DD's dance class and show costs - what's normal?

[IckyPlush]

DD age nearly 5 has just started a kids street dance class, one afternoon a week, after school.
At first it was a weekly fee, then it changed to monthly, in advance, with a £1 a day 'late fee'.
At first it was 'own clothes', now it's a special printed t shirt (£15) and I had an email yesterday to say she needs special shoes (£10)
And now they're doing a show, next Feb. tickets are £15 per adult, plus bar price drinks and £20 per child costume hire

Aibu to think this is getting silly? I wanted her to excercise and have fun, not get weekly requests for more money. Is this normal for this kind of activity? We're in the midlands if that matters

DD's had this with dance class years ago. Special shoes,clothes etc. Monthly fees even when not there.
This all got ridiculous imo when we had to buy tickets to watch our own children in a show but the rules were that a parent had to stay during the show so therefore had to buy a ticket anyway! It became very expensive.
Doesn't sound like things have improved.

My 7 year old attends street dancing - east Scotland. We are £3.50 for a one hour session per week, with discounts for siblings or multiple sessions. They can wear whatever the hell they like. One show a year - tickets are priced around £12 by local theatre. Kids need to buy a tshirt at around £8, and they will often request you provide two outfits - black leggings, black plimsolls, coloured shorts, whatever the 'theme' of their dances are.

From my experience dance school costs are totally crazy. The regular uniform and shoes £40+, the show costumes £20+, the show t-shirt £11 and hoodie £30 professional photos £15 each, dvd £18, audience tickets £10 each. Additional fees for exams and show auditions. And that's all on top of the lesson fee! But DD loves it so it's worth it

Dance classes look reasonable upfront. But the extras add up like nothing else. Ballet: leotard £20, shoes £10, wrap cardi £15, character skirt £35, character shoes £20, exams £60+ each, show costume 'hire' £30, audience tickets £10, photo £8, DVD £20.

I'm just a few months in to discovering dance classes are really really expensive. The class itself is so far working out to be only about 25% of the overall cost.

Hmm, my DD started out with ballet aged three, now it's ballet and tap aged 9 with all the shoes, leotards etc mentioned plus I've ended up joining the adult ballet and tap classes, so that's £300/term for the pair of us plus show costs when that comes round again. At least I'm not going to grow out of the shoes every six months though.

My DD goes to three different dance schools and is a member of two competition squads. It costs me £50 a week. This is just class fees. Entry fees for comp are £25 per solo, £15 for duos and trios, £15 for a streetdance comp. Costumes vary, the last one was £35 plus £15 for a musical theatre one. She was in a show at the weekend and the tickets were £14.50 each.

I've also just had to replace 2 pairs of worn out jazz shoes - another £50, plus a new dance bra and tights.

I've actually given up adding it all up and resigned myself to the fact it will be like this until she goes to Uni. I also don't tell my DH the full cost.

My DD(5) has just given up her weekly dance class. She'd stopped enjoying it. Luckily I'd refused to pay the £40 for a stretchy dance dress and £25 for the shoes. I'm glad to be honest when you see the ones that are taking it seriously. It seriously costs in terms of time and money.

Yup, as everyone has said: This is normal.

Wait til she wants to ride a horse!!!!

My DD started Irish dancing aged 3 ( she's turning 5 soon) this year she moved into the proper leather pumps at a cost of £35! She loves it but I'm terrified of when she gets older if she's any good then the dresses for a Feis are huge think about £1500 for a new one possibly more or you can maybe buy a second hand one for £600 roughly! My DH keeps suggesting that she stop going just incase! She enjoys it sooo much so I'll keep taking her! Nightmare!

Be glad it isn't highland dancing. I genuinely dread to think how much my parents paid for all my costumes, shoes, sword, competition stuff, shows. Dancing is seriously expensive!

Tickets for the show £7-£13 per person at a main city theatre

Rehearsals free

Costumes £20 deposit plus £10 hire plus you have to have new tights & satn shoes for the show
DVD £15 (at PA college it's £22.50-£25) & CD of photos £10

NB the teacher did not break even on the show

Classes about £4 for 45 mins

Uniform for Ballet, Jazz, Tap all different but normal dance stuff no requirement to buy from the teacher

Hoodie only by choice about £18 for adult sizes (less for children I am sure)

Exams plus exam practises much less than any other school I have seen - eg grade 6 about £60

DD does dancing and it's nowhere near as expensive as some of these. I think I'm getting off lightly!

It's £2.50 a lesson and she does tap and ballet, so £5 total. Her ballet uniform cost £4 each for the leotard and wrap cardigan, I think £3 for a three pack of white tights from Asda, ballet shoes were £5, skirt was £3. So £19? Then for tap she wears the same uniform and just changes her shoes, the tap shoes were £10. I buy all of it direct from the school. If they've got anything second hand in the right size (most of the parents give back their outgrown items) then it's cheaper, if it needs to be bought new then all the charge is the wholesale price.

