For competitive dance families
Dance is expensive. Nobody tells you how expensive.
Call Time is the unsentimental side of competitive dance: what a season actually costs, how to survive a 45 second quick change, and how to stop running your family's whole year out of a group chat.
- $7,500 to $8,000
- What a single competitive dancer costs a family per year, in a survey of dance parents by Brock University's Dance Research Lab.
- 7.4×
- How that compares with the $1,015.64 an average U.S. family spends per child per year across all youth sports, per Project Play.
- 66.6%
- Share of dance parents in that same Brock survey who say cost limits how much their child can dance. You are not the only one doing this math.
New: Puff and glitter apparel
Raised lettering for the long weekends.
Heavyweight hoodies, crewnecks and tees in 3D puff print you can feel, plus glitter tees that catch the stage lights. Made to order in the US and shipped in 2 to 5 business days.
- • Hoodies, crewnecks and tees from $40
- • Studio team versions with your studio name
The name
Two things are true at once.
The reality. You are managing a five figure budget with no budget software, a costume that arrives three days before nationals, a 45 second change in a hallway with no mirror, and a schedule that lives in four places at once, none of which is a calendar.
The revelry. And then the lights go down, and eight seconds into the music you forget every dollar and every hallway, because your kid is doing the thing they have given a decade of Saturdays to.
Most of what exists for dance parents only acknowledges the second part. Glitter graphics, inspirational captions, matching tees. Lovely, and useless at 6:40 a.m. in a convention center parking garage.
This site is built for the first part, so you get to keep enjoying the second. Real numbers with sources attached. Systems that survive contact with an actual competition weekend. And yes, shirts, because we are still dance parents and the shirts are fun.
Free tool
The Real Cost of a Dance Season
Twenty one line items, built on published price ranges from real dance families: tuition, choreography, costumes, entry fees, hotel nights, food, photo and video packages, and the four categories nearly everyone forgets to count.
- • Adjust every number to your studio and your region
- • See your total against the documented national average
- • Get the per month and per routine figure you can actually plan around
- • No email, no signup, nothing saved
Field guides
Written from the hallway, not the highlight reel.
The 45-Second Quick Change
Why backstage changes fail, the four failure modes behind almost every one, and the pre-staging system that removes the panic.
9 min read
Every Fee Your Studio Hasn't Mentioned Yet
A line by line map of the charges that appear after you have already committed to the season, and which ones are negotiable.
In progress
Get it when it landsThe Competition Weekend Packing Standard
One bag, one list, one system that works whether it is a local Saturday or four days at nationals.
In progress
Get it when it lands
The shop
Two shelves: wear it, or run it.
Shop comfortable apparel for the people who spend their weekends in folding chairs, studio lobbies, hotel hallways, and dark auditoriums.
Choose individual tees or coordinate a team order from one shared link. Then simplify the season with digital planning tools for costumes, packing, competition weekends, and dance expenses.
The Sunday Call Sheet
One email a week, timed to the season.
Costume deposit deadlines in August. Nationals travel math in January. What to pre stage in March when three costume changes land in one block. Written the week you need it, not whenever there is something to sell.
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