In Episode 51, we are sharing the basic outline of Your Fun Big Show - our complete recital planning course! This comprehensive course is broken into sections so it’s easier to digest, and today is sort of like the table of contents to give you a sneak peek of what all is included! If you don't have the course, it's a great outline to use for planning your own show!

We also recap our favorite parts Rhythm Story, our show from last season in a Q&A style and tell you all about our favorite concepts/themes in the show and what parts we loved most in our production number and what processes we think are most important to the success of our show (master spreadsheet and recital retreat!).

Here's an outline of what is included in the course: 

SECTION 1: First Steps - this includes theater bookings, determining and announcing dates and theme. choosing characters and beginning the brainstorming process.  

SECTION 2: Creating your show brand, logo, hashtag and all the  graphic design. Then how to use that to brand your whole year. 

SECTION 3: Fall planning and the recital retreat, determining how many shows and which classes are in each show,  themes/concepts for each class, prepping for the retreat, finalizing concepts, creating the master spreadsheet, selecting/editing music, determining props and sets, choosing costumes/backdrops, building schedules, and assigning theme directors. 

SECTION 4: Ordering costumes, creating a lookbook, status updates, starting choreography and building stage sets & props

SECTION 5: Part 1 of Spring Planning Logistics like ensuring all classes are entered into your software, running order of show, naming the routines to match your theme, populating the recital packet, lobby decor, plan crafting, finalizing logos, goody bags, ticket sales logistics, check-in process, dressing rooms, and recital program prep. 

SECTION 6: Spring Planning Part 2: Logistics, flowers, ribbon, tissue, ordering T-shirts, planning truck load and unload, organizing volunteers, staff meals, tech, prop and set sheets, character rehearsals and call sheets, organizing music by show. 

SECTION 7: Tech Week and Dress Rehearsal and all the logistics!

SECTION 8: Communications: website, social media, newsletters, emails, show detail packet, parent meetings, flower sales and staff meetings

SECTION 9: Adding Wow Factors: Recital decor in your studio, characters: costume details, photo shoots, voice overs and meet and greets, craft & props for show., theater lobby set up, posters, banners & step & repeat, photo ops, goody bags, programs, stage lighting and backdrops

SECTION 10: Closing

Click here to read about even more detail of what is included with your purchase. 

We hope this episode helps you understand all that we put into our planning of our show and all the things that we share in YOUR FUN BIG SHOW. If you have not gotten this course yet, purchase it now! 

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In Episode 50, we're sharing FIVE ways to WOW your customers. The wow factor time frame really never goes away, but during the beginning of the season, you want to make sure you are setting a tone for the season and paying attention to serving your customers well!

1. Overall Customer Experience: What does customer experience mean for you and your studio? What do they see and experience when they walk in the door, when they call/email the studio, visit your website, register and what happens after registration (welcome letter/packet). These are all ways to show that you value them, want to welcome them into your dance home. Remember that a great experience usually results in a positive word of mouth advertising for your studio!
   
   
2. Social Media:  Take advantage of increased engagement at the beginning of the season by posting lots of different aspects of your studio from faculty to preschool, teen classes, advanced dancers. A story will SELL, a fact will TELL:  Tell a story on social media vs. just providing the facts. Make sure everyone knows where to find you on your platform of choice. Communicate hashtags and encourage sharing. Engage with your followers! REELS ARE THE THING. Remember to do Studio Tours, Weekly Recaps, Announcement videos!
   
   
3. Open House and/or being present in your lobby during the first couple weeks of classes. If you teach a lot of classes, maybe have an ambassador do this for you. Someone cheerful to greet all your dancers and parents. Someone who genuinely enjoys talking with people and shares your love for the studio.
   
   
4. Create a fun wall so every dancer & mom or dad has a reason to take a photo and share it on social media. This is building your community and another way to help them feel a part of it. See episode 49! 
   
