Menu
Popdance Creative Director – and also Area Manager for Watford, Lianne Holt, explains:
As a dance teacher working for yourself, one of the biggest struggles is finding a suitable venue that doesn’t cost the earth. Whilst smaller venues such as church halls and scout huts may be cheaper they limit your numbers and do not always have suitable flooring for dance. On the flip side, lovely large studios with sprung floors and mirrors within leisure centres and dance venues are often very expensive and means you can’t make the class affordable for your customers in order to make profit.
The other issue is ensuring there is plenty of free parking on site so customers don’t have to worry about finding a space or having extra money for parking. 18 months ago I was really struggling with the cost of my venue versus what my customers were paying me, but I felt I couldn’t raise my prices as it wouldn’t be a competitive rate for the area I work in and didn’t want to end up losing my lovely class due to money.
Having fun with my Popdance class for Red Nose Day!
I started looking around for a similar size venue for a better price and came across a community centre which has a fabulous sized hall with mirrors, free parking and a reception that was open during the hours I would need it. After looking into hiring the hall I discovered there were two rates of pay; business or community. The business rate was considerably higher than the community rate, almost double.
Of course, I am running a business in Popdance, it is my career and teaching dance is a full time job for me, relying on it to pay my bills and help support my family. If you’ve read any of my blogs before you’ll know my mantra is very much that dance is for everyone. Old or young, tall or small, everyone should be able to join a dance class and enjoy! Dance is also a fun and enjoyable way of keeping fit and losing weight, and in the midst of an obesity crisis, surely a dance class for all was benefitting the community?
I contacted the hirer of the hall explaining what popdance classes were all about and she agreed that a class such as popdance certainly would be benefiting the community and that I would be charged the community rate! I was thrilled as it meant I could continue teaching my class without having to raise the prices and still take a decent profit.
The community centre also let me hang a railing banner outside the venue and it’s plenty big enough for my 10-12 ladies that regularly attend meaning there’s space for more!
So if you’re looking for a new venue to run your classes, find out if they have a community rate for hall hirers as it could make a huge difference to your income!
A note to Popdance Area Managers
The cost of the venue was so reasonable that I realised even if I no longer taught the class myself and took on a teacher to do so, I would still make a profit from the class. As an area manager looking to grow my team and a mummy with a toddler at home, it was a no brainer for me!
We are currently recruiting for Area Managers across the UK (and also overseas) – get in touch with Sue Wybrow – [email protected] for more information
Terms and Conditions | © 2024 Popdance Ltd