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Geordieed
13th-January-2004, 03:03 PM
I was going to put this as part of the thread following the weekend at Bognor but thought this subject deserved a place of its' own.

This year will probably see an explosion of events around the country. Yes it's great to see the popularity of MJ grow and grow but does anyone else feel like the market may offer too many events to choose from. Is there the risk that things may loose a bit of value when others are trying to make more money.

Paul F
13th-January-2004, 03:16 PM
Normally I would say yes, lets have as many events as possible BUT that brings about an important issue.

With more and more events beig introduced, this will dilute the attendance (or should I say availability) of dancers around the country. People cant go to every event!

If these events tried to 'create' or introduce new dancers to the MJ world then fair enough, although they are not setting out to do this, but to just put on more and more events will eventually cause an implosion.

Unfortuantely this has manifested itself in my local area on a class basis. One of our rival organisations has elected to open up a class night on the same night, nearby, as we run at ceroc. They obviously feel threatened by us but they have done no active promotion. Personally i dont mind but all they are doing is diluting the client base for MJ in the area ie. not introducing new people. Its bad news for MJ.

This will occur with all the bigger events too I would say.

Gus
13th-January-2004, 03:35 PM
Originally posted by Paul F
Unfortuantely this has manifested itself in my local area on a class basis. One of our rival organisations has elected to open up a class night on the same night, nearby, as we run at ceroc. They obviously feel threatened by us but they have done no active promotion. Personally i dont mind but all they are doing is diluting the client base for MJ in the area ie. not introducing new people. Its bad news for MJ.


Sorry Paul, nothing personal but I have to put you right on the above comments

I've danced at Hyde and on my night there recognised about 30% of the punters as being from Blitz or SalsaJive. In fact most of your crew are Blitz dancers. Additionaly, Chris, your franchisee, has known before he started that Blitz were setting up and had had plans in place for 6 months.

I would usualy agree iwth the argument about new clubs setting up to sponge off others ... but be fair ... Ceroc Hyde is drawing on the dancing population primarily created by the existing MJ organisations ... NOT the other way round.

I'm not sticking up for Blitz per se .... I have an inate distrust of all dance organisations (with a few exceptions) but I think the facts need to be expressed.

HAVING SAID all that, I recognise that Chris has done an excellent job in introducing new dancers, especially with his inititative with Spice. I would hope that you would see that with Ceroc and Blitz operating in such a populous area that BOTH clubs would benefit as a whole new raft of dancers come in to MJ:grin:

Paul F
13th-January-2004, 03:44 PM
Originally posted by Gus
Sorry Paul, nothing personal but I have to put you right on the above comments

.... has known before he started that Blitz were setting up and had had plans in place for 6 months.




hmmm. not sure about the above. as far as i know it was new news but i wont go into that as i dont know.

What i do know though is that we went to great lengths with busks , flyers....all in all active promotion. Of course members of other clubs will come along. This works both ways.

The promotion for our club was extensive in different areas as well as locally.

I, nor anyone i have spoken to, has seen any busks, advertising of any description for the new night opening. Surely this is is not the way to open a night is it.

Competition ....yes, im all for it......but surely there needs to be some form of customer involvement :confused: :confused:

JamesGeary
13th-January-2004, 03:53 PM
Originally posted by Paul F
Normally I would say yes, lets have as many events as possible BUT that brings about an important issue.

With more and more events beig introduced, this will dilute the attendance (or should I say availability) of dancers around the country. People cant go to every event!
...
Personally i dont mind but all they are doing is diluting the client base for MJ in the area ie. not introducing new people. Its bad news for MJ.

This will occur with all the bigger events too I would say.

I disagree. I would rather that there were more interesting events for existing dancers, which keeps thing interesting and keeps people coming back. If they are being catered for then mj isn't losing dancers. Many events are not in convenient locations for me, or I have something else on.

I think weekend events are better marketing for new people than people standing on the street handing out fliers.

Its all about word of mouth. If I had a dollar for every time people have asked me what I was doing for the weekend and I've told them about my dance interest and what I was up to. Although I must admit its usually salsa events I go to!

Gus
13th-January-2004, 03:53 PM
Originally posted by Paul F

I, nor anyone i have spoken to, has seen any busks, advertising of any description for the new night opening. Surely this is is not the way to open a night is it.



Aye ... I have to agree with you that the launch has been a bit more low key than what I've seen previously. Having said that, as Blitz has a failry huge dancer base already they may feel that they can just publisicse it internally and still make the club viable from day one.

