Rip off fees drama group

[Grrrrrsnarl]

My daughter goes to a musical theatre group on a Saturday morning. Singing, dancing and drama.
The company has many classes in various places (all within 20 miles)) and my daughter's paired with another town
She has just done a show in a theatre
(There were about 4 identical shows by the different towns)
The tickets were £12.50 each
The costume cost was £31

The costume was a green t-shirt
A grey school skirt, a grey cardi and a green tie

Other acts had various other costumes ( high school musical, Matilda pinefores etc)

But she didn't even get to keep the costume.

AIBU to think this is a total rip off
It looks like they used the " costume" for each show and charged every parent £31

YANBU.
If you have had to pay for the costume, you should get to keep it. We were burned like this once for a cat-suit costume.
I have learned with drama groups - always ask about hidden extras when signing up!

If you pay for a costume you should keep it! I'd definitely ask what's going on.

I think I know which company it is. I was put off them as I called for some info and was subjected to a hard sell spiel. I managed to find a small local independent group that is about half the price that does sell tickets for performancesports but provides all costumes and extras. Dd had her last session last week and they threw a lovely (free) party for them afterwards.

It's a local company in the south, they do big performances and have an agency.

We used to do Stagecoach and they always held cake sales and stuff to raise money for costumes

I just think that the costume I could have bought for £10 in asda. School uniforms are dead cheap.

While the cost seems a bit high, I have always paid for costume rental for my dd's dance shows. The school have a supply of costumes from previous shows that are re-used where possible but new ones need to be bought and existing ones altered or repaired. Many of the costumes are very expensive to buy so the cost is averaged so nobody ends up paying an awful lot.

My niece was in a different drama group where the parents were asked to provide costumes so it could sometimes be more expensive. However, it also never looked as professional or as polished as each child was wearing a variant on the theme.

That does sound a ripoff! My dd goes to a national academy (not stagecoach), they recently did a show and the costumes were supplied, we did have to supply the odd bit like shoes - but were specifically told not to go buying things, tickets for the show were free as well, looked professional to me!

When they asked for money for the costumes £31 I was expecting a bespoke outfit not a bloody school uniforms.

How much would it have cost to have the outfit dry cleaned?

The judge of reasonable is this:

Initial purchase cost divided by four or five rewears, plus cleaning costs after each wear, plus admin time.

I agree £31 is steep, but it's not that steep when you factor in the time/cost of cleaning, allocating, packaging, storing, repairing etc. Quite frequently, cleaning and maintenance costs far outweigh what seems like the cost of purchasing 'new'. It's also likely that the school has a flat 'costume' fee, regardless of what it is. If there's lots of kids, in different things, over multiple groups, the logistics pretty much dictate this is the case.

You could suggest that

Sorry, you could suggest that the group lets you buy the costumes and keep them next time, if that would be better, but it may not always be something as simple as a school uniform.

One of the kids wore a green gingham dress, cost £4

We hire the costumes from dd's dance school. It's usually £3.50 per dance and they do about 8-10 dances each.

The school have loads of costumes, but the hire fees help to buy new ones.

Compared to some other dance schools I think we get off light.

Your £31 could be subsidising some of the more expensive costumes to spread the cost for all families.

Maybe, but most of the costumes were school uniforms so it would be a huge subsidy