I have a couple of basic business questions for experienced SOs that have made it through prior down economic times.

I used to believe that in tough times parents would rather cut down on personal luxuries (Starbucks, laundry service) & vacations rather than pull their kids out of dance. But as the economy worsens, I worry how it will effect enrollment. Will we lose even more students? If so, which ones are most likely to leave, babies or teens, ballet or jazz? Will parents cut back on the number of classes they let their children take?

On a related note, if tuition drops, how do you cut costs or save money?

Finally, knowing that the economy won't likely improve before fall registrations, what steps can we take to encourage parents to keep their kids in dance? (multiple class discounts, etc.)

I'd love to hear what everybody else is experiencing. Thanks girls.

I'm not an S.O. but as the only other teacher at my studio other then the S.O. we share alot of that kind of responsibility and boun idea's off each other. So what are are doing is giving choice for fall registration. There are three options and hopefully this will help people, even tho the amount of money we get stays pretty much the same.
A. Pay a bigger registration fee (almost twice the normal amount) but then there month tuition is less each month. (more money up front but less each month)
B. Tell us in the beginning of each month if they miss classes. If they tell us and then miss it they don't pay for it (that way if they know money's going to be tight they can skip one class instead of the whole month)
C. pay for 6 months or the whole year at a time n get a discount
They wont be able to combine these options but to pick one that works best for them.

Also we are changeing our dress code to black leo's for everybody. before every level had a different color. but you can get black leo's everywhere (target, walmart) so they will be cheaper then a dance store.

For now we haven't been hit too badly with drop outs/cut backs. We have a smallish studio and a close relationship with all the parents so if they are haveing trouble n tell us we try to work with them. Example- need to pay every two weeks at payday instead of one a month.

We have also started a dance wear swap in our lobby. Every two months girls bring in there old leo's/ shoes/ warm up. whatever they have. They get a amount off there tuition and other girls can buy used things at a lower cost then new.

hope that helps you.
Hope it helps us as well!

This is a good question for the Owners site. Did you also post it there?

Those are some good ideas. We saw a drop in enrollment this year due to the economy. One of our big factories closed and parents couldn't afford extra activities for their children.

GREAT IDEA. Thanks Dancetcher1!

Times are tough right now, and your right, although most moms would cut the Starbucks before pulling their children from activities, unfortunately it is getting to the point where families have to do both. More than likely, most studio's will see a decline in enrollment. It is getting to the point where parents have to choose to put their children in less expensive activities, or cut them all together.

It's hard to say which student level would be most affected. In some areas it will be a decline in pre-school level, others will see less of the pre-teen and teen levels. With the older students, many of them are involved in less expensive activities through school or the community, so the parents are able to keep them involved in something while still keeping costs down. You will see alot of students that are heavily involved cutting down on the number of classes they take, or the number of competitions they attend. They may opt not to take specialty classes like solo's, or stick with ballet but not lyrical etc.

Many studio's do offer some sort of discount program. You can do multiple class discounts, family discounts, unlimited class offerrings, a discount for early enrollment, partial or full payment discounts...the list goes on. Typically studio's will offer a lesser price on classes the more a student takes. If you have a large portion of students taking more than lets say 6 classes(as an example) you could do an unlimited enrollment where they pay a flat rate but get to take all the classes they want at their own level. You could offer for instance a 10% discount for siblings tuition(or same household). The other posters have touched on the full payment discounts which is a good way to go too, because it helps not only the parents but it helps the studio in knowing that you will have received a large portion of the payment for the year and if something does happen you won't miss out.

What one of my old studios did was this. With each style of dance they offered a 'pay for three, get the rest free' thing where after three classes they could do more classes in that style at no extra cost. It was great for me because I was taking 5 ballet classes and two pointe, and one pirouette technique class so I only actually paide for 3 ballets. It also encourages the students who are aiming to go pro encouragement to do more classes without feeling bad their parents had to pay for extra tuition.
We also had full-time ballet students who paid for their termly tuition, then got all the after hours syllabus classes free.