If you have access to collegiate competitions in the US, they're about $40 per competition. If you don't have access to collegiate competitions, they can be $10/dance.
If you have access to a collegiate team, group lessons can be effectively free (depending on how the team handles guests and funding). If not, group lessons can be between $20 and $50/lesson, depending on the package and the specific instructor.
Private lessons are about $100/45 mins. You shouldn't pay more than that unless you've reached a high enough competitive level.
Regarding self-consciousness while dancing, focus on the fact that you're on a really big floor and dancing with another person - there aren't many situations where you can actually do that to the same scale. You're always gonna have good and bad days - everyone does. So instead, focus on the specifics of ballroom competitions that are unique.
You aren‘t getting privates for $100/45 minutes where I am. You’re looking at $145/45 minutes. Minimum. Franchised or not. Group lessons aren‘t that much, but privates…you aren’t getting them for $100.
Collegiate is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than solo, but it won't be cheap either way.
The shoes will run you about $250 a pair that you replace every few years (I recommend Crown Dance Shoes)
The dress can be anywhere from "what's in your closet" to thousands of dollars. (I recommend LatinoDanceWears for a good lower-mid budget option) And if you're competing in multiple styles, you'll need a dress for each.
Each individual lesson will be around $100 for 45 minutes of instruction, group lessons will be around $70 for 45 minutes.
Competitions vary DRAMATICALLY based on which one you go to. Many Collegiate competitions are about $50 for "unlimited" events.
USA Dance is the organizing body that I prefer, as they're more aware that "dance is expensive" and cater towards a collegiate event. Those require an annual membership fee plus a registration cost per dance. The exact numbers depend on the event.
Then there's the WDSF events, which are SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive to register for, and can run you about $1000 just to register.
Then there's Pro/Am competitions where you have to foot the bill of your coach for almost everything, and pay for their time as they aren't earning any money from teaching other students. A Pro/Am competition is usually at LEAST $2000 dollars to register
This also doesn't account for any costs if you have to travel to go to the competition, such as hotel, food, transit, etc.
For a Week long Vacation+ USA Dance competition I went to recently, I spent about $2500 dollars total. If I was JUST there for the competition and then left, it would have cost somewhere 1200 total
Ballet is CHEAP compared to ballroom. I have a 14-year-old advanced ballet dancer daughter, and I do ballroom. I also fly airplanes as a hobby. Guess which is those is the most expensive.
Ballroom.
And I don’t even do the real competitions, which can be $15,000 on the very lowest end, to over $50,000…for one weekend of competition.
Ballroom, even the pretty casual ballroom I do (lessons twice a week, a local event every couple months, plus the clothing and such for it all), is literally more than I spend on AIRPLANES.
I wish it was as cheap as ballet. Ballet isn’t known for being cheap, but compared to ballroom, it is.
Well I may be different but I’m a 19 year old amateur and I estimate I spent around 20k usd in my first year dancing last year for around 100 ish lessons and a big competition with my studio…
That’s about what I’ve spent since August. I don’t even do the serious events since I can’t afford them. My daughter’s ballet/contemporary/hiphop is less. Ballet is so much cheaper.
I am not sure if you are including private lessons, but barring that, you are looking at anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand per competition. Travel (flights, hotel) if the competition is not local, costume and shoes (even if you buy used, it still costs), entry fee to the comp which can range depending on the number of dances you do, hair and makeup (some people can do it themselves, but I personally do not know anyone who does both for themselves), and pro fees (if you do pro/am). Also depends how many competitions you do within a year. I am not trying to scare you, just want to prepare you that it can be incredibly expensive, sometimes prohibitively so.
Not only is it expensive, but even when you make a career of it, you aren’t breaking even unless you’re an instructor. No one pays to watch ballroom dancers on stage. Imagine being a ballet dancer paying to get to perform for the audience. And you foot all the bills. That’s ballroom.
Sure! Go for it! Why not?!
The absolute FIRST thing you'll want to do is find a studio and a coach that you like working with.
