Some of you may recognize this question from the PVCD (Pioneer Valley
Contra Dance) list on Yahoo Groups.
How do you balance the price you charge for the evening of dancing with
attendance? Charge too much and you loose people. Charge too little and
you have trouble paying the performers and the hall. Do you charge a
sliding scale based on ability to pay? Or student/senior status?
On the PVCD list, a student sent a message complaining about the rising
prices at some dances and the lack of a student rate at others. She
complained that she and her friends could not dance as much as they
wanted to. The response ranged from "right on!" to "think about the
musicians!" to "grow up and decide how to spend your money". (I'm
paraphrasing.)
Last month (after much deliberation) I raised the price of my Mill City
dance from $7 to $8, but added a "young person" price of $5. It's too
soon to know if it's had any affect or not. Last month I had a couple
less people than usual, but due to the price increase, the amount that I
had to pay the band was the same. The other dance in town is still
charging $7 as well. When I took a survey in the sign-in book earlier in
the summer, I asked if people were willing to pay the new price
structure. I got about 10 yeas and 2 nays. I should also mention that I
do not have a gate person and payment is on the honor system. However,
the tally pretty closely matches my quick count from the microphone
during the evening.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Chris Weiler
Goffstown, NH
Random Thoughts on Price:
In the long run your dance will do OK with the price increase.
I weighed in on the subject back in July so I won't rehash
One thing that did happen, was that, I was accused of putting that extra
dollar
into my own pocket. Of course that did not happen.
(Later, the accuser came to the dance on a sporadic basis, which was
just as well)
Many times I added money from my pocket to make sure
The performers took home enough.
On the other hand family and friends, could not believe that I was
doing all this work and not getting any monetary gain from it.
(I did not tell them that I would sometimes subsidize the dance)
I did it for the dance!
Running a contra dance is not (nor should it be a money making venture)
Many smaller dances operate on a 'take of the door basis'
(No guaranteed sum to performers) It's more of an exercise in
community
building. I enjoy the smaller 'non-professional' dances
Compared to other forms of entertainment; $8.00 bucks is a cheap night
out
And the interactions with the community are well worth it.
I wonder if other factors may be influencing dancers' decisions not to
attend the Mill City dance?
If attendance continues to decline I would suggest placing
questionnaires on the
tables a the dance, and gauge responses.
Thanks
Gale
Chris,
I can tell you that in GR we have two dances. The
first is backed by the folk arts society and so
members get a discounted price, and I thought there
was a student and senior discount. The bands and
callers typically come from out of town and the hall
(gym) is more expensive.
The cost just went up to $8. The attendance has gone
down significantly over the past year. I don't think
it has much to do with price.
I'm more involved with the second dance which I helped
develop. We started with a $5 fee across the board.
We also started with a lead fiddler at $50 a night and
we paid the caller/ programmer/ mentor $50. We started
with a $75 fee for the hall but its gone up. We
raised the price to $6 to accommodate. The newer
callers took over calling the dances as a group for a
year without fees, it worked for both our benefits.
The programmer for the evening, or the main caller (it
still is a shared night), is paid $50 starting this
past spring. The main band are students of the
fiddler/ mando musicians, or musicians that like to
play for a dance but rarely have an opportunity, or
those that want to learn. They are unpaid. there is a
music sheet they try to keep to, it develops as the
musicians grow. (we also have an "icky" jam (slow
jam) some of these same folks come to monthly.)
An hour away in Kalamazoo the fee is $8 dollars, but
as a member of that community or a neighboring
community, you get a discount of $2. Students are $4
and families with more than three kids may get
discounts. Advanced dances are $2 more across the
board.
