Thread: Economy affecting attendance to events?

Hey Everyone,

I'm trying to plan a few events this year and next and was wondering if you are noticing huge changes in attendance levels to shows and events as well as workshops? Has anyone had to cancel them due to low attendance? Has this made you lower your usual prices?

Khaleela

My attendance numbers seem to be on track for what we need to do here in Vegas. There may be other factors at work here. There have been a number of larger events that have chosen to not happen in 2009, so that might indicate there is less events to compete with for attendees. Not sure if that helps give you any real answer, but there are so many factors involved that it is hard to nail it down.

What area are you in? I'd think the attendance level would coincide with your region and BD community. That might be more helpful to hear from fellow Bhuzzers in your area, or maybe from more of a metro area.

BDF

I'm in Pennsylvania but I'm hoping to draw attention from dancers outside the area so I guess it would be better to ask if attendance from out-of-towners is down? Are people traveling less for workshops and trying to hit more local ones?

I think that one of the things that has me thinking is that Rakkasah East looked a little sparse and I would think that if you had to cut out anything on your calendar, this would be one of the last things.

I think it depends on who you're hosting for workshops as to who is going to show up. In Chicago, Aida Nour was probably half full on the second day and the show was rather sparse, unfortunately. About a month or so later, the Mardi Love workshops were more or less full on both days.

Originally Posted by indigostars

I think it depends on who you're hosting for workshops as to who is going to show up. In Chicago, Aida Nour was probably half full on the second day and the show was rather sparse, unfortunately. About a month or so later, the Mardi Love workshops were more or less full on both days.

Oh my goodness, the thought of a half full Aida Nour workshop makes me feel faint! What a shame, she is sooooo awesome.

Khaleela - I know that some workshops here have been slow, email me for more details. The biggest problem is that, for some reason, a lot of sponsors in the area have a hard time pulling in people from outside the area. This has been an issue for years and I'm not sure why.

For me, this is the first year I have decided to really travel to find instruction. I am happy driving a couple of hours (I spent four hours on the road yesterday), but my biggest issue is hotel costs - it would be very useful if workshop organizers would make sure that there is an affordable hotel close by. Compared to the surrounding costs, whether a workshop weekend costs $20 more or less is rather insignificant.

The artists involved, the price, the region you are in, the regular base of attendees, other events in the area in terms of proximity & time, reputation as an organizer, yeah...so many things to consider.

I think the safest route is to plan for a 20% decrease in what you would normally expect. If you can still pull your event together and not lose money, then go ahead. Then if you have your normal attendance, it'll rock your socks off.

We recently had Tamalyn Dallal in town for two workshops, a show and a film/lecture/book signing event. We had great turn-out for all the events, even record turn out at the show, mostly from local people or dancers from neighboring towns. We kept the costs low by keeping the overhead low. We worked very hard on publicity and networking - we did three free radio interviews, got a featured spot in the local entertainment section of our newspaper, did lots of on-line calendars and networking, etc. plus paid a postering service and took out one inexpensive classified ad. The publicity really helped, as did the low prices, I believe.

We are planning to host Amel Tafsout in April and we are doing all we can to keep prices as low as possible. For us it is better to get more people attending at a lower price than to have a higher price and fewer attendees. But we are a non-profit group. We expect to lose some money on the events with Amel because they are going to cost us more to produce, but we are okay with that. Nobody else in town is producing events or sponsoring well-known workshop instructors. I think partly because it is so difficult to compete with the non-profit group and produce events that actually make a profit. We can spread the work among lots of volunteers so nobody gets too burned out.

Hey Bassmah,

How was Egypt?..g.:

I would think Philly workshops turn out well due to location factors and population.

I'll send an e-mail later tongiht with more.

Khaleela

Originally Posted by steffib

For me, this is the first year I have decided to really travel to find instruction. I am happy driving a couple of hours (I spent four hours on the road yesterday), but my biggest issue is hotel costs - it would be very useful if workshop organizers would make sure that there is an affordable hotel close by. Compared to the surrounding costs, whether a workshop weekend costs $20 more or less is rather insignificant.

What's really considered affordable though? Rooms in my area are around the $100 mark depending on time of year yet when I do my yearly trips to Virginia Beach I know I will spend more than that on a crappy room due to location and demand.

Hey Dunyah,

Would you say that you invested more of your budget in advertising for this event then any of the events you have sponsored in the past?

Khaleela

No, we only spent about $100 on advertising. But we did some very successful networking with two student groups, notably the Arab Student Union on the University campus. And I was able to use all the personal contacts I've developed with local radio DJs and entertainment reporters in local papers. Plus Tamalyn supplied us with about 200 beautifully designed and printed brochures about her work, which we mailed and distributed to people we thought might be interersted.

Edited to add: I always say that the best publicity is the publicity you get for free. It just takes a lot of networking, emailing and phoning to the radio stations, TV stations, newspapers, etc. And you can't always be sure you will get it, sometimes the papers or TV stations do the reporting on the event after-the-fact, which is good PR but doesn't help you draw people there. Print ads in the local papers are quite expensive, but one paper has started offering a display classified ad in the Events section of their classifieds, which is only $59 for a reasonably sized ad with a picture or logo.