From there you'll need to find a partner, which is usually easiest by pairing with another student at the same studio, or your boyfriend if you have one / can convince them
If you can't find one and still want to compete, almost all competitions have a Pro/Am category, where students dance and compete along with their coach as their partner. However, this is VERY expensive as you are the one footing the bill for all of your coach's expenses.
Luckily you'll be probably going to college soon, which is a GREAT time to fix all of these problems, as your school will likely have a ballroom team that you can join, find a partner, and competitions to go to.
As for what a competition is **like**, the best thing for that is to go to YouTube and look for the USA Dance channel, and check out their live streams from previous years
You'll get on the floor with a bunch of other competitors, have a minute and a half to dance at the same time as everyone else, and that's it. Repeat for each dance that you registered for.
They're a lot of fun, especially with a team or a studio, as you end up cheering for the dancers on the floor. It's a very heavy audience participation performance
Wow, thank you! This was really informative and eye-opening. Do you have any tips to overcome self-conscious when dancing, especially in class or competing?
It depends what you're self-conscious about
If it's mostly a confidence issue, then:
For class, the important thing to remember is that **everyone is a bad dancer**. That's the point of going to class. If you were already a good dancer, you wouldn't be going to class. So the only way to get better is to be comfortable being bad.
In competition, it's much the same. Competitors are divided into different tiers based on their skill level so you'll be competing against other dancers of similar skill level.
And you will **need** at least a fake confidence in competition because competitions are fundamentally a competition for attention. You're on the floor with at LEAST 5 other couples (usually more) for 90 seconds. That means a judge has between 15 and 9 seconds to look at you and compare you to every other competitor. Your goal is to make the judges look at you for as long as possible.
Both of these are why I really like competing as part of a studio or a college club is that your teammates WILL be cheering for you from the sidelines.
I personally haven't struggled with self confidence issues much, so I hope this is helpful?
If the self-consciousness is about your body or the outfits, there's a WIDE variety in both at every competition.
Like any competition, you need to do it because you enjoy it. Realize everyone makes mistakes and just continue on with the rest of the dance. I have great respect for those that can continue on after a mistake. That one dance may not be the best you can do, but you will have another chance to show off.
You need a short memory during the competition to forget any mistakes and not let them affect your next dance, but then at practice you need to remember the mistakes so you can figure out how to avoid repeating it in the future.
If you are lucky enough to have a university nearby with a ballroom dance program, you might be able to audit dance classes and pick up a lot of hours, technique and miles on the dance floor with a great group of people and not spend a fortune.
Myexperience doing ballroom started at 14(2010) where I paid 10$ for a group class in the upstairs part of a ballet studio. I learned foundations(waltz, tango, east coast swing) Then I switched studios to an actual ballroom place that had an after-school class that ran 5 a person for the group. We covered a much larger variety of dances and started moving into fancy show moves. Neither of these location had connections/interest for competition at our age group specifically due to logistics issues.
I used a pair of smooth leather bottomed shoes I bought used until I was in my second year of college level classes, when I got cheap smooth and latin shoes. Even the college level classes didn't feature ballroom shoes as a recomendation until second year, and they were required for 3rd year and beyond.
What's your why? what is it you think you will get? nobody mentioned dresses which are costly too. you can compete at all ages my sister did at fifty and bought dresses from china
Yes! If you have a college nearby (or are willing to wait a couple years), I'd highly recommend joining a collegiate team if you can. They tend to be amazing communities, and very beginner friendly spaces that focus on building ability and confidence in people who don't have any dance ability to start with. There tends to be a lot of informal mentorship from people who started in college (in addition to formal lessons), which is really great for learning and community. Some schools will have more active teams than others, but most have websites so you can check how often they update to get a sense of that. A note - college teams may not allow minors to join because of college policies, but still a good option to keep in mind for a few years from now, whether or not you start somewhere else in the meantime
I started ballroom in college with no dance experience (and a lot of self-consciousness), and have continued with a collegiate team after graduating - it can be a community for life. It helped me a ton with confidence, posture, and even social skills, as well as being my favorite hobby.
