A year later, after an unusually low-turnout dance, I updated the graph I made before and BIDA is also seeing a decrease recently: https://www.jefftk.com/bida-attendance-2017-12-2x.png
It wasn't clear to me at the time, but it looks like it goes back to early 2016. Jeff On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 9:39 AM, Brian Appleberry via Organizers <organizers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: > Our dance (Queen City Contras, in Burlington, Vermont) is definitely reduced > in attendance. Some details: > > Our dance is once per month, on the first Friday, year-round. > A graph of average attendance in the last 15 years shows a peak of 100 > exactly in the middle (2008 - 20010), with numbers around 57 on the edges > (2003, 2016). The rise and fall have been gradual and symmetrical. > I'm sure we could have better attendance if we had a perfect/fabulous hall > and location, which we've never found. (As soon as I win the lottery I > will...) > 14-1/2 years ago we switched from Saturday evenings to Friday evenings, due > to venue problems. Saturdays had higher attendance, but lost more money > because the hall was a lot more expensive. > We have more competition than we used to. About 5 years ago the number of > contra dances in Burlington went from 1 per month to 2 per month. Also, > many dancers who dance in Burlington also dance in Montpelier, where the > number of dances went from 2 (sometimes 3) per month to 4 (sometimes 5) per > month, about 1 year ago. > We have always supported attendance of children, by admitting anyone under > 13 for free. I think this definitely helps. However, we have not had an > "outreach" or in-school children's program since the founder of our dance > was doing so back in the 1970's and 1980's. > The quality of our performers (and cost of performers) was intentionally > raised during the "upswing" years, and we were also able to put some money > in the bank at the same time that we started spending money on liability > insurance and forming a nonprofit corporation (to help protect the board of > directors, in the unlikely event of a law suite). > We have continued to keep the quality of performers high, but we have now > drained our bank account, moved to a less expensive venue, and just started > reducing the average quality/cost of performers, in order to stay afloat. > I don't know all the answers, but I am convinced that the key will be in the > younger generations. (I'm 67, so I'll be dancing for only another 20 years > or so!) > -Brian Appleberry > > > > _______________________________________________ > Organizers mailing list > Organizers@lists.sharedweight.net > http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/organizers-sharedweight.net > _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list Organizers@lists.sharedweight.net http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/organizers-sharedweight.net