7 Considerations for Planning Your First Christmas Dance Showcase

Thinking about having a Christmas Showcase for the first time? That was me just a couple years ago! And let me tell you, our Christmas Showcase is maybe my very favorite event of the year! Everyone is in the Christmas spirit, there’s an excitement in the air and sharing that with our dance family is a feeling that’s hard to match.

Feelings and togetherness are important to studio culture, BUT more importantly, a Christmas showcase needs to make sense for your BUSINESS. There’s a lot of give and take when it comes to creating an experience your dance family will love, while also making money. So, what are some ways you can monetize your Christmas show while also making it a fun event for your dance family? If you’re a beginner looking for a jumping off point, the rest of this post is for you!

So what are some of the things I think about when planning my Christmas event? Here are 7 Considerations For Your Christmas Dance Showcase:

1. Venue-Finding a cheap or better yet, free, venue that will hold your crowd and have comfortable places for dancers to wait is a MUST if you hope to successfully raise funds with your Christmas showcase! We rent a local high school auditorium for the day and it has worked out great for us!

2. T-shirts-Rather than asking dancers to purchase costumes (which have gotten SO expensive) we ask dancers to purchase t-shirts for our Christmas performance. Though ordering and collecting payments can be a pain, it’s another reasonable revenue stream for your event that also gets your students wearing your studio name out and about!

3. Tickets-Sell them! One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as a studio owner is that selling tickets to your shows is such an easy way to make some money for little to no extra effort. We sell tickets to our event pretty affordably to encourage a high attendance and because our Christmas show is much shorter and less formal than our big Summer show in June. If you have previously offered free admission to your shows, the jump to ticketing can be a tough one. However, you run a business and ultimately you decide what rules and procedures to put in place to keep your doors open. Though a few families may complain initially, most people can understand that running a dance studio is FAR from free. If they can’t understand that, the family may not be a good fit for your studio anyway.

4. Give Opportunities to Support Your Studio-Everyone who attends your event will hopefully be excited and filled with Christmas Spirit. Take advantage of this by offering families lots of opportunities to buy gifts for their dancers or give back to the studio. Having studio merch, bake sale, prize drawing baskets, flowers, etc. are all great revenue streams to make available at your show. Just make sure the work you put into this is worth the return!

5. Ask your families for help-Our families have a blast “working” our Christmas showcase. We ask for volunteers to bake and package items for the bake sale, take and sell tickets, run the bake sale, hand out programs, be a dressing room parent, decorate the space, help tear down etc. and they do it with a smile on their face. My families constantly say they wish I would ask for their help more often, so this event is a great way for them to be involved, truly help out and bond with each other.

6. Communication and Logistics-Think this may not seem like it connects back to monetizing your event? Think again. Happy families who feel like they know what’s going on and understand the plan are more likely to participate in the bake sale, prize drawings and whatever other revenue streams you have available at your show. Where will dancers wait back stage? If little dancers have to change shoes, how will that happen? When should everyone arrive? What’s the procedure for pick up and drop off for little dancers? How will you keep the backstage dancers occupied? Was all of that communicated effectively to parents? Being thorough when planning out an event and communicating expectations clearly are absolute MUSTS when it comes to owning a studio. This high level of organization encourages parents to trust you, makes you more professional and helps your events run more smoothly with less anxiety and questions. I highly suggest sending a full day itinerary and a map of the venue including parking, entrances, bathrooms, dressing rooms/drop off areas, etc.

7. Make it fun and positive- This is a mid year show that sets the tone for the rest of the year. Be sure to put your best foot forward when it comes to client relations, organization and exemplifying your mission! Brush off the few inevitable hiccups and remember that at the end of the day, your families want to see their dancer on stage having a blast with their friends.

As with all things as a studio owner, a Christmas showcase is a lot of work, BUT I hope this post gave you some ideas or inspiration on how to make it worth the time and effort you so meticulously put into it. I hope you have a super Merry Christmas with your dance family this season and wish you luck with your next showcase!