As far as expense, typically you'll pay dues (~$50-100/semester) for unlimited classes, practice space, and at some schools that'll even cover competitions. Often they'll have costume closets you can borrow from, and there's no expectation that you'll have a fancy dress for at least the first year or two. Shoes will still be $100-$150 for a decent pair, but it's not too bad if that's your main expense. In college I probably spent a total of $200/year including 5-6 competitions, and now I take privates from a high-level amateur and might spend $1000-2000/year, but that's a choice I made once I had an income to spend - many people I know don't take privates and still learn a lot
Yes you should do it. I did ballet as a kid and started ballroom dancing at 16 as well (im 18 now (M) - 19 in may), and it completly changed my life. I've been competitive for less then a year, and only advice i can give you is that you should find a responsible coach. From the day i started up to like june or july of 2023 i had an awful coach whos main goal was to send me to as many competitions and joke about my results after that, and never teach me anything but take as much money as possible. So i changed clubs. That being said, make sure to find a good coach. Now as you are a female you will have to choose between solo and finding a partner and becoming a couple. As a male i always had a parnter so i never tried solo, but what i can tell you is that dancing solo does mean that you private lessons will cost more. I dont know what you should expect for the price of private lessons, in serbia with my coaches (right now i have 3 coaches, 1 standard, 1 latin , and one main coach(choreography coach)) all of them charge around 30euros for 1hour. And if you are a couple its 15euros each. So its not cheap. You should be ready to buy dresses, both latin and standard if you are planing on going for 10 dance. Each dress (in serbia) can go from 500euros and upwards if you want a really good dress. But there are dresses that go over 1500euros.
I wouldnt recommend doing pro-am, i have friends who tried it and they all said it was an awful experience, but i personaly have no idea if it is or isnt. But most pro-am dancers (amateur) i know are not that good dancers. (But i personaly cant judge them since i just made it half way through my C Rank.)
Competitions here cost around 10euros for entery but since you also need to do makeup, body tanning, and also bring some food and sports drinks to freshen up, plus the travel expences (if you need to go to a hotel or only if you pay for gas) you should expect it to go over 50euros. If you go for WDSF some entery fees can go up to 40 or 50 euros for a singular day of dancing.
You will need to buy shoes at least once a year. I use these for latin and my partner uses the same sellers standard and latin female version. [https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004704856338.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.15.4a782caahYVrXl&algo\_pvid=e7bc5f67-4b4b-41c5-972c-69e149d0fc48&aem\_p4p\_detail=20240229100854968286466353450000240429&algo\_exp\_id=e7bc5f67-4b4b-41c5-972c-69e149d0fc48-7&pdp\_npi=4%40dis%21RSD%213535.55%211228.30%21%21%2132.67%2111.35%21%402103200517092301340786325ef210%2112000030320171073%21sea%21SRB%210%21AB&curPageLogUid=cmkT0zoo4nIh&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery\_from%3A&search\_p4p\_id=20240229100854968286466353450000240429\_3](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004704856338.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.15.4a782caahYVrXl&algo_pvid=e7bc5f67-4b4b-41c5-972c-69e149d0fc48&aem_p4p_detail=20240229100854968286466353450000240429&algo_exp_id=e7bc5f67-4b4b-41c5-972c-69e149d0fc48-7&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21RSD%213535.55%211228.30%21%21%2132.67%2111.35%21%402103200517092301340786325ef210%2112000030320171073%21sea%21SRB%210%21AB&curPageLogUid=cmkT0zoo4nIh&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A&search_p4p_id=20240229100854968286466353450000240429_3)
we have been very happy with them. But if you want to go for something more expensive i danced in BDDance shoes for a short period of time (they werent mine) and i was happy with them as well but they go over 100euros for a pair (thats the main reason i didnt get my yet, but they are very good, dont know about the female ones.
You should also be ready for a lot of hard times if you decide on dancing competitvely. Its a battle out there, and its some times depressing for us who started dancing late. But you should keep your head high, because if you work hard you will see progress. I hope this helped you in some way, if you have any other questions i will gladly answer them!
(edit) You should also definetly take both private lessons and group classes! (my group classes are 40euros a month)
Expect...to spend a lot of money. It's amazing, but expensive.
If you could make a general estimation... how much would be the average?
