Hi Folks, This is an interesting issue. I actually think that charging too little can ultimately result in fewer dancers. Here's why: If you charge enough that you will be able to pay an attractive amount to performers of a reasonable caliber and draw, you will hopefully develop a strong following based on the quality of the experience over time. If dancers think "great music" and "fun dance" and the performers think "good pay" and "good vibe", you start to get a winning combination, but it takes time. At the Burlington QCC dance (which I help organize), our primary goal is to pay performers as well as possible while keeping the door fee reasonable. I'd say the Chicago dance could stand to raise its door fee a couple of bucks and start to channel whatever extra income there might be to the performers. There will be an eventual return on investment. In a sense you are creating a value added product, or hopefully so. I've been a dedicated dancer for many years, and most of the time I've been able to afford going to the dances I choose to go to, but I also know that dancing is one of the greatest joys in my life, and I'd happily work an extra hour or two a week, or cut somewhere else in order to dance. I guess for me its a matter of priority, and the cost to me has always been worth it. I know it can be hard for some students, but I guess I think that ANY evening out is going to be at least as expensive as the fee to a dance, so it seems reasonable, especially for what you get: excellent community, great live music, good exercise, and a really positive experience. We help create what we love by supporting the institutions that foster what we care about. Cheers, Dave Cain Waitsfield, VT On Oct 16, 2007, at 10:56 AM, astro46(a)apricoto.com wrote:

Income for an ongoing dance. There are a few considerations besides the minimum possible door price permitted by immediate expenses and the plenitude of dancers, or the plenitude of musicians (who perhaps do not demand more pay because some musicians wish not to jeopardize a rare opportunity to play). I don't actually believe that price is the first consideration for most people. It is one among perhaps ten or fifteen, which can include: who's playing, who's dancing, who's calling, are my friends at the dance, is the hall comfortable, how long does the travel take, have I made some other commitment tonight (or this month or this year), is it snowing/raining/unbearably hot, am I tired tonight, do I have children to attend to, do I need to work early tomorrow, do my feet hurt, is the hall's neighborhood safe, does my car work well now, what's the price of gasoline, what's the door price, should I be doing something else tonight, and so on. I am a subscriber to the theory that any human and social activity is like filling a bathtub with the drain open. There are always people departing, for benign reasons, and that it is important to think about attracting and retaining new people who arrive, if you want the activity to continue. Figuring out what is attractive (artistically successful), for the long run, is no small task either. For a dance, the desirable new people are of several different overlapping classes (that may be invisible to your new, un-initiated 17-year old visitor): dancers, musicians, callers, organizers, supporters, volunteers, and so on. The new people are our community's future, and attending to these in a long-term way is an important and useful perspective. The price at the door may have something to do with sustaining that perspective. It can be desirable for some organizations to maintain a modest, perhaps more than modest profit so that it can meet future financial contingencies, or consider some community-building commitments useful for all, but funded by nobody else. For an active weekly urban dance, setting aside a mere $50 to $75 a week (and more) can really give the producing committee some farsighted abilities to influence and grow the community around their dance, and improve the quality of their experience in hard-to-describe ways that can be talked about only after the experience of having made certain kinds of commitments and expenditures. A few of the situations and examples I have been acquainted with. Primarily, but not exclusively with urban dances, in Massachusetts. Some producing committees or organizations have the necessity, or desire to have control over and buy and maintain: - sound equipment - pianos of suitable quality and longevity, in good tune Or the producing committee may - need to maintain their hall, perhaps through generous donations to the humble and struggling owner, or perhaps, as renters, have agreements to pay for refinishing the floor regularly, and otherwise maintain the building or hall - perhaps there is a plan to buy a building - or perhaps have fallen into possession of a building, and are discovering the profound demands on any budget a structure has, to be legal, compliant with modern building codes, safe, accessible, and comfortable - or perhaps the committee's dance may move, and may suffer the indignities of losing part of their audience because of new location, and wish to know they can survive a year or two of different income and population. Perhaps the producing committee or organization has farsightedly established a development fund for ongoing efforts that are a net loss...and - aid young musicians to have the experience of playing on stage, through the creation of a regular rehearsal / jam with a dedicated instructor, and perhaps even a dedicated dance for their experience-building activity - or there's a separate effort to show young people and families that there's an activity that they may find valuable, for the rest of their lives... - or perhaps has a development effort for those young-to-calling, and creates an opportunity and venue for this experience too... - or the committee wishes to (via a scholarship fund) to send budding musicians, callers, organizers or dancers off to a Country Dance and Song Society (or the like) summer camp session, in hope of boosting their interest and enthusiasm and perspective... Perhaps the producing committee is launching a new dance series, or event, or festival, and knows that hand-to-mouth is no longer going to be an acceptable way to operate to build the community to sustain and maintain that additional activity. Perhaps the committee realizes by setting a low door fee, they realize they're preventing other local dances with a smaller population from raising their door charge, so that the other committees can pay their musicians fairly, and meet their expenses. And perhaps the committee has noticed that some of their favorite musicians "can't afford" to play at their event any more, now that their income is derived mostly from their musician efforts, and their dance's gig-money is insufficient to persuade them to come home when traveling around the U.S. to find the income they actually need to sustain their living. Mark Jones President Country Dance Society, Boston Centre Boston Massachusetts