Who knows the working of dance organisations??:wink:

Paul F
13th-January-2004, 04:06 PM
Originally posted by Gus


Who knows the working of dance organisations??:wink:


The eternal mystery :grin:

Matt
13th-January-2004, 05:23 PM
Originally posted by Paul F
hmmm. not sure about the above. as far as i know it was new news but i wont go into that as i dont know.

What i do know though is that we went to great lengths with busks , flyers....all in all active promotion. Of course members of other clubs will come along. This works both ways.

The promotion for our club was extensive in different areas as well as locally.

I, nor anyone i have spoken to, has seen any busks, advertising of any description for the new night opening. Surely this is is not the way to open a night is it.

Competition ....yes, im all for it......but surely there needs to be some form of customer involvement :confused: :confused: To quote Paul " I don't know about that" 100% correct - you don't. So why comment on it without checking facts first? You have my e-mail - feel free to use it before posting inflamatory public statements.

The venue to which Paul refers is Stockport Town Hall - the biggest and best attended MJ venue in the north of England. The venue has been used for over 5 years now and plans have been in place for nearly a year to launch it as a weekly class, as well as freestyle venue. We have simply been waiting for a clear enough run without interuptions as these are disastrous to the launch of a new venue.

This is not a low key launch. The first night is still over 4 weeks away. There is little point in promoting a new venue more than 4 weeks in advance of its launch as this is wasted effort - people forget. We currently have 4 busks planned in Stockport. We are distributing over 10,000 leaflets in the next 4 weeks via various methods. We will be advertising extensively through various other media too.

Chris (the Ceroc franchisee at Hyde) was told by me (at the Blitz venue he used to be a regular at - and learnt to jive at) that we would be launching a Wednesday night in Stockport in the new year and perhaps he should concentrate on promoting in his venue's area. I did this out of courtesy so that I could not be accused of exactly what you are implying now.

When Chris first announced his intentions to open a venue in the north west I invited him to talk to Blitz - he chose not to.

Blitz has always, and will always, operate an open policy towards all other companies that act similarly.

I too congratulate Chris on his success at Hyde and applaud his efforts to bring new people into MJ - this is the way all MJ companies should operate - it is the way Blitz operates. Please remember at whose promotional expense most of the 2,000+ regular dancers in the northwest came from.

Regards

Matt Judge (Managing Director, Blitz Jive Ltd)

Paul F
13th-January-2004, 05:41 PM
When I said "I dont know" I was referring to another persons knowledge etc. I do not comment on things I do not know about.

I said , and i quote "They have done no active promotion" and this is a fact from what i have seen.
I also said "this is bad for MJ" (in the context of lack of promotion). It is.

If some sort of promtion is in the pipeline, although only a month to go, then I apologise but I was only commenting on what has happened.
From talking to various organisers I assumed that promotion would have been on the agenda much before now.

I am sorry if you took offence to this but that was not my intention.

JamesGeary
13th-January-2004, 05:47 PM
So Ceroc versus Other Operators. Who holds the most of up north, and who is growing and who is shrinking? And how come?
Matt? Or anyone else?

errr... and I don't mean answers like "ceroc consistently offer a higher value proposition well suited and adapted to an evolving market palce as they have systems in place to ensure that they are market leaders within all areas of business that are described by the market where the market is defined by what the customers want".

Paul F
13th-January-2004, 05:50 PM
Erm, im not sure about the North of England as i havnt counted them but in the NW Blitz have the most venues.

Gus
13th-January-2004, 06:34 PM
Originally posted by JamesGeary
So Ceroc versus Other Operators. Who holds the most of up north, and who is growing and who is shrinking? And how come?
Matt? Or anyone else?


James ... to be honest we dont try to analyse who is doing better than anyone else. My view from the floor is that most clubs are expandig. Given the population we've got to cover, there are still not enough teachers or venues .... the potential for development is huge.

Blitz are the biggest player ... but not the only player. Ceroc is the new(er) player with only two clubs. The main rivals are Le Swing (who work closely with Blitz anyway), SwingRoc runs 2/3 clubs and a couple of succesfull clubs for Dance North West. There are also about 6+ independants. The main thing is to hope that more and more new dancers will be attracted as new clubs ope up.

Paul F
13th-January-2004, 06:43 PM
Originally posted by JamesGeary

errr... and I don't mean answers like "ceroc consistently offer a higher value proposition well suited and adapted to an evolving market palce as they have systems in place to ensure that they are market leaders within all areas of business that are described by the market where the market is defined by what the customers want".

wow :grin: i hadnt thought of that one :wink:

JamesGeary
14th-January-2004, 10:43 AM
Originally posted by Gus
James ... to be honest we dont try to analyse who is doing better than anyone else.

