Get some well know fun people to make it go with a swing
Im starting two new venues in the next few weeks and am planning stuff out. At the mo I have the following being put in place to get the evening as a good an experiance as possible:-
Free water coolers.
Free beginners DVD and Info pack.
Permanant dance shoe stall.
Interactive membership system where you can log on to the website with your card number and review a video demo of all the classes you have been to.
a half hour "you pick the songs" section where one person a week will be able to choose a half hour set from a vast list of song on the website.
A s*** hot teacher.
Anyone got any other suggestions as to what else could be done?
Get some well know fun people to make it go with a swing
--ooOoo--
Age is a question of mind over matter, if you don't mind, it doesn't matter
Leroy (Satchel) Paige (1906-1982)
Mickey Mouse's girlfriend, Minnie, made her film debut, along with Mickey, in "Steamboat Willie" on November 18, 1928.
That date is recognized as her official birthday.
Without going in to a long descrition, it will be slotted, different beginners moves and done in counts of 4 and 8 to ends of the slot.
Basically, footwork and counting from the start (and no arm jive! )
Spacious free parking next to venue.
A decent dance floor.
Enough advertising/promotion to ensure you won't be the only one turning up.
That is all.
dancing, Ceroc, dancing, Ceroc.
What other answer would one expect on the Ceroc Forum?
First and foremost, location. If it's close to me, I'll go and try it out.
I'll then go back if the floor is decent, there are enough dancers of varying levels to get a variety of dances in the evening (not all beginners, not all scarily good), a mix of music - not all thump thump, not all slow.
You can't do much about my first two points (location and dance floor quality), you can about the other two. Make sure you invite (with reduced entry or freebies or some other attraction) the sort of dancers you want to attract, and make sure the DJ is flexible.
Good luck!
Cheers. The venues are ok little on the small side but there are no decently big venues in / around Hastings. Can fit around 150 people in the venues. Floors are good. Not proper dance floors but good for dancing on.
All dancers down here apart from one or two are pretty below average which is part of the reason I have started teaching. The techer quality at the moment down here is very very poor. You wouldn't belive how poor it is.
As for the music, The local venues at the mo all seem to share the same CD, Spanish Guitar, Ping Pong Song, Bongo Song, Push the Button, Now I can Dance, Lion Sleeps Tonight (yes really) , so as long as the music varies alittle should be ok. Will be giving people the chance to choose their own songs for half hour through the website aswell so should keep things varied.
As far as the music goes, I would caution you against trying to change things too quickly. It may take you several weeks before you are able to start to move your punters away from the $h!t€ they are used to. Too much too soon may well drop them right out of their comfort zone and indeed they may well not come back!
Gently gently catchy monkey
Have thought about that but do I really want to be playing "Save the last dance for me?"
There are a few songs I will prob have to play but one of the most common complaints from other dancers locally is that the music is all the same.
Once I have finnished listing the songs that will be in the collection, I will post up to see what people think.
Ok - I do recommend the danceyourselfdizzy (see their web site) approach (even though I've only been to their venues a handful of times). the video of the lesson you've just done is so helpful. Plus you have videos (broken down) for loads of other moves for £10 (or something) for 6 months.......
What else?
1. Air conditioning (proper air con)
2. Smiling, happy front of house greeters.......
3. 'Vibe' - unfortunately you can't easily plan this - unless you get in a vibration specialist - maybe you know one. (I will probably bee too expensive ).
Oh - and good luck with it Lee!
Ummm, sounds like pretty much a standard MJ class to me...
And like the standard music, there's nothing wrong with that. The only real new variation I've seen in MJ classes has been Jive Nation, and even then it's more marketing differences than anything else.
Variation means risk. It may work, it may not - but opening a new venue's risky enough anyway even with a proven business model, if you tinker with it you're just taking more risk. Which is fine if you just want to do this as a hobby, less fine if you want to run a business.
Errr, sorry, bit off-track there isn't it...
Well we have just done this for cerocmetro bishops stortford and oppened on monday night with over 170 people (125 being brand new to ceroc) i expect that to decline down to about 120ish over the next couple of weeks then we should keep a good core
the way we did this was
Get a good and excited team ( we have a brand new team of taxis, and teacher mixed with a few old hands)
awesome DJ
great front desk
advertise advertise advertise we put out over 2000 fliers all given out by our excited team
then make sure the crew are having fun. Fun is contagious and then addictive
All in all good luck in your new venture
Blimey...! All sounds very good. You seem to have put a lot of thought in to improving things generally and giving the customer lots to keep them interested and promote retention.
I wish you the best of luck with your venture Lee. I only wish your venues were closer so I could come along and support you.
Student Discount. I don't know if there are many students round Hastings, but that's definately a plus for me when going assessing a venue.
Depending on your expected demographic you might want to think about an OAP discount (might not be financially viable if most of your customers are retired). Interesting question as to how hard you should push the advertising of these though. If on every flyer there's STUDENT DISCOUNT you might get older people thinking they wouldn't fit in, and vice versa.
Dan
We have a college and University Center here, I am thinking about a student discount for them as that is the age group I am aiming for, 18 upwards.
At the venues running at the mo, a good 95% of the dancers are 60+ (one of the teachers is 70) so the older age group is already pretty catered for.
I am expecting a majority of the people who come through the doors to be new to dance. Unfortunatly advertising is pretty expensive and only have a advertising budget set of about £150. Outlay is pretty small for the rest though so will aim at building up slowly. Would rather start with 20 people and build up to 120 than have 120 beginners through the door, which leads to the next problem I have....
There is no dancers around in this area I would consider good enough to 'Taxi'. Pretty stuffed on that but will try and look for some people in next few weeks to train up. There are only 4 of us under 40 that go dancing, me and claire who will both be on stage and 2 girls who may Taxi. No young blokes though, or blokes that can dance for that matter .
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