Ron Montez wrote an article which was shown on DanceVision August 1st 2000. In it he wrote ." In my journeys around the country judging I see the same faces at each comp. The promoters have a captive audience. Give or take a few friends or parents the competitors are the audience and the audience are the competitors. Very little is being done to encourage the general public to attend " .
These are my thoughts. Would I like to see a 100 people through the door at a $1.00 each. Or 10 through at $10.00.
I would imagine that the 100 people would buy a Program plus several drinks and food throught the day as would the 10 who came through the door. Which is the better proposition. We dont need a calulator to work that one out do we.
We had a comp here just two weeks ago. This one really hit the roof at $40.00 per ticket.

Theoretically, maybe true.. in reality, I wonder if the general public, in todays competitive entertainment market, would be encouraged by lower prices ?

To consider... the costs for running a comp ( and I have done numerous ones ) are by and large " fixed " and one has to predicate tkt/door sales on estimated attendance plus entry fees.

The cost analysis will show that lowering the price to that level could be financial suicide..

Ron and I go back a lot of yrs, and I do agree in principle, but pragmatism rules..

I do agree with Ron Montez. Ticket prices are too high to draw the general public. Why travel across town, pay for a ticket and drinks/dinner to see a dance competition when you can see "Dancing With the Stars" at home every Monday and Tuesday? If you want to draw the dance loving public in this poor economy, you'd better offer a great deal. If just one competition organizer took the risk of lowering prices and still made money on the event, we'd have a whole new audience. Advertising dollars would have to be spent in advance to attract the new audience but it could work.

Who's willing to take the risk? AM? FA? Who?

Well, I just attended a teeny-tiny local franchise-studio competition that had Friday night session and a Saturday day and evening session. I went to the Friday session where there as NO CHARGE for spectators. $0.
I was the only "general public" person there on Friday night.

Terence. You have enforced the point Ron is making when you said one has to predict ticket door sales on an estimated attendance.. I dont beleive that by lowering the price of admission will keep people away. The competitors will pay through the nose. They are hooked and are a captive audience, but will they bring their grandparents or friends along to watch with the prices as they are being asked today. Simple arithmatic. Two competitors could result in parents grandparent and friends = 12 instead of 2. Which brings us to. Twelve Cokes at the very least instead of two. Plus twelve Hamburgers at the very least instead of two. The more people you can get into the hall the more that can be made from the catering.
Ron in his original article pointed out that the most successful comp held
that side of the ocean was in Canada where the competition was run soley by an Amateur body. Three days completely sold out.

Another money grab: As a pro-am competitor, my entry fees are unbelievably high. Even so, I am expected to pay to get in which costs around $45.00/day and the evening can cost almost twice that ( in Canada). Consequently, I try to avoid comps that have stupid ticket prices for competitors. With the economy being what it is, people are cutting back on comps and travel. I have seen much less people at the major events. A cut in price for competitors would be one way to go.
As for the general public, although they love DWTS, they aren't going to come out to see dancers they don't know, no matter how famous they are in the dance world. I think comp organizers should hand out more free tickets by way of a draw that is attached to the advertising to generate interest.

"I would imagine that the 100 people would buy a Program plus several drinks and food throught the day as would the 10 who came through the door."

JMHO, but I think you're making some false assumptions here. For starters, what you propose MIGHT be true if the venue, competition organizers and concession stands were all one and the same entity. The odds of that being the case are fantastically low, at least for an organizer of any size (maybe your local highs school dance club?).

The competition has to rent a venue, probably at considerable cost. I'm not in this business, but I'd imagine the venue probably contracts out concession stands, at a flat rate for set periods of time (e.g., monthly or annually). The venue also has to cover the cost of general maintenance and clean-up after events, not to mention the standard items like heating, cooling and electric (both while the buildings in use, and when it's empty). So exactly how would your idea work?

Let's look at it backwards: as you propose, the concession stands would make a killing. How does the venue work? Do they charge a flat fee for the users, or do they also take a cut at the door? If the latter, they'll have to make up the lost revenue by charging higher rents to the concession stands. The concessions stands are going to look at the higher rates, look at previous attendance records, and likely decide to go elsewhere, because they don't see evidence people will show up to in sufficient numbers to make enough profit to offset the higher costs.

If on the other hand, the venue charges only a flat fee, how do the competition organizers make any money, to cover the cost of renting the site, promoting the competition with ads and mailing, doing all the set-up and take-down, covering the cost of judges, etc? The organizers probably have no standing to negotiate anything with the concession folks, but let's suppose they do. So...they suggest they'll let everybody in for FREE (or whatever discount you prefer) and then take a cut from the concession folks, based on the expected greater sales. And again, the concession folks look at attendance data, and take a pass. And meanwhile, the organizers have to deal with up-front costs -- probably AT LEAST a deposit on the venue, the advertising, etc. They get some money now from advance tickets registration, but under your proposition, the money they get from tickets will diminish or even become negligibly small.

A lot of thoughts might look really nice and simple on paper, but they don't work in the real world. JMHO.