An hour another way is the HOlland community. They
have just raised their price to a flat $8 admission
ages 5 and under: free $5:full-time students (13+ with
current ID), seniors (60+) $20 family (all in the same
household)
volunteers $2 discount, other scholarships available
Lansing has two dances. One is $7 for Looking Glass
Members, $8 for the public, and $4 for students ( high
school, college) with ID. Children under 15 are
admitted for free! the other is - $8 / General
Admission
- $7 / Lansing Area Folksong Society Members
- $4 / First-time dancers and Students.
All the dances give discounts for volunteering at the
desk or doing other tasks. For a while GR and maybe
Holland gave $1 off to encourage treat sharing (we all
have snacks at break), but we were able to build it
back up as part of sharing community.
I don't feel at liberty to talk about the costs
associated with the dance but if anyone is interested
in comparisons, I will ask the two other West MI dance
communities, and the two in Lansing, if they would be
willing to share that information. There are also
dance communities in Goshen, IN and a small one in
Remus, MI.
I know that none of the dances really make money, as
far as I know, as a general rule. Pretty much its at
best break even or a little more, when there is excess
it goes back into the pot to help with scholarships or
a big band or caller or other events, or just to float
the boat when things go dry.
Does that help?
Laurie
--- organizers-request(a)sharedweight.net wrote:
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Price (Chris Weiler)
> 2. Re: Price (astro46(a)apricoto.com)
>
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 02:09:18 -0400
> From: Chris Weiler <chris.weiler(a)weirdtable.org>
> Subject: [Organizers] Price
> To: organizers(a)sharedweight.net
> Message-ID: <4714558E.20505(a)weirdtable.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1;
> format=flowed
>
> Some of you may recognize this question from the
> PVCD (Pioneer Valley
> Contra Dance) list on Yahoo Groups.
>
> How do you balance the price you charge for the
> evening of dancing with
> attendance? Charge too much and you loose people.
> Charge too little and
> you have trouble paying the performers and the hall.
> Do you charge a
> sliding scale based on ability to pay? Or
> student/senior status?
>
> On the PVCD list, a student sent a message
> complaining about the rising
> prices at some dances and the lack of a student rate
> at others. She
> complained that she and her friends could not dance
> as much as they
> wanted to. The response ranged from "right on!" to
> "think about the
> musicians!" to "grow up and decide how to spend your
> money". (I'm
> paraphrasing.)
>
> Last month (after much deliberation) I raised the
> price of my Mill City
> dance from $7 to $8, but added a "young person"
> price of $5. It's too
> soon to know if it's had any affect or not. Last
> month I had a couple
> less people than usual, but due to the price
> increase, the amount that I
> had to pay the band was the same. The other dance in
> town is still
> charging $7 as well. When I took a survey in the
> sign-in book earlier in
> the summer, I asked if people were willing to pay
> the new price
> structure. I got about 10 yeas and 2 nays. I should
> also mention that I
> do not have a gate person and payment is on the
> honor system. However,
> the tally pretty closely matches my quick count from
> the microphone
> during the evening.
>
> Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
>
> Chris Weiler
> Goffstown, NH
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 09:56:39 -0500
> From: astro46(a)apricoto.com
> Subject: Re: [Organizers] Price
> To: "'A list for dance organizers'"
> <organizers(a)sharedweight.net>
> Message-ID: <000e01c81004$c291d570$5685fea9@jmr>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> chicago charges $6 per person. no discounts for
> students, though young kids
> (below 12, as i remember) don't pay. it has been
> this rate for several
> years. local musicians get $50 each with a band max
> of $200, and caller
> gets $50. no one else is paid. hall is $150. in the
> past some evenings would
> make money, some lose. there are occasional grants.
> over the last 8 months
> attendance as fallen, so now most evening lose
> money. remains to be seen
> what will happen with this situation.
>
> in chicago, considering the general cost of
> entertainment (a beer is $3-$5),
> there hasn't been much comment about the price. more
> of an issue here is
> transportation. more students might come, but don't
> have cars to get to the
> dance. taking combinations of trains and busses at
> 11:30pm can be
> discouraging. or living 1-1.5 hours drive away can
> seem daunting after a
> days work.