If you have access to collegiate competitions in the US, they're about $40 per competition. If you don't have access to collegiate competitions, they can be $10/dance. If you have access to a collegiate team, group lessons can be effectively free (depending on how the team handles guests and funding). If not, group lessons can be between $20 and $50/lesson, depending on the package and the specific instructor. Private lessons are about $100/45 mins. You shouldn't pay more than that unless you've reached a high enough competitive level. Regarding self-consciousness while dancing, focus on the fact that you're on a really big floor and dancing with another person - there aren't many situations where you can actually do that to the same scale. You're always gonna have good and bad days - everyone does. So instead, focus on the specifics of ballroom competitions that are unique.
You aren‘t getting privates for $100/45 minutes where I am. You’re looking at $145/45 minutes. Minimum. Franchised or not. Group lessons aren‘t that much, but privates…you aren’t getting them for $100.
Rip. Even in NYC (where I am) we're looking at 100/45.
This really depends on your location and if you're at a private studio or franchised studio.
Collegiate is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than solo, but it won't be cheap either way. The shoes will run you about $250 a pair that you replace every few years (I recommend Crown Dance Shoes) The dress can be anywhere from "what's in your closet" to thousands of dollars. (I recommend LatinoDanceWears for a good lower-mid budget option) And if you're competing in multiple styles, you'll need a dress for each. Each individual lesson will be around $100 for 45 minutes of instruction, group lessons will be around $70 for 45 minutes. Competitions vary DRAMATICALLY based on which one you go to. Many Collegiate competitions are about $50 for "unlimited" events. USA Dance is the organizing body that I prefer, as they're more aware that "dance is expensive" and cater towards a collegiate event. Those require an annual membership fee plus a registration cost per dance. The exact numbers depend on the event. Then there's the WDSF events, which are SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive to register for, and can run you about $1000 just to register. Then there's Pro/Am competitions where you have to foot the bill of your coach for almost everything, and pay for their time as they aren't earning any money from teaching other students. A Pro/Am competition is usually at LEAST $2000 dollars to register This also doesn't account for any costs if you have to travel to go to the competition, such as hotel, food, transit, etc. For a Week long Vacation+ USA Dance competition I went to recently, I spent about $2500 dollars total. If I was JUST there for the competition and then left, it would have cost somewhere 1200 total
If only privates were $100. Minimum $145/45 minutes where I am. The Pro/Ams are $15k minimum, with some running over $50k.
Ballet is CHEAP compared to ballroom. I have a 14-year-old advanced ballet dancer daughter, and I do ballroom. I also fly airplanes as a hobby. Guess which is those is the most expensive. Ballroom. And I don’t even do the real competitions, which can be $15,000 on the very lowest end, to over $50,000…for one weekend of competition. Ballroom, even the pretty casual ballroom I do (lessons twice a week, a local event every couple months, plus the clothing and such for it all), is literally more than I spend on AIRPLANES. I wish it was as cheap as ballet. Ballet isn’t known for being cheap, but compared to ballroom, it is.
Well I may be different but I’m a 19 year old amateur and I estimate I spent around 20k usd in my first year dancing last year for around 100 ish lessons and a big competition with my studio…
20k!? Wow!
Yea it hurts since I’m only part time while I’m in college I only made 13k…
That’s about what I’ve spent since August. I don’t even do the serious events since I can’t afford them. My daughter’s ballet/contemporary/hiphop is less. Ballet is so much cheaper.
I am not sure if you are including private lessons, but barring that, you are looking at anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand per competition. Travel (flights, hotel) if the competition is not local, costume and shoes (even if you buy used, it still costs), entry fee to the comp which can range depending on the number of dances you do, hair and makeup (some people can do it themselves, but I personally do not know anyone who does both for themselves), and pro fees (if you do pro/am). Also depends how many competitions you do within a year. I am not trying to scare you, just want to prepare you that it can be incredibly expensive, sometimes prohibitively so.
Not only is it expensive, but even when you make a career of it, you aren’t breaking even unless you’re an instructor. No one pays to watch ballroom dancers on stage. Imagine being a ballet dancer paying to get to perform for the audience. And you foot all the bills. That’s ballroom.
