Getting Through the Summer Financially for Dance Studios
It’s hard to believe spring just started a day ago, and summer is almost here!
When I was a child and dreamed of being a studio owner I always thought one of the great aspects of having a dance studio was getting to follow the school year calendar and “have summer off”, unlike a regular 9 to 5 job. What I didn’t think about as a child, though, was the tough financial aspect of an off-time for a business.
The summer months are the most difficult for a dance studio aimed towards children financially. So many of our customers are gone on vacation all summer or at their father’s house in another town or at camp, etc. and therefore are not paying tuition. Unfortunately, though, if you pay rent on a dance studio you still have to pay the same rent in July as you do in September.
One thing my dance studio found that helped over the summer was to offer classes aimed towards young adults who do not necessarily follow the school calendar when it comes to taking vacations. Offering four, five or six week classes could help bring in money, and we could often hold them in our other studio at the same time we held summer classes for the students who were still in town.
Some summer classes that were offered for adults at our dance studio included Hip Hop, Latin Dance, Belly Dance and Salsa.
Now I do not have expertise in these areas, nor do my business partners, so this required finding outside teachers for these classes. The drawback here too was how to find a substitute for these classes.
This is one of the many thoughts that went into starting Dance Teacher Finder. Dance studios can use this service to find dance teachers in their area and view their resumes & contact information. This means you could contact teachers in styles you do not teach and offer multiple classes for adults in the summer and then you could also have access to other teachers who could substitute for these classes. I’m hoping this can help all dance studios offer more classes, take in payments and get through the lean summer months!
About Elizabeth Emery
Elizabeth Emery is a former dance studio owner. She owned Dancers Unite in Charlotte, NC for 6 years, where she helped run the studio as well as taught dance classes six days a week. She sold her studio to one of her teachers and now dedicates her time helping other dance studio owners as well as dance teachers with her new business, Dance Teacher Finder, which helps pair dance studios with dance instructors. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and double majored in Business Economics and Marketing. Elizabeth currently splits her time between Charlotte, North Carolina and Salt Lake City, Utah.