They did a show in the summer and it was £12 a ticket plus £7 for costumes. The costumes were made for the show and are kept in the school wardrobe. If she needs a costume for anything else (e.g., show, audition, exam) then she can borrow one from the wardrobe.

My DD (3.9) goes to a dance class and joined in the school's show this summer - tickets were ?17.50 each, if I remember correctly. Plus, I think, about ?30 for outfits - they had about 4 different costume changes. It seemed a bit wasteful to me (although DD now uses them as dressing up outfits), but I loved watching the show, so justify the cost on the basis that DD enjoys it and we enjoy it too. They have lots of extra rehersal classes which aren't charged for. The dance school also offer the option of opting out of the show - so DD could attend the classes, but not go to the extra rehersal classes and not do the show if we didn't want to pay for it.

DD is 3.5 and she does ballet and tap. At the moment its 1hour per week (30mins Ballet, 30 Tap) and we pay £4.50 per week (in advance by monthly payment - which incurs a £5 late fee if not paid on time) She has to have a leotard and school cardigan, ballet shoes and tap shoes, which cost about £40 all together. She has recently done a show, in which she was in two dances, £20 per costume and tickets were £8. When she hits 4, the classes will split to 1 hour each discipline and we will pay £4.50 for each class. We are also in the midlands - hope that helps!

Dance teacher two penneth here:

I abhor schools like this, those that insist on uniforms and charge insane amounts for shows and compulsory extras. My school isn't classical, I'm freestyle disco and street, but for me the whole point is inclusivity.

Dance is such a glorious thing to do for kids and such a confidence booster, no one should be priced out of it!

My classes are £3 each, wear what you want (within reason). T shirts are optional, £7.50 with names (I make nothing on that, it's more about advertising for me and that team - feel for them). I run a Christmas party where we all have fun and show parents a bit of dancing - £2 each. My summer show, I charged £4.50 per ticket and £10 for costumes which covered two dances. I just about broke even, but the kids loved it!

Obviously there's the competition side, but I lay all costs out before parents so they know what they're getting into before getting on board. Then I still aim to keep it cheap as I can, without losing money myself.

(This stance is also why I will never be a rich dance teacher )

Yes completely normal.

Dd used to do dancing. I was forever writing cheques.

There were the fees, the costumes, the tickets to shows, the fees to take part in other ad hoc things and sourcing clothing for those too, exam fees, extra lessons to work for exams, lifts here there and everywhere, doing elaborate hair and makeup and still they wanted more. For every single thing it was more to pay.

I had a moment of clarity in all this madness when after all that, we went to see her in a show that she'd worked on for months and everyone had paid lots of money towards, only to see they'd put so many dancers on stage at once (and dd at the back) you could barely see anyone at all.

She did it for a few years then (huge relief) decided to quit.

DD does dance. We pay £7.20 a week (payable in 10 week lots, 4 times a year) which gives her 45 minutes ballet, 30 minutes tap and 30 minutes modern.

She has to have leotard and leggings for tap/modern and tap and jazz shoes. (Cost about £80 all in new) and then leotard,skirt, shoes and socks for ballet (cost about £50 all in new). Wherever possible we get second hand clothes. The ballet uniform seems to change when they move up a grade, but they don't have to get the new stuff till they grow out of the old stuff.

Shows every 2 years. £5- £10 hire fee per costume then tickets are £10 each.

The last exam bill we had was £40 for primary tap

It all adds up. It's not a cheap activity....

However DD loves doing it so we manage somehow...

Fizzielove it's wild isn't it? My kids do Irish Dancing - a teacher takes it as an after school activity - it's not competitive, it's just the dancing. It costs £3 a week and they use plimsolls or all the kids use each other's old pumps that they've outgrown and they swop them about at the start of every year. They love it and it's really good excercise but I am thankful it's just for fun. There's a show once a year but it's just the class fee.

If the show takes place in a 'proper' theatre, the theatre usually takes all the money from ticket sales in lieu of a hire fee. If it's in a hall with a stage or somewhere like that, then the school has to hire the venue (and some of them cost the earth) and then try to recoup that from ticket sales to parents etc.

Whichever way the parents buy their tickets, the school doesn't usually make any profit from it.

This is quite normal and so much cheaper than the hundreds it cost for dd dance shows. I think the costumes for her last one were about £160, then exams and uniform, tickets and extra rehearsals.
It sounds cheap in comparison, but still a big shock if you weren't expecting it.

Thanks for all the replies :)

DS does ballet. The shoes and lessons are not too expensive. He isn't doing the Christmas show, but if he was that would be £40 for the costume plus £15 per ticket to watch! So that's very pricey.