paintilady
Forum Replies Created
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The price they are trying to make me pay is prohibitive,
There is no "pole dance studio" they have ballet, jazz, combination, and are trying to bill us at over $100.00, but three licensing places at $100.00 a month is over $300.00 a year, or more, and we are a small studio. Which now needs to raise prices in a small broke town or figure something else out. They are trying to go back and get us to pay several years back.
This we can not afford.
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Thak you!
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So if students play their own music, on our system… it means "I " played it?
If we have to pay 3 licensing organizations, and who knows if there will be more it will be out of our price range. What options do we have?
🙁
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Interesting forum,
It's so long, I did not read it entirely. But I have something to say. If you are a highly creative individual, this might apply.
I traveled to Venice a few years back and being a fine artist was so excited to go and meet fellow artisans. I dreamed about Venice, I met there a group of men in a small bar where they all hung out at night. My husband found it actually, I fell asleep early he wandered next door and the next morning took me to meet 3 of the fellow gents from the evening before,
A Glass blower, Boat restoration/builder, Frame maker, carver of gold leaf angels cupids and ornate objects placed in palaces and churches, … They were Venetian, and spoke the language, their families had been Venecians for many years.
In the evenings, these men all came to their favorite hang out and complained about the life that had been laid out for them generations ago. They had all been brought up by parents in the "trade" they were in and inherited the business. Complained about learning to glass blow by merely 5 years old with shelves of evidence, which I traveled to an island with him to see, his families history. Master Glass blower and gilt frame maker angel carver complained. Their shops were adorable, the tourists lined up, "they hated their jobs" They were so jealous of us Americans who could just "pick" a career, a new life and go for it, and make lots of money, be free! That was what they thought.
I so wanted to just be the guy in the little gold angel frame shop who worked on ancient frames some from before Christ was born! with built in clients and be surrounded with such history.
I learned a lot on that trip about careers, family, expectations. Finding the perfect happy career, and actually making the money you wish to make consistently, while having the freedom to be creative and just do what you would like to…. is very very rare.
Even Michael Angelo had to paint the church ceiling, I am sure he wished he was doing something else.
I guess the silver lining is do what you love, be it glass blowing, painting or teaching pole, be be aware that you may have to paint something you don't want to, or teach a type of pole class that bores you, or blow the same stupid glass for the mass of tourists waiting for it. Be happy you are in your "field", finding the perfect field and then getting total freedom to do what ever in that field, usually does not happen. Can…. but usually not. Be happy you can support a family while many never figue out how…
I was some how jealous of the fact they had a built in secure job waiting for them for which they had been groomed for, a shop they inherited with clients going back decades. The built in success of that was astonishing, what was surprising was how unhappy they were…. and in America the fear of starting a new business, is so daunting many do not even try, they stay in dead end jobs unhappy. But how unhappy are we all if we reallyl compared all the parts?
It can be scary to dream up a business and then learn to adapt quickly to your environment and clients, and you sometimes end up producing not at all what you dreamt about, but being close is way better than being very far away in an office cubicle when you really wish you could be in water and on sand, or on a pole, or in front of an easel.
That trip taught me much in the phyche of a business woman, the path is complex and you must be aware of it's truth, The truth is you get to do what you love, just may be a variation of it…. If you want security, if you want a stable income with a nice home husband, children, you might have to sacrifice some of it. But be thankful, you get to be in the field.
If you want something special you must be prepared to really sacrifice for it, maybe everyting.
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About Music Licensing
It seems there are 3 agencies, BMI, ASCAP and SESAC.
So far, ASCAP has been contacting many many business's and demanding payment, only to find out BMI ad SESAC follow.
How do you really figure out if you have to pay all three which would not be affordable?
We often have our own students hook up their play list or phone to our system for a variety in Music, what is the rule for this kind of music playing in a pole studio? Especially for parties,
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I should add the apprentice already knows what to teach. She already knows all the levels of a move from beginning to the advanced version. She is not being taught how to teach in these classes. She already knows if there is a climbing workshop she helps beginners with a very basic pull up a basic climb, while the teacher is working with advanced students working on an advanced climb and so on.
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We have a 9 pole room and 6 pole room. We only allow one lady to pole. All Drop in classes. Our classes are Beginner drop in or Intermediate Advanced drop in. We also have a slow season and when we are slow we only use our 9 pole room as the smaller room can not be cooled efficiently in summer ( our slow season) and this gives us several mixed classes.
We have learned some tricks to alleviate this very problem you are talking about. 1st, we always have an approved apprentice who HAS to be our mixed class, ( or the owner of the studio or another teacher) we have two or three of these a week. The apprentice is training to teach, she is there to help the teacher. Teacher instructs her how to work with beginners as teacher works with intermediate students. I am often there floating around watching how class goes. So, we always have 2 instructors. Actually one teacher and one apprentice helper, or me.
To make these classes easier, we make the mixed classes have a plan that can work with beg and adv students, like Pole Boot Camp, a special workshop like inversion workshop or a Cardio boot, or climbing workshop. In boot camp every one is doing the same thing with variations on spins and climbs, class is divided and teacher leads at front of class demonstrating beginning moves while advanced students know how to already advance such moves. Basic climb for beginners, advanced climb for adv students and so on. Not much new is taught in these mixed classes advanced students get taught new moves in their own advanced class.
