Tag Archives: economics

The economics of a competitive group dance routine

1902765_10152284887868103_160835853_n.jpgIt’s pretty amazing how much time, sweat, rehearsal, effort, and money goes into putting a competitive group dance routine on stage. I think it’s terrific and amazing that so many dance parents are able to give their kids the experience, discipline, camaraderie, and excitement of performing an intricate routine, complete with music, choreography, and costumes. While the kids on stage and the choreographers are the ones who get the medals and awards, really it should be the parents getting the awards for making it happen!

One thing I am always surprised about is how often these amazing routines go on stage, and are performed at competitions, with less-than-perfect music. Often times the music for these routines have jarring clicks, jumps, awkward timings, and mis-matched phrasing. While competitive dance is not judged on the quality of the soundtrack, bad music edits can make counting and choreography more difficult for the dancers since musical phrases can wind up with nonsensical timings like 9.7 beats instead of 8!

It surprises me that so much music with significant issues winds up on the competitive stage when you consider how much time, energy, and money goes into each dance. After all, the music is the foundation of the dance, and great music serves as the inspiration both for the dance teacher/choreographer as well as the dancers themselves. There are some studios, such as Mather Dance Company in the L.A. area, that go so far as to have original music commissioned for them by professional recording artists. While understandably, that kind of budget is out of reach for many studios, working with a skilled music editor is quite reasonable, especially when you think about the finances that go into each competitive routine that is put on stage. After all, we wouldn’t dream of putting a dancer on stage with a wrecked costume, so why would be put them on stage with wrecked music?

So let’s take a quick look at the cost to put one competitive dance on the stage. Oftentimes a unique music remix can be created for $199 or less, so I will wrap up our analysis by looking at that music cost as a percentage of the total cost of putting a routine on stage.

To make this calculation, I’m going to use conservative estimates. For many studios, the costs might be much less, while at others, they might be far more. For this example, let’s use a group routine with 15 dancers. If each of those company dancers is paying an average of $180 per month in studio tuition, and is in a total of 8 competitive routines, then their combined total studio fee, on a per routine basis is: 15 kids x $180 x 10 months / 8 total routines = $3,375 combined cost per dance. No matter if a guest choreographer is brought in, or the studio’s own teacher creates the choreography, that takes considerable effort, so we’ll budget $500 for the choreography. Next, costumes can easily run $125 per, for competitive routines, so that is another $125 x 15 = $1,875. But we haven’t even gotten to entry fees, let alone hotel and food costs that dance parents incur. If a competitive routine is entered into three regionals and one nationals, the entry fees can easily be $40 per regional and $50 per national. That is 15 x ((40 x 3) + 50) = $2,550. We are up to $8,300 for the combined routine cost, and we haven’t figured hotel or travel expenses yet.

Let’s assume that one of the regionals is near enough to the studio to not require a hotel, and let’s use a conservative estimate that the other two regionals will require one hotel night, and that the nationals will require four hotel nights. That’s a total of six hotel nights, so our calculation is 15 families x 6 nights x $110 / 8 routines = $1237. Let’s just round up to $1300 when you figure in food on the road. We’re also going to assume that families don’t have to purchase air fare to get to Nationals.

So our total cost, to put one group competitive routine on stage in all competitions is $3375 studio time + $500 choreography + $1875 costumes + $2550 entry fees + $1300 hotel costs = $9,600. Now imagine spending even as much as $200 for a spectacular custom music remix. That $200 represents 2% of the total cost in putting the routine on stage. Some would say that that is money well worth it. But I might be slightly biased as a music professional. Even if it’s not worthwhile to spend $200 on the music for a competitive group routine, it’s still very much worthwhile to spend $40 on having smooth and seamless music edits handled by a professional.

Top shelf dance deserves top shelf music

Music in the dance studio. Such an important component, yet too often neglected and undervalued.

Who handles the music editing at your dance studio? In an earlier blog post, I make the case that music editing should not be left to the dance teacher. Just as a musician has no clue about grand jétés and pirouette fouettés, dance teachers have little or no knowledge of zero-crossings and peak limiting. Yet the result of a dance teacher doing his own music editing often turns out as amateurish as if a piano player attempted to perform a changement.

So let’s take a look at the economics of putting a group number on stage, and determine whether or not it’s worth it to spend $250 on a first-class original remix, such as Pixie Hollow.

Let’s say that the routine will be performed for one year, at 4 regionals, and has 20 students in the routine.  We’ll use these rough figures as an example.

Costumes: $125 x 20 students = $2,500
Entry fees: $35 x 20 students x 4 competitions = $2,800

Not taking into consideration all of the money spent on weekly lessons, that’s $5,300 being spent on costumes and entry fees alone for this routine.

Now let’s look at how this outlay compares to spending $250 for an original remix for the routine. An investment of $250 in the music represents less than 5% of the total budget being spent on putting this piece on stage. Another way to look at it is $12.50 per dance student.

And the numbers become even more compelling when you consider that many studios will repeat songs and use them for two years. This equation makes the investment equal to $6.25 per student per year, and just 2.4% of the total costume & entry fee cost over those two years.

For straightforward editing of a song to dance routine length, the numbers are even more compelling. $50 represents less than 1% of the costume and entry fees, and $2.50 per student. If the song is used for two years, that becomes half of a percent of the competition outlay and $1.25 per student. When you look at the numbers this way, there’s hardly an excuse to have dance teachers editing songs and creating flaws in the music. Especially because dance teachers don’t even know they’ve created mistakes in the music.

Music is the foundation of dance. Does the studio want to have the parents shell out $5300 on a routine with a shaky foundation? Is that a good way to go when with a modest investment you can get a fantastic and unique remix to build your choreography on?

Perhaps more dance studios don’t invest in quality music editing because dance is a very visual medium, and you can’t see music. But because the music for every dance routine will be played at high volume on a big-stage sound system, a glitch in the audio is akin to wearing stained and torn costumes. If you wouldn’t dream of putting a dancer on stage in a tattered costume, why would you put them on stage with hiccups or scars in their music?

I think this type of investment in the music is well worth it for a unique piece that will wow audiences, judges, and parents, especially compared to having a self-edited song that has hiccups, glitches, jumps, or any of the other top five music mistakes most commonly heard at dance competitions. But then again, I might be biased. What’s your take on it?