At each dance studio, there are always nice little touches that lets us dancers know that the owners are actually looking out for us. Some examples I’ve seen include having a water cooler (hurray), wooden furniture instead of cushion furniture (sweaty dancers = sweaty couches), and having a lobby for dancers to hang out in before classes. What I find that most studios do not have however is some common business sense – make it easy for us to part with our money.

Harbour Dance Centre, the biggest and most likely the most profitable dance studio in Vancouver, has it half right. They have a schedule of classes on their registrar desk, but can it be any smaller? If I were the coordinator for Harbour Dance Centre, I would have some LCD screens around the studio that rotate the schedule of classes for the day/week and maybe a small video clip of the actual dance classes. I believe that a lot of would-be dancers don’t try out other styles not because they don’t want to, but because information is not readily available for them to even to try it out.

Future revenue lost for the studio. Future members lost to the community.

So dance studios – make it easy for us dancers and future dancers. At the very least, have bigger cardboard cutouts of the class schedule.