An inversion workshop will have lots of things related to inverting, ab work, crunches on pole for beginners while intermediates can advance the crunches. Begin with strength training and move on to Beginners lay on floor and bring legs up to pole to learn proper leg placement. Advanced will be inverting from floor or up on the pole. Maybe some hand stand work, but what ever is taught that day depending on who shows up everyone is doing the same type of move at different levels. This way the whole class is doing the same thing.
A climbing workshop is run the same way, we find this works a lot better than everyone doing something different.
We have had to separate our int/adv from beginners. The mixed classes all the time just don't work anymore once you get some advanced students. This can make it hard on a studio having more classes with fewer students in them. But the health of the student, and teacher student relationship works a lot better. They also get more attention with a teacher and owner floating around the back of the studio and one lady per pole.
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I am not selling just the poles at this time. I am selling the running studio.
The person who buys it, can step in and run it.
Thanks
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Yes, I will retire in a few years, We want to move to the tropics! I'ts a fun little business!
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I wonder where you live? An Intro to pole class at $10.00? That is so inexpensive I don't think we could make it with that. Tucson is a low dollar town and people don't want to pay anything here, but that seems to be severely undercutting what would seem necessary to pay rent, overhead and only keep one lady per pole. Unless you had scads of classes all day.
Bachelorette parties are a good idea, they actually do help pay the bills and keep our membership prices low. I have a separate web site to catch Bachelorette Party goers looking for something fun, and try to advertise these parties in so we can let them know we are here. If we did not have these parties, our prices would have to go up.
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Michellejade
Are there any other pole studios in your city? There are not any here in Tucson so I can charge what I want within reason and people will pay it and drive far just to see what pole dancing is all about. Groupons, coupons or discounts do bring in the people who just want something very cheap and usually they don't stay. Since we are the only game in town for the time being, I don't discount unless it is in our very slow season. For us, it is the Holidays, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Xmas, New Years. People are way to busy to come.
We have done groupons in the past and done quite well with them, 1/2 don't come. Out of the the other half few sign up. The only reason I would do groupon is to get money in the bank for the slow time, 1/2 or more don't come, and if I do it during the Holidays up to 3/4 don't come, so I just made money without students being there. This really surprised us, we thought they would come while we were slow. Also I negotiated my rate with groupon way below the 50/50 % they take.
Plenty of people will pay just once to see what pole dance is all about and will never come back because they have to drive too far to continue. If your studio is in a location where there are lots of business's, ladies should be in there after hours. For us we happen to be by lots of hospitals and medical facilities, and the U of A. We don't get ladies who live in the area( they can't afford it) we get those who work there and live on the edge of town.
We found too that if we removed almost all the sexy stuff off our Web Site and put up Boot Camps and Pole Aerobics we were much more successful.
I don't like to do discounts, because it just breads discount type ladies waiting for the discount and they aren't that serious.
If you have another studio or two in your town, then I am sure things would be different….
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There is a great chair routine lesson you can get on Premier Pole for $15.00,
4 weeks, we took the online lesson and did the routine, you can see it here It could give you some ideas
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I would like to add, the pole sleeve we think will be a great addition to our studio or to any home, it certainly makes dangerous moves like an ayesha, not so scary when you are learning and practicing. Using the pole sleeve certainly allows you to stick to the pole better, you can hold poses longer, it makes the pole a whole different piece of work out equipment. I think the strength training you will be able to do with it will be great. Just climbing the pole and holding poses is so much easier, with the struggle to actually hang on to a slippery metal pole gone, your focus can be on your form, and endurance in holding poses and taking your time getting into and out of them.
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Stage poles, or multi piece poles? My studio has all Platinum Stage Poles all Brass, all of them spin, they have static and spin mode, I have standard and skinny 45 mm poles, some one piece poles and some multi piece. If I sell the poles It will be the whole studio, not just some of them.
If you are looking to buy a pole second hand you might try our Tucson Pole Fitness Face book page, We have over 1500 fans and poles are advertised on there and sold…
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Truth is I ordered one, and had a hell of a time getting it on the pole. Burned out two motors on blowers trying, rented equipment to help with getting on my 45 mm pole, got it half way on and could not get it on past that. I got the sleeve on one halve of my pole and could not blow the rest on. ( check directions if you have no idea what I am talking about)
I had to cut off the sleeve which was 1/2 attached and the other flopping in the wind which I could not get on the pole.
They had me cut off the sleeve send back with a diameter drawing of the circumference of the Platinum Stages pole I was attempting to put it on. They sent me a new sleeve.
The new sleeve I ordered will fit the ultra skinny pole Platinum stages has that I have not ordered yet.
While I had 1/2 of the sleeve on the pole all my teachers and some students tried the sleeve and all stated it seemed so "fat" as the sleeve added circumference to the pole
Our advanced students are use to 45 mm brass poles here in Tucson and when you add a sleeve it pushes it up to a standard sized 50 mm pole, for some… hard to do tricks on.
SO I ordered the ultra skinny pole this time to put the sleeve on…. have not received the pole yet, but when we do, will report on how it works.