Originally posted by Gus

Northwich is running a Dance With a Stranger competition and is recognized as playing the best music in the region while Nantwich is cutting its entry fee from £7 to £3. So, which strategy will win?


Originally posted by Gus

Last time we went head to head the score was Nantwich 80 (about) Northwich 150(ish).


I think your favourite activity is analysing who is doing better and why! You just think it is more neighbourly to consider how to make your own night better, rather than look at it from the competitive aspect. But you so do!

Geordieed
14th-January-2004, 11:00 AM
:kiss: This wasn't my intention when I started up this thread. I was approaching the subject of a customer. The choice of what to do and where to go, apart from the normal weekday evening, is getting harder to make. There are more 'special' weekend events and competitions this year than ever before. It is impossible to go to all the main events as the cost would be ridiculous not withstanding the neglect of other things in life.

There is a cost for the popularity of MJ. Once again I agree growth and popularity is fantastic to see and the fact that more events around the country for everyone to enjoy is a good thing. My fear is what effect will all this have on the paying customer in the long run.

Bill
14th-January-2004, 11:15 AM
back on thread then............................ ( and as someone who is a regular 'cerocer' but also enjoys the hospitlaity at Blitz venues) I would say that there might well be a surfeit of dance events now but when you're up in the north of Scotland most are not really feasible as they are just too far.

As with many dancers up here I'd love to get to Bognor and the other weekenders but even though I have school holidays it means I have no leeway for long weekends. So for us the more events three are the better but I do take the point that if there are too many nights and too many workshops/events etc then there may be 'overkill' or a dilution of quality in teaching, standard of dancer or both.

In most of Scotland Ceroc is quite fortunate in that there is little real competition although Leroc is popular in some areas and smaller groups such as Route 66 do provide excellent dance nights and workshops.

TheTramp
14th-January-2004, 11:20 AM
You forgot Boogienights Bill.

Though I wouldn't really class either Boogienights or Route66 as competition for Ceroc, since the product that they offer is generally different (no regular class nights, and other nights timed to miss Ceroc events whenever possible - with a different feel to the type of music played).

It's a shame that it's not really feasible to run dance weekends during the school hols for those that can't make it away at other times, but I guess with the majority of people going away for their hols at that time, there are less people around to fill the number of available spaces.

Steve

Paul F
14th-January-2004, 11:53 AM
I was kind of hoping that the B.F.G might turn into a regular thing in Scotland :confused:

The first one is still ages off and im hoping for an annual thing :grin:

Gus
14th-January-2004, 02:42 PM
Originally posted by JamesGeary
I think your favourite activity is analysing who is doing better and why! You just think it is more neighbourly to consider how to make your own night better, rather than look at it from the competitive aspect. But you so do!

Ahhh Guilty as charged:D I should clarify ... people 'generally' aint that bothered. Unfortunately one of my many weaknesses is a need to analyse (hence me being an accountant by training) ... that and the need to actualy make a profit out of a dance venture rather than my usual habit of loosing money.

stewart38
14th-January-2004, 04:32 PM
Originally posted by Geordieed
:kiss: This wasn't my intention when I started up this thread. I was approaching the subject of a customer. The choice of what to do and where to go, apart from the normal weekday evening, is getting harder to make. There are more 'special' weekend events and competitions this year than ever before. It is impossible to go to all the main events as the cost would be ridiculous not withstanding the neglect of other things in life.

.

Haven't seen it yet in the South East but it may happen ?

Clubs like Windsor ceroc attact 200/250 people every week in a leisure centre. I would have thought there is still room for growth.
Interested to see what franchise holders think

Its really supply demand. I guess some big weekend events won't break even (as there will be too many) and will not continue.

Heather
14th-January-2004, 05:01 PM
Originally posted by TheTramp



It's a shame that it's not really feasible to run dance weekends during the school hols for those that can't make it away at other times,

Steve

In TOTAL agreement with this sentiment!!
:hug:
Heather,
X

Dance Demon
14th-January-2004, 05:34 PM
Originally posted by TheTramp
Though I wouldn't really class either Boogienights or Route66 as competition for Ceroc, since the product that they offer is generally different (no regular class nights, and other nights timed to miss Ceroc events whenever possible - with a different feel to the type of music played).


Well said Steve. I have been trying to get this point across for some time now...Route 66 was never intended to be a competitor to Ceroc, and we do in fact try to ensure that we do not clash with other events. The product, as you say, is different with more emphasis on the type of music played .