New to the list and adding our 2 cents from Belfast, ME.
PHILOSOPHY & BACKGROUND
Our committee would agree with Dave Cain's assertion that it's vital to invest in making our dance appealing to the masses. We strive to have high quality bands and callers in a nice hall, and have spent time and energy building our community. We also decided that we wanted to take in enough money each month to pay performers a guarantee plus a performer split of 80% of whatever is left of the gate after expenses. (Our policy is to keep 20% of that remaining gate to hedge against future losses.) We aren't making our performers rich, but we have a reasonable kitty built up, portions of which we have used to pay performers a little bit extra in lean months and to support special projects, including donations to the roof fund of our American Legion hall, minor hall improvements, professional website mgmt, subsidizing other community dances as outreach, and new caller development.
We have 3 threads to our monthly (1st Friday) series:
6:30-7:30 - Community Dance with open All-Comers Band
7:30- 8:00 - Tasty Treat potluck
8:00- 11:00 - Contradance
ADMISSION PRICES:
We started our series in Dec 05 with these rates:
Community Dance
$2 adults
$1 kids
free for musicians playing in the all-comers band
Contra Dance
$8 ($4 kids)
$6 for adults who came to the community dance (and either paid $2 or played in the band)
$3 for kids who came to the community dance
After a year, with many requests for teen rates, we changed to:
Community Dance Only:
$2 adults
$1 teens/kids
free for musicians playing in the all-comers band
Contras only -or- both Community and Contra Dances
$8 adults
$6 young people 21 and under / all-comers musicians
$4 kids 12 and under
a small group of dedicated volunteers and the dance committee don't pay
After 10pm it's half price and whenever the money gets counted, it's free.
ATTENDANCE:
We regularly get 20-25 musicians of all ages and instruments in the all-comers band, 25-60 dancers at the community dance, and 130-180 dancers at the contras, including a healthy number of teens and kids. (We've had numbers higher and lower than those ranges, but that's about what we expect now.) Our proportion of youth is quite large now, but that may not be related to our price change. I agree with Dan that the discount is a psychological welcome mat for those young people, who add a lot in terms of zestiness and 'life' to our dance.
MORE PHILOSOPHY:
We believe that up to a point, price isn't a consideration, but that people come because they will see friends, will enjoy great music (some of which is made by their friends, family and neighbors) and can participate in an excellent community activity (dancing). And if we were charging less, we would have less to pay out, we would less easily attract the same caliber of performers which in turn attracts the dancers. (The dance is very fun to perform for, with extremely appreciative dancers, so some folks would want to play and call anyhow, but we appreciate the variety that's possible by offering performers both adulation and cash.) With all the things that people could spend $8 on (including cheap plastic junk that they'll toss on the landfill) we think our dance is a bargain.
ACCOUNTING:
We don't separate the money for the community and contras. We don't track who pays what. (Too complicated for the door-sitters.) It all goes into the same pot, which basically pays the bills for the contras (performer pay, sound, hall, expenses.) We do have small stipends for active committee members, which we take out as part of the expenses for each dance. (All-comers anchors, Community Dance caller, publicity/marketing) This token is appreciated and helps us feel like we are in some way compensated for our time and effort, but it is small enough that we feel okay about it on principle. We don't track #s of dancers, but occasionally do head counts just to get a general sense of the #s. We also track #s of attendees via the door prize tickets. And just to get a consistent data point to track, we divide the total take by $8, which gives us a figure for the approx number of dancers. (All very non-scientific, but consistent in our methods.) We do track #s of All-Comers, as a byproduct of a sign-in book that lets us acknowledge each musician by name at the end of the Community Dance.
Nice to be part of this ongoing conversation. I love hearing the different stories from different places, and seeing how one idea in one dance community can be tweaked (a little or a lot) so that it better fits another dance community.
To quote Billy Bragg: "I went out drinking with Thomas Paine. He said that all revolutions (and dances) are not the same. They're as different as the cultures that gave them birth - no one idea can solve every problem on earth... For people are different and so are nations (and dances!) You can borrow ideas but you can't borrow situations."
~Chrissy Fowler
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http://www.belfastflyingshoes.org
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Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live.
http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008
Hello everyone,
Cynthia beat me to the punch. Yes, it's time for the Ralph Page Dance
Legacy Weekend again. Yes, we shall have a SharedWeight gathering during
lunch on Saturday in the dining area. For those who haven't been there
before, we push a bunch of tables together for an informal gathering. I
always look forward to seeing people from far away and meeting people
new to the lists.
I try to be there early with a little printed SharedWeight sign on the
table at the back of the dining hall. You'll recognize me on the dance
floor sporting a tie-dye bandanna. Or you can look at the picture on my
website: http://www.chrisweiler.ws/
Safe travels everyone!
Chris Weiler
Goffstown, NH