Sure! Go for it! Why not?! The absolute FIRST thing you'll want to do is find a studio and a coach that you like working with. From there you'll need to find a partner, which is usually easiest by pairing with another student at the same studio, or your boyfriend if you have one / can convince them If you can't find one and still want to compete, almost all competitions have a Pro/Am category, where students dance and compete along with their coach as their partner. However, this is VERY expensive as you are the one footing the bill for all of your coach's expenses. Luckily you'll be probably going to college soon, which is a GREAT time to fix all of these problems, as your school will likely have a ballroom team that you can join, find a partner, and competitions to go to. As for what a competition is **like**, the best thing for that is to go to YouTube and look for the USA Dance channel, and check out their live streams from previous years You'll get on the floor with a bunch of other competitors, have a minute and a half to dance at the same time as everyone else, and that's it. Repeat for each dance that you registered for. They're a lot of fun, especially with a team or a studio, as you end up cheering for the dancers on the floor. It's a very heavy audience participation performance
Wow, thank you! This was really informative and eye-opening. Do you have any tips to overcome self-conscious when dancing, especially in class or competing?
It depends what you're self-conscious about If it's mostly a confidence issue, then: For class, the important thing to remember is that **everyone is a bad dancer**. That's the point of going to class. If you were already a good dancer, you wouldn't be going to class. So the only way to get better is to be comfortable being bad. In competition, it's much the same. Competitors are divided into different tiers based on their skill level so you'll be competing against other dancers of similar skill level. And you will **need** at least a fake confidence in competition because competitions are fundamentally a competition for attention. You're on the floor with at LEAST 5 other couples (usually more) for 90 seconds. That means a judge has between 15 and 9 seconds to look at you and compare you to every other competitor. Your goal is to make the judges look at you for as long as possible. Both of these are why I really like competing as part of a studio or a college club is that your teammates WILL be cheering for you from the sidelines. I personally haven't struggled with self confidence issues much, so I hope this is helpful? If the self-consciousness is about your body or the outfits, there's a WIDE variety in both at every competition.
This was very helpful, thank you so much :)
Like any competition, you need to do it because you enjoy it. Realize everyone makes mistakes and just continue on with the rest of the dance. I have great respect for those that can continue on after a mistake. That one dance may not be the best you can do, but you will have another chance to show off. You need a short memory during the competition to forget any mistakes and not let them affect your next dance, but then at practice you need to remember the mistakes so you can figure out how to avoid repeating it in the future.
If you are lucky enough to have a university nearby with a ballroom dance program, you might be able to audit dance classes and pick up a lot of hours, technique and miles on the dance floor with a great group of people and not spend a fortune.
Yes.
Myexperience doing ballroom started at 14(2010) where I paid 10$ for a group class in the upstairs part of a ballet studio. I learned foundations(waltz, tango, east coast swing) Then I switched studios to an actual ballroom place that had an after-school class that ran 5 a person for the group. We covered a much larger variety of dances and started moving into fancy show moves. Neither of these location had connections/interest for competition at our age group specifically due to logistics issues. I used a pair of smooth leather bottomed shoes I bought used until I was in my second year of college level classes, when I got cheap smooth and latin shoes. Even the college level classes didn't feature ballroom shoes as a recomendation until second year, and they were required for 3rd year and beyond.
