hours. Don't put ice on it or run really cold water over it, as that can throw you into shock.

If you have blisters, you made it to a genuine second degree burn. Do not put anything on it that contains oil, petroleum derivatives or the like, as that can hold in the heat and prolong the burning too. You'll want to put a very thin layer of antibiotic ointment on it and then cover the burned area with a light layer of gauze. If the area burnt is more than a few inches (2-3" diameter) you should actually see a doctor as this level of burn can be easily infected.

Drink lots of water and fluids. You've lost an amazing amount of body moisture.

If you really have a 2nd degree burn, you're going to have to face the fact that this will not be gone by Saturday. It might not be as bad, but it could take up to two weeks to heal from this.

Cold water.
I was in Mexico and fell asleep on the beach. Woke up BRIGHT red - all over my body. I knew I was gonna be in serious pain unless I did something fast. I soaked towels in cold water and laid them on my face, chest and arms. I kept replacing them with more cold towels every few minutes when they reached room temp. I did this for a couple of hours.
It took the heat out and the next day only my legs were burned.

everyone's got the outside covered--aside from drinking lots of fluids, take lots of Vitamin C, and make sure that you're eating a *really* nutritious diet until you heal--whole grains, lots of fruits and veggies, high quality protein. Try not to ingest anything that isn't going to help the situation (no processed foods, extraneous sugar, like that). And seriously--push the fluids!!

Good luck--I burned myself like that two days before my senior prom. Blisters all over my face and chest. :-P But while I was still pinkish on prom night, the blisters were all gone. Thanks, Mom! (this is her advice, btw)

Basha,

Speaking as one who used to get soooo sunburned that I got huge blisters the first things is to get rid of the heat in the skin, then 2 get your body heathy. You have to recoer from the shock of the burn and rehydrate. Then worry about your color. If still red on saturday and your skin can hadel hit cover with fabric or dust with powder like I mentioned above.

If not go ahead and play up the red, really... make the rest of your skin red. LOLBut then if your skin is still red maybe you should consider if you should be dancing at all. Because if your skin is still red you may over heat easily. But you should be fine in all truth but it is something to keep in mind.