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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