Thread: new area

I am thinking of organizing an event in a new area, so I will have a mailing list of zero going in. I have a lot of connections in this area as it's my childhood home, I will be able to arrange all the things that I need to, plus have a support network. The market in this new area, I'm feel it may be underdeveloped. I suspect that people won't pay very much for classes, and that their level isn't very high at all. So, my question is:

1. Should I bother
2. What could I do to 'create' my market in this area.

I *hate* to arrange things with teachers only to cancel later on, and can count the times I have done this on one finger ! I would rather run with a small loss, than be an unreliable sponsor (for the teachers) or supplier (for the students).

I'm maybe being a bit dense today (my brain seems to have stayed in bed, while I got up & went to work), so I'm just checking that I've got the facts straight.

You want to organise an event, let's say a haflah, so that I've got something concrete to think about. In an area where there are teachers but not necessarily very high level teachers. Where you don't teach yourself, but you know the teachers and you've got people who can help support the event/haflah.

1. Should you bother?
If it's going to be profitable (or at least cover its costs), if it will help to develop the community/market in that area, so that you can continue to produce events there, if you will enjoy helping the community to develop in that area, then yes. But I think you need to consider #2 before you make any decisions on #1

2. What can you do to "create" the market.
Talk to the teachers in the area. It's pointless if there are teachers there, and they are not on-board. Do *they* want your haflah? Are they prepared to sell it to their students? are they prepared to perform? to put a class performance group together? From what you're saying, it sounds like the area is still in its infancy as far as this dance is concerned. Are you going to try & market it beyond the existing teachers & classes, either expanding the geographical extent of your marketing, pull in teachers with their students from other nearby towns/cities? Or marketing more to the GP, putting up flyers in the local library/gyms/sports centres/shops? (Which I'm not convinced will actually help much for a specific event like a haflah or a workshop, but might help those local teachers pull in a few more students, and why would you be wanting to do their marketing for them?...). Maybe those teachers have mailing lists of their own, other contacts that you're not aware of.

I have to say, it seems difficult (to me) to stimulate a market/create a community, if you are not on-site, to actually do the legwork that is usually involved.

The event is more likely to be a weekend of workshops, with visiting 'guest star' teachers, high-level ones. Probably just one single weekend in a whole year to see if it works/there is demand.

And you have the rest of my meaning correctly interpreted.

I still think it depends a lot on how far you can rely on the local teachers to help promote the event, whatever it is. If they can see it as a way of boosting their profile, and creating extra value for their students, then they would surely welcome your event with arms wide open and promote it like billy-o. If they can't be bothered, then it's going to be nigh on impossible to access their students, to even inform them about your event, let alone tell them how fantastically interetsing and useful and fun it's going to be.

The other thought that occurs is, if the local community isn't used to such events, they perhaps need to get a bit more used to the concept of paying for extra events, like workshops and haflahs, before you hit 'em with a full weekend of top-end star teachers.

Dont know if this helps but started something similar (a weekend class) 1.000 km away from my base (Athens) at Crete where is my village also.
The plan was that, in the city of 60.000 people no-one tought bellydance, but there were 4 dance schools for Ballroom, Tango, Latin, Traditional dances.
I found one of them (the bigest school) and asked them if they could organize and advertize a free 2 hour lesson and a small party after with various dances.
They agreed, we had 75 !! people at the free lesson, 40 registered staight away.
Was traveling for 1 weekend per month, and fortunately one of my students was hobbyist bellydancer for 4 years, and she was doing the practica class (more like gathering and remembering the movements, not teaching, but she IS good).
Worked and work great (but now i just go there every 1.5 month luck of time) the deal was like 2/3 for me 1/3 for the dance school, plus tickets for me (was staying at my parents house).
Dont know if helped but it can work.
And now i'm so happy that in that area there is a growing bellydance community that 1 year ago wasnt, and they are interest in tribal also, and other forms of bellydance.

Maria Aya :)

I totally agree with you Bea. I wouldn't want to go anywhere that I wasn't wanted - for about a million different reasons. There is plenty of 'venues' in the sea, and who needs the stress of bringing something fabulous to somewhere it isn't appreciated :-) I suspect I would get local support.

An update on this. I phoned teacher A in new area, who said yes, that sounds great, I'm sure the other teachers in this area would want it. We have a few things like that now, but there is room for more teacher/organiser B normally does them, I bet you'd get X number of students (hurray I thought). So I phoned B who said 'I wouldn't come if I were you, we've got enough things on, no-body will know you, I organise these things, and I've got a lot of things in the pipeline'. I left the call by saying I would ring back to make sure if I did anything that it didn't clash with anything she is doing - maybe I was stupid to ring organiser B as now I feel that any further moves on my part will be treated as aggressive by her.

What would bhuzzers do?

Hmmm. Well, it's a little like calling up the grocery store in the next town and saying "I'm thinking of opening a grocery store next door to yours, Wanna be friends?" How would you expect them to react?