>
> jeffrey
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: organizers-bounces(a)sharedweight.net
> > [mailto:organizers-bounces@sharedweight.net] On
> Behalf Of Chris Weiler
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 1:09 AM
> > To: organizers(a)sharedweight.net
> > Subject: [Organizers] Price
> >
> > Some of you may recognize this question from the
> PVCD
> > (Pioneer Valley Contra Dance) list on Yahoo
> Groups.
> >
> > How do you balance the price you charge for the
> evening of
> > dancing with attendance? Charge too much and you
> loose
> > people. Charge too little and you have trouble
> paying the
> > performers and the hall. Do you charge a sliding
> scale based
> > on ability to pay? Or student/senior status?
> >
> > On the PVCD list, a student sent a message
> complaining about
> > the rising prices at some dances and the lack of a
> student
> > rate at others. She complained that she and her
> friends could
> > not dance as much as they wanted to. The response
> ranged from
> > "right on!" to "think about the musicians!" to
> "grow up and
> > decide how to spend your money". (I'm
> > paraphrasing.)
> >
> > Last month (after much deliberation) I raised the
> price of my
> > Mill City dance from $7 to $8, but added a "young
> person"
> > price of $5. It's too soon to know if it's had any
> affect or
> > not. Last month I had a couple less people than
> usual, but
> > due to the price increase, the amount that I had
> to pay the
> > band was the same. The other dance in town is
> still charging
> > $7 as well. When I took a survey in the sign-in
> book earlier
> > in the summer, I asked if people were willing to
> pay the new
> > price structure. I got about 10 yeas and 2 nays. I
> should
> > also mention that I do not have a gate person and
> payment is
> > on the honor system. However, the tally pretty
> closely
> > matches my quick count from the microphone during
> the evening.
> >
> > Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
> >
> > Chris Weiler
> > Goffstown, NH
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Organizers mailing list
> > Organizers(a)sharedweight.net
> >
>
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/organizers
>
=== message truncated ===
____________________________________________________________________________________
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this reply is quite a bit delayed. i just came across this list, and was
looking through the archives.
we dance in a gym. same lousy acoustics as most gyms. we tried numerous
setups, with different numbers of speakers in different places, and
different models of speakers. at one point we were trying the old standby
arrangement: one speaker on each side of the stage with one speaker on each
side of the hall, halfway down the hall, on delays. luckily, a person who
had a lot of experience with sound for rock bands offered to help. he dumped
the delays, took all 4 speakers and moved them into a clump, on the floor,
partially off to the side. pointing diagonally down the hall. the difference
in sound was impressive. we have modified this setup to 2 speakers (don't
want to haul 4 speakers.) at the center of the hall, only to bring the sound
source closer to the band which sits to one side of the stage in our case.
when i am running sound i drop one speaker to just above head height and cut
the volume on it (separate volume control for that speaker) to just hardly
audible. the idea is that it is fill for the front. the other speaker is up
around 8 feet. both are on tilters. i won't go into the theory about why
this works.
you may also, depending on the number of dancers/noise level, try just using
one speaker,instead of two. tilters are a good idea.
i don't know why this arrangement is not more widely used. it seems to be a
vast improvement, in this sort of hall, over the traditional, speaker on
each side arrangement.
a further improvement can be made by moving the monitors to behind the
musicians, set up at head height, right behind their ears. obviously you
have to be very careful of sound volume with this arrangement. and have
enough, small speakers to get one between pairs of musicians, on stands,
assuming that they are sitting in row or small semi-circle. this arrangement
allows the musicians to hear themselves with lower monitor volume, hence
lower stage noise bleeding into the stage mics, causing more degradation of
hall sound. frankly, even though it does make a small improvement in hall
sound and monitor sound, we don't use this much because it seems to make the
musicians uncomfortable. they generally opt to have the monitors in from of
them.
Jeffrey
