What’s Up with Comp Fees?

Now, I’m not in the comp world right now and I haven’t had to register for comps and conventions for a very long time…but I’m hearing about it a lot on TikTok how nationals are requiring fees the summer before.

First off, where is all of the money from the last nationals? Why aren’t the budgets including future nationals?

Second, why can studios register for a nationals without even competing at a regionals first? What if they register for the nationals and not the regionals…that’d be weird.

Competitive dance does not follow the same rules or patterns as other artistic sports. Not anymore at least. When I was competing, you had to attend a regional competition and earn a certain score and be invited to that competition’s nationals. A single nationals. Not 3.

But as we’ve been seeing, competitions are trying to make money. Is that because private equity owns them now? Probably.

So what can we do about this? Not attend? Not always an option, but a lot of studios and dance teachers have personal connections to these competitions and definitely should voice their concerns. (Of course, the studios who benefit from these comps and win every time won’t complain, but the rest of y’all can.) We can also be very selective in which competitions to attend. While many competitions aren’t great in terms of following their own rules, overbooking comps, etc, there are some that are better. Dupree, for example, is a great competition/convention. There’s also the exclusive Dance Masters which a teacher has to be a member of to register.

I remember when groups were $35/ dancer and solos were $110. Costumes were cheaper, too. Competitions didn’t have fancy lighting and backgrounds and photos and videos. Now, studios and families are required to pay a media fee on top of everything else while signing away the dancers’ privacy so the comps can post them on social media.

Besides the increase in production value, competitions have done nothing to keep the dancers safe. There isn’t security or entry fees at these events and the live streams are most likely open to the public. The only comp I’ve been to that has a password is Heat. Too many conventions (and studios) hire choreographers who have allegations against them who have had inappropriate interactions with minors, teens who are assistants at convention. These kids don’t know what’s normal or not yet, especially when they’re dealing with “celebrity” dancers. They are at risk of being abused in these circumstances. Students should not be sharing their Snapchat with any stranger, especially adults.

Conventions definitely need to be regulated. Dance as a whole, too.

Dance has always been an “everyone wins” type of industry, handing out ribbons, trophies, plaques, or pins to literally every dancer based on their score. This might be great for a certain demographic of dancers who are really just there to have fun, but the more competitive folks know it’s the overalls that are the “real” winners. And even then, depending on how the competition does their awards, you could win 1st place overall by default. It’s happened to me before.

Rules are different at every competition, but if a big studio—big money-maker— is breaking the rules and then they get punished for it…and then they don’t come again the next season…well, the competition will lose a lot of money, right? Wouldn’t want that, right?

See, this is the toxic part of the industry. This is a cycle of abuse and it needs to stop. Get rid of bad actors to create an equitable competition that actually runs like a competition. You can’t have a sustainable business if you keep letting a certain group do whatever they want whether that’s a certain studio or big-name choreographer.

It’s all a money grab and we know it. We just can’t seem to get away from it. Yet.