Of course, sometimes another grocer/dancer/whatever simply *is* going to be doing business alongside you, and there's nothing you can do about it. In those cases, you do the best you can to make the two business complement each other, rather than competing, and hope both can survive. It's better to try to get along than to fight.

So, I'd say she's reacting exactly as you'd expect her to react, but the way you left it implies that she accepts she can't stop you from coming and she's willing to work with you -- albeit grudgingly.

The ideal solution is to figure out how you can best work together for a 'win-win' solution where everyone benefits. I assume she has a student base to offer you for your events? What do you have to offer her in return?

Well Teacher A and lots of Teacher A's associates have a student base to offer, I am working up special teacher deals (buy X tickets, get X teacher tickets free!).

Thanks for putting your 'it's normal' spin on things. I don't really need anything from Organiser B. I have done my research and there aren't any events like I am offering in Town C. Organiser B puts events on in town Z, which is about an hour or so away (in the UK this is a *long* way!). She said she considered town C in her catchment area though.

I don't want to take anyones business away, or directly compete (we all loose that way), so don't really want to move into a place where things are going on - but at the same time I don't want to be put off by the first phonecalls either.

Personally, I'd work on developing the local community before bringing in high-end professional instructors. Only intermediate dancers who have been dancing for a while are going to care who your headliner is. New dancers will either be scared away or uninterested (this is, of course, a generalization).

Does the local community have regular haflas? Sometimes, that's a better place to start. Build a local base first and then bring in the headliners. Those are just my thoughts. Take what you like. ..g.:

Originally Posted by Bellydancingcaroline

The event is more likely to be a weekend of workshops, with visiting 'guest star' teachers, high-level ones. Probably just one single weekend in a whole year to see if it works/there is demand.

And you have the rest of my meaning correctly interpreted.

Originally Posted by Bellydancingcaroline

An update on this. I phoned teacher A in new area, who said yes, that sounds great, I'm sure the other teachers in this area would want it. We have a few things like that now, but there is room for more teacher/organiser B normally does them, I bet you'd get X number of students (hurray I thought). So I phoned B who said 'I wouldn't come if I were you, we've got enough things on, no-body will know you, I organise these things, and I've got a lot of things in the pipeline'. I left the call by saying I would ring back to make sure if I did anything that it didn't clash with anything she is doing - maybe I was stupid to ring organiser B as now I feel that any further moves on my part will be treated as aggressive by her. What would bhuzzers do?

Personally, I think you did the right thing. I think it's best for the community in general when everyone works together. It doesn't sound like person B is open to that yet; however, if you play your cards right you won't alienate her and you can still keep her as a resource. Perhaps you might play to her sense of experience and invite her to collaborate on a project with you. Even if she never comes around, I think it's still best to stay in contact.

For whatever it's worth, I was the most consistant organizer in my area for a long time. Then Tori King came on board and started doing stuff. I guess initially I felt a little threatened; however, what she organized was different from what I was doing. After some encouragement from others, I invited her to help me with my big event as my assistant. She's been one of my best assets and resources, we've developed a great friendship, and the community wins. We work together on some things and separately on others. And, we now have a yahoogroup for all the local "movers & shakers" so we can communicate and support each others events.

I don't think it's exactly like the grocery store scenario. It's not like you are competing for the same time/dates at all. She's probably feeling a bit threatened. I'm sure you can empathize with that. I'm not suggesting you back off. But I am suggesting you keep the lines of communication open so that the possibility of a win-win situation is there.

Best Regards,
Samira
Las Vegas Bellydance Intensive

Good advice, Samira.

I read once that people in business usually have one of two outlooks (well, I guess most fall on a continuum between the two extremes, but it's still useful.) Here I'm relating them specifically to dance, but usually they're given more generically.

1) The scarcity view -- Dancers only have so much money & time they'll devote to events, workshops, classes in a single year. So it doesn't matter if the events are in different months or different types of events, every competitor that pops up takes money out of your pocket.

2) The abundance view -- There is plenty of business to go around for everyone. The more we work together to build a vibrant dance community that's exciting to be a part of, the more students will make dance events part of their lives and their budgets (and the more they'll stay in the local community rather than spending their money in other cities). If we work together synergistically, we can get the dance 'seen' by the GP, draw in more students and fans, retain more students to create a bigger base of intermediate & advanced dancers who want events, and create something much bigger to share than either of us could have created alone.

I believe 'abundance' is possible, but only if people consciously work to create it.

Originally Posted by Lauren_

I believe 'abundance' is possible, but only if people consciously work to create it.

Yup. Abundance vs. Scarcity. That's a great way to sum it up.

Truly, it's the very hardest to operate from an abundance perspective when the others in the sandbox don't embrace the same vision. But it's at those very moments that our true colors come out.

For myself, I try to operate from the "what is best for the community" perspective. I figure that if I keep that perspective at the forefront, then my own personal visions will be filled naturally. And so far, it's worked pretty well in Vegas.

I wish you all the best in your respective cities.

Samira