Is £16 per person to attend a ballet school end of the year show too expensive?

[user1494283706]

How much would you be prepared to pay per person to see your four years old dance at her ballet end of the year show?
My daughter's ballet school is charging £16 per ticket for a 1 hour 15 minutes show where each age group/grade will dance 15 minutes each.

So, me gorgeous ladies. I will update you how it went after all.
We never know it could be the best show ever and then I am the one who would have to borrow my head in the sand
It would be interesting to see how my DD does on the stage. It may be a wake-up call for her to realise whether she still wants to do ballet dancing.
Or it may be a disaster, and then, I can bring my DD to the new school chin up knowing I have made the right move.
Good night and god bless.

Wow. Over half term we went to the Opera in Covent Garden and to a west end show. opera cost £20 a ticket and West End £15 a ticket, so yes, that seems steep!

At 4, I can't help thinking a short 'performance' in the local Church hall / Community Hall / School Hall / wherever they normally rehearse would be fine. It wold seem to me they are emotionally blackmailing the parents of newbies and LOs who would be upset if parents weren't there, to subsidise the cost of hiring a posh theatre for the older ones.
Like Newt - you'd have to pay me the £16 to get me to attend.

@BackforGood 'It wold seem to me they are emotionally blackmailing the parents of newbies and LOs who would be upset if parents weren't there, to subsidise the cost of hiring a posh theatre for the older ones.' This cross my mind too. 😉

Update: I have now been informed it is a misunderstanding. The ballet ballet dancers will be wearing something along their usual ballet outfits! The costumes are still being made. It's confusing as the fitting was meant to be last Saturday and the show is this weekend. Nevermind, it seems it's a miscommunication. We'll see at the event. 😊 I am not here to cause trouble. 😇

The costumes are still being made Sounds about right
I've been there - sitting in the dressing room in the interval of the first performance - sewing bits on costumes due to be worn in the second half Nothing like a bit of pressure for making you stab yourself in the thumb...

@dodobookends me too & at dress rehearsal looking at a group of girls & thinking "they are not going to stay up during that dance" and grabbing the elastic!

@katymac @dodobookends

Yes that's expensive. Unless it's at a west end theatre or very prestigious theatre. My last show was £8 a ticket at a local 300 seat small theatre, my Xmas show is £4 a ticket at a local community centre

hmm I see lots of my friends paying loads for shows. Our school very rarely do them (like many years between them I mean) but did one last year. We paid costume hire depending on what they were in, what the costumes were etc. averaged £15-25 a child I think and the most I heard anyone paying was under £50 with a child in 7 or 8 different costumes. didn't pay extra for rehearsals they were done during lesson time. tickets were £12 I think if I remember right so they were expensive in my opinion but overall as a one off for most people because lots of kids will change hobbies in their childhoods so 6/7/8 years between shows means most won't do one again and haven't done them before I felt it was ok. A few classes had to buy their costumes I think but I didn't know anyone who did.

I pay approx £12-15 but we have to pay to buy all the costumes on top of that.

kittikat my daughter has danced for some years now. I have paid the compulsory minimum ticket purchases per child and the show fees. But certainly if I am chaperoning in and missing the show and contributing to the show, I wouldn't pay for my own ticket!

My daughter is doing a musical theatre show and it’s £14 for adults to watch and £6 for children to watch. We’ve also paid £30 for costume hire etc. However lives to perform, and for that she gets a chance to be on a stage in a really great theatre, and 10 weeks of extra rehearsals where I am sure she will learn so much.

She has a dance school show in the summer, and I don’t know the prices of that yet. I have just paid £10 per dance type for costume “deposit” - a bit worried how much more will be charged on top. I don’t know what ticket prices or be or if there will be any extra cost, but she gets an enormous amount of pleasure out of doing the shows. It must be a huge amount for the dance schools etc to organise and arrange.

I have mixed feeling about the show. I have no reservation it must have been plenty work before and throughout the performance. The stage and background decoration were minimal. The show featured a fusion of adults and children; it was hard to discern if any of the central characters were students from the school or hired for the play.

Sadly, the baby ballet dancers only appeared' two minutes out of the 75 minutes performance.

Oops caught post too early, sorry! I'd perhaps expect 2 dances for the little ones in a big production, a ballet and a tap or song perhaps but not much more. Their involvement certainly increases as they get older, do more styles, learn more steps, can concentrate longer, stay up later etc

I don't know, the more I think about it and the more it looked the children were doing Pilates moves instead of ballet.
Several children had part of their outfit missing including tap shoes and one sad little girl came on stage in black tights and blue leotard only whereas the other dancers wore flamboyant outfits.
The baby ballet dancers only wore some leg warmers and a cap on top of their standard ballet leotards. Very disappointing!
It is unfair that the rehearsal was held during the regular lessons. It was a catch 22. Of course the baby ballet dancers would want to go to the show. The rehearsals should have been held separately for those wanted to feature in the show.

We watched Ballet Black at Derby Theatre last week and the tickets cost less than that!

& Ballet Back are amazing!

@katymac It was amazing!

Ballet Black, Northern Ballet & Ballet Revolcion are my total favourites - I'm not very high brow

OP, sorry but I think you are way over-thinking this. My dds have been doing dance and shows for many years. Yes the rehearsals are a pain. Yes it is costly. Yes sometimes the children are only on stage for a short amount of time. But as you can imagine putting on a show is a huge amount of work for the dance school. Sometimes if you want your children to have these hobbies, you have to suck it up.

I have just paid about £80 for my dd to take part in a show. The fee is for the extra rehearsals plus costumes. And the price of the ticket is separate (cost escapes my memory).

Your dd is 4 years old. If she enjoys her ballet lessons that's the main thing. If she turns out to be very good or wants to take it more seriously when she's older you can think again about dance schools.

@Dancergirl If you can afford that amount of money then yes you can suck it up!

The school my daughter is attending is a relatively new school, and the show was merely a copycat of a well-known ballet show. The rehearsals were held during the regular lessons of an entire term. Rehearsals for those willing to participate should be separate from the regular lessons!

My daughter attends Gymnastics at a renowned club and she also attends performance arts at another renown school. Both schools offer separate rehearsal sessions for those willing and can afford to take part of the end of the show.

My daughter is on the waiting list for the Royal Academy Of Dance where at least her regular lessons will be based on the ballet curriculum and not the rehearsal of a one hour and thirty minutes show she featured for less than two minutes and spent the remaining time in a changing room!

user the Royal Academy of Dance is an awarding body. They have many RAD affiliated schools of dance. Or do you mean the RAD headquarters in Battersea? In any case, I'm sure you will be happy with the teaching at a recognised RAD school. Although if they do shows there will be expense involved. Dance related activities often involve extra costs other than class fees and uniform. It's an expensive business!

@Dancergirl Indeed I missed the Battersea.
I am aware dancing is an expensive hobby. I was a majorette for many years myself which involved outings, shows & competitions, alongside several outfits, hats, boots, tights, make up and hairstyles