As local dances begin starting up again in the "post-pandemic" (?) era--or at least in an era when vaccines, tests, and good masks are readily available--a topic has come up that had already been mentioned occasionally in the late 2010s but that my local dance organization (BACDS, but I'm not writing officially on their behalf) had not yet addressed, namely people showing up at dances and wanting to pay admission electronically.
I'd like to hear about experiences of any other dance organizations that have made the transition to accepting electronic admissions payments. For example, you might address any of the following topics:
* What forms of payments have you started accepting? (Venmo? PayPal? Apple Pay? Google Pay? Square? credit cards? ...)
* What other forms, if any, have local dancers--or prospective dancers--been asking you to accept? Are there specific reasons why you've started accepting particular forms but not others?
* What general tips can you offer?
* What pitfalls would you warn other organizers to avoid?
* Did the transition to accepting electronic payments cause your organization to change anything about your admission price structures, or about the way you calculate and deliver performer pay, or about your organization's internal bookkeeping practices? (For example, if a dance series goes from getting almost all admission payments in cash, with only an occasional check now and then, to having a very high percentage of dancers paying electronically, then paying performers in cash at the end of the evening may become problematic.)
* Do you know of cases where dance organizations did things regarding electronic payments that created unpleasant surprises for performers or for series programmers or for dance managers or for the treasurer or ...? It is apparently starting to be an unpleasant surprise for some prospective dancers to show up at a dance and learn that they can't pay with their phone, but it would be good if fixing that didn't create unpleasant surprises for anyone else.
* What other important question(s) should I be asking that I've neglected?
Note that my inquiry here is about regular dance series, not about special events such as dance camps and weekends, where attendees typically preregister and pay in advance.
Note also that even without electronic payments different organizations have had different ways of doing things. So please consider whether there's anything people ought to know about how things work in your village in order to make sense of your reply. For example: A dance series might or might not have performer pay vary depending on total admission receipts or headcount. Performers might be paid in cash or by check, and if paid in cash they may or may not be asked to sign or initial a form acknowledging payment. One organization might run a single dance series and have a single person (say, the treasurer) always present to handle the money. Another might run multiple dance series in different cities; any series might have multiple dance managers so that no one person has to be manager too often; and there might not usually be a person present who has check-writing authority. Dance managers might have different degrees of facility with math and/or with technology. And so on.
Thanks for any advice you can offer.
Regards,
--Jim
