When I first became interested in dance competitions I remember asking my first ballroom teacher what it took to compete as an amateur. I was expecting him to tell me about the required hours of training, syllabi and DVDs that needed to be studied, and the difficulties of finding a partner. Instead he answered, “Two-hundred thousand dollars.”
To say I was shocked would be an understatement, but his explanation quickly erased all doubts. As anyone who takes regular private lessons knows, at $75/hr you can drain a bank account extremely quickly if you’re not careful. Top competitive coaches can be even more, with prices ranging from $150 to $300 per hour. Throw in the cost of entry fees, hotels, flights, meals, and costumes, and suddenly that two-hundred G’s is looking a little low. At this point I was dismayed.
Common sense, however, prevailed. Many people compete, often very successfully, and most have not spent the equivalent of four average families’ yearly income on their dancing. I began to look into alternatives for competition by studying the people who did it without breaking the bank.
Why Are You Competing?
The first question any would-be budget competitor needs to answer is why he or she wants to compete. If your goal is simply to win, it’s going to be hard to save money. On the other hand, if your goal is to improve your dancing with a specific target and deadline in mind, competition may be the best thing for it, short of pursuing teaching certification. Sandy Fortuna wrote a wonderful essay in last month’s Dance Spotlight in which she declared, “Getting ready to compete ALWAYS improves your dancing.”
If you compete with the idea of improvement in mind, you can save a great deal of money that must otherwise be spent on enhancements that provide a minor boost to your chances of winning, if any. This doesn’t mean you’ll lose but that your victory will be based on your dancing alone. But shouldn’t that be the case anyway?
Choosing a Studio
I’ve already written about finding studios, and some day soon I may write about it as the focus of an article, but finding a studio for competition presents a very different challenge. Normally, the two questions a would-be competitor must ask are, “Does this instructor have a successful competition record?” and “Do his students have a successful competition record?”
When you’re on a budget, however, you must focus on cost as well as value, and that means competing in cheaper areas. In the world of ballroom dance, the cheapest competitions are collegiate competitions. Because most college students are on a very tight budget, studios and coaches that work with students often come up with special pricing in the hopes of spreading ballroom dance and creating life-long dancers. The benefit is truly phenomenal coaches will provide training for a fraction of its true value; in Madison, as a non-student, a semester of unlimited group classes cost me only $147, and students paid even less, and private lessons were only $30/hr. The downside is facilities may be subpar and lesson times are designed to take advantage of the students’ flexible schedules, rather than working professionals’.
Another possibility is to limit your competition to a specialty dance. These dances, such as lindy hop, west coast swing, hustle, or salsa, are often taught by talented amateurs who maintain a highly successful competition record. Because these dancers are amateurs who do not rely on dance to support them financially, lessons with national champions may be as cheap as $50/hr. Furthermore, because these competitions are of a narrower interest, actually entering them later may be cheaper.
A Word of Warning
The biggest money pit for competitive dancers is not lessons; it is pro-am costs. Pro-am competitions, consisting of one amateur and one professional dancer in each couple, can be a great deal of fun. They also provide an opportunity for a student to dance his or her best under ideal circumstances by pairing the student with an experienced professional, often the student’s own teacher. There is a very high cost for this service, however. Professionals must take time off from teaching classes, which eliminates their income during the competition, and travel to the competition which also involves housing and meals. Consequently, there is a fee involved, usually from $15 to $40 per dance. This means that a ten-dance competitor might be paying an extra $400 per competition. Nor does this factor in the cost before the competition. An amateur dance couple can practice whenever they make time for it, but a pro-am competitor must purchase a private lesson to get in practice with his or her professional partner.
If you are interested in pro-am, think twice about it. If your studio includes pro-am costs as part of your competition entries or you’re only doing one or two pro-am entries, and you’re already taking one-on-one lessons, it may fit into your budget. Otherwise, give pro-am a pass until your financial situation improves.
Registering
Many competitors find out about competitions from their studio: the owner decides the studio will support a competition, brings in several fliers, and has the staff solicit their students for entries. Students decide to compete, they give the studio a form to register and hand over a cheque.
The problem is that if the money is going to the competition, why is the cheque being given to the studio? In most cases, the studio marks up the cost of registration, and possibly the cost of each entry, in order to make it financially viable for the studio to send teachers (remember: if the teacher is competing, he or she isn’t generating revenue for the studio). In return, you get to take part in the competition as part of your studio.
But what does that mean? It may mean you have reserved seating at the competition with your teachers and fellow students. If there is a top studio prize, your entries will help your studio, and your teacher, to win. If you’re competing pro-am, studios usually require you to register through them (this is on top of any extra pro-am fees they charge. To be fair, many studios that mark up entries will waive extra pro-am costs, though you’re still on hook for extra lessons). Often, that’s it. These mark ups, which can often double the cost of registering, rarely provide much benefit beyond that. In all my time dancing, the only time I’ve seen any other benefit was when a competition decided to provide a party suite to a studio that had been an active participant for several years – and in that one instance the studio had no mark ups at all!
Instead of registering through your studio, contact the competition directly. These days, practically every open competition has entry forms that can be downloaded, printed out, and sent in with payment.
Do take note: many teachers will resent their students entering separately and may give you the cold shoulder during or after the competition. If you’re concerned about this, take the time to explain your financial situation to your instructor. A good teacher will be understanding, will be happy that you’re enjoying your dancing, and will remember that because you’re still taking lessons with him or her that you’re still a valued client.
Traveling: Transport, Lodging, and Food
A competition is in many ways a vacation; many students even plan their vacations around when and where competitions are held throughout the country. You go somewhere for a few days, participate in a lot of fun activities, collect great memories and pictures, then go home. For this reason, many dancers prefer to stay in whatever hotel is hosting the competition: it’s incredibly convenient and brings out the fun feel of a dance vacation.
Now there are many benefits to staying the competition’s hotel: it’s easy to change costumes, you don’t have to worry about where you’re leaving valuables, and if you’re tired from staying up until 4 AM dancing, you can go take a nap. That said, it can be expensive. While most hotels do actually give excellent prices for dancers who identify themselves as being part of the competition, it may still remain beyond your budget.
One possibility is to share a room. If the competition has a message board, you can post there advertising for a roommate. If your studio is going, you can ask your fellow students. Another possibility is to stay in a cheaper hotel or youth hostel. If your feeling truly brave, try couch surfing. My current method is very simple: I only go to competitions in my home city or cities where I know someone who’s willing and able to host me.
Transportation can be trickier. If at all possible, I recommend driving rather than flying. Gas and toll costs can be split, unlike plane seats. Furthermore, if you’re not staying in the hotel, as described above, a car is essential. Lastly, most dancers travel with costumes, shoes, and many changes of clothes, all of which moves better in a car than on a plane.
Food is the hardest to save money on. Hotel food is notoriously expensive. If your entry doesn’t cover meals (and those that do usually simply add the marked up hotel food onto the registration, then mark it up again) do some research beforehand to scope out local, affordable restaurants. Better yet, bring a cooler and cook food at home in advance. Cereal and bagels take care of breakfast, sandwiches do lunch, and several snacks. If possible, however, try to budget money to go out for dinner. Not only does it make a pleasant indulgence after a hard day of dancing, but it often serves as a source of social interaction with other students.
Tags: Competition, Money
July 12, 2009 at 1:00 AM |
[...] ballroom competitions and feature many more opportunities to dance. If you’re trying to compete on a budget, this is one of the best ways to keep your costs [...]