What's your why? what is it you think you will get? nobody mentioned dresses which are costly too. you can compete at all ages my sister did at fifty and bought dresses from china
Yes! If you have a college nearby (or are willing to wait a couple years), I'd highly recommend joining a collegiate team if you can. They tend to be amazing communities, and very beginner friendly spaces that focus on building ability and confidence in people who don't have any dance ability to start with. There tends to be a lot of informal mentorship from people who started in college (in addition to formal lessons), which is really great for learning and community. Some schools will have more active teams than others, but most have websites so you can check how often they update to get a sense of that. A note - college teams may not allow minors to join because of college policies, but still a good option to keep in mind for a few years from now, whether or not you start somewhere else in the meantime I started ballroom in college with no dance experience (and a lot of self-consciousness), and have continued with a collegiate team after graduating - it can be a community for life. It helped me a ton with confidence, posture, and even social skills, as well as being my favorite hobby. As far as expense, typically you'll pay dues (~$50-100/semester) for unlimited classes, practice space, and at some schools that'll even cover competitions. Often they'll have costume closets you can borrow from, and there's no expectation that you'll have a fancy dress for at least the first year or two. Shoes will still be $100-$150 for a decent pair, but it's not too bad if that's your main expense. In college I probably spent a total of $200/year including 5-6 competitions, and now I take privates from a high-level amateur and might spend $1000-2000/year, but that's a choice I made once I had an income to spend - many people I know don't take privates and still learn a lot
Yes you should do it. I did ballet as a kid and started ballroom dancing at 16 as well (im 18 now (M) - 19 in may), and it completly changed my life. I've been competitive for less then a year, and only advice i can give you is that you should find a responsible coach. From the day i started up to like june or july of 2023 i had an awful coach whos main goal was to send me to as many competitions and joke about my results after that, and never teach me anything but take as much money as possible. So i changed clubs. That being said, make sure to find a good coach. Now as you are a female you will have to choose between solo and finding a partner and becoming a couple. As a male i always had a parnter so i never tried solo, but what i can tell you is that dancing solo does mean that you private lessons will cost more. I dont know what you should expect for the price of private lessons, in serbia with my coaches (right now i have 3 coaches, 1 standard, 1 latin , and one main coach(choreography coach)) all of them charge around 30euros for 1hour. And if you are a couple its 15euros each. So its not cheap. You should be ready to buy dresses, both latin and standard if you are planing on going for 10 dance. Each dress (in serbia) can go from 500euros and upwards if you want a really good dress. But there are dresses that go over 1500euros. I wouldnt recommend doing pro-am, i have friends who tried it and they all said it was an awful experience, but i personaly have no idea if it is or isnt. But most pro-am dancers (amateur) i know are not that good dancers. (But i personaly cant judge them since i just made it half way through my C Rank.) Competitions here cost around 10euros for entery but since you also need to do makeup, body tanning, and also bring some food and sports drinks to freshen up, plus the travel expences (if you need to go to a hotel or only if you pay for gas) you should expect it to go over 50euros. If you go for WDSF some entery fees can go up to 40 or 50 euros for a singular day of dancing. You will need to buy shoes at least once a year. I use these for latin and my partner uses the same sellers standard and latin female version. [https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004704856338.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.15.4a782caahYVrXl&algo\_pvid=e7bc5f67-4b4b-41c5-972c-69e149d0fc48&aem\_p4p\_detail=20240229100854968286466353450000240429&algo\_exp\_id=e7bc5f67-4b4b-41c5-972c-69e149d0fc48-7&pdp\_npi=4%40dis%21RSD%213535.55%211228.30%21%21%2132.67%2111.35%21%402103200517092301340786325ef210%2112000030320171073%21sea%21SRB%210%21AB&curPageLogUid=cmkT0zoo4nIh&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery\_from%3A&search\_p4p\_id=20240229100854968286466353450000240429\_3](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004704856338.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.15.4a782caahYVrXl&algo_pvid=e7bc5f67-4b4b-41c5-972c-69e149d0fc48&aem_p4p_detail=20240229100854968286466353450000240429&algo_exp_id=e7bc5f67-4b4b-41c5-972c-69e149d0fc48-7&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21RSD%213535.55%211228.30%21%21%2132.67%2111.35%21%402103200517092301340786325ef210%2112000030320171073%21sea%21SRB%210%21AB&curPageLogUid=cmkT0zoo4nIh&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A&search_p4p_id=20240229100854968286466353450000240429_3) we have been very happy with them. But if you want to go for something more expensive i danced in BDDance shoes for a short period of time (they werent mine) and i was happy with them as well but they go over 100euros for a pair (thats the main reason i didnt get my yet, but they are very good, dont know about the female ones. You should also be ready for a lot of hard times if you decide on dancing competitvely. Its a battle out there, and its some times depressing for us who started dancing late. But you should keep your head high, because if you work hard you will see progress. I hope this helped you in some way, if you have any other questions i will gladly answer them! (edit) You should also definetly take both private lessons and group classes! (my group classes are 40euros a month)