   
5. WOW Cards - From big milestones to small victories, who doesn't love to celebrate a WOW moment in dance class?! Hand out these tiny compliments to your dancers when they achieve their goals and make their day! We have three different versions - Sweet Celebrations, High Fives and Oh Yeahs,  Goal Getters that each include 500 business card sized WOW Cards, 25 each of 20 different fun + fancy designs! Each card has a small area for you to write a short message, sign your name or write the dancer's name on it! 

Keep them by the sound system in each studio and encourage our teachers to use them as often as it makes sense, whether that's once per week or a few times per year! Occasionally you may want to give the entire class a WOW card for working as a team, or everyone executing a certain step, or remembering choreography or just having a great attitude in class! Check out #wowcarded on Instagram to see how so many studios are WOWing their students! 

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In Episode 49, we are sharing how we created our #rhythmfunwall for our Open House and Welcome Back Party! We share all our crafty ways and walk through all the steps! We also suggest checking out Episode 9 Five Ways to Up Your Crafting Game as we share many of the ways that we create and craft our fun! 

We also share tips on how you can create a fun wall in your studio to build engagement and a fun energy throughout your studio!  Add some fun and color to your walls with a FUN wall!

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In episode 48, we're telling you all about our Staff Kick-Off event! This is something we do every year and sometimes it's a few hours with a fun dinner and sometimes it lasts 2 days! 

We are celebrating our 30th season this year, so we wanted to do something extra special. Plus, our staff expanded quite a bit, so we needed to do more!

We started with our theme: Rhythm BLOOM Symposyium and went full out from there! We rented a venue, had it catered, held a fun + fancy photo shoot and decorated it super cute! The set up was a little hectic even though we did so much pre-planning and pre-crafting, but it ended up looking super cute! 

We did a 30-year celebration staff photo shoot where everyone got new headshots and also some fun shots, lots of group shots and of course, confetti shots! We helped the staff style their outfits beforehand with things from our personal closets and our confetti closet! 

We had various stations around the rooms including an apothecary where they could build their own bags with fun items, drinks/coffee station, vision boards, eating tables, round tables for meeting, creative books, and a seminar room set up classroom style with a large TV for showing our presentations. 

We had assigned seating with cute tent cards and fun, colorful tablecloths. Everyone received folders, notebooks, snacks and a few other fun items at their place setting. 

On day 1, after the photo shoot, we covered our mission, vision and values, discussed goals for the season, had guest speakers Zoom into the meeting and reviewed our staff expectations.  That evening, we had a fun catered dinner and stayed at a nearby hotel to come back early the next morning.  

On day 2, we held roundtables where teachers who teach the same style discuss curriculum, goals, and share ideas. There is a designated leader of each group who maintains a Google doc to capture the discussions. We also held an Admin roundtable to discuss new systems we want to implement this season.  Then, we continued our seminar and finished our staff expectations. After a catered lunch, we finished with a wrap-up with everyone contributing their thoughts on how to make the year best it can be!

It was such a cohesive event, and our best staff kick off to date! Check out our Reel on Instagram from the event! And, go to our Highlights to see all the Insta Stories from this super fun + fancy event!

We hope you found some inspiration in this episode! Also, if you would like us to speak to your studio at a staff event, we are open to that! We really enjoyed having that opportunity for our team at our kick off! It made it interesting and was helpful to get other professional perspectives!

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Hello friends! We are back! In this episode, we are doing a quick recap of all that has happened over the past 4 months! We are excited to be back! Here are the basics of what went on over the summer and where we are now...

Fall Registration 

Expanded - Two Locations 

Dress Rehearsals 

Company Concert

Company Party

Year-End Shows

We took a long break...

The Dance Awards

Lots of Camp Confettis & Company Intensives

Member Rally with MTJGD

Staff Kick-Off

Prepping Studios (2 locations) 

Open House - both locations

Back to Dance - Week One - Check!

Gearing up for our year-end shows! 

Things are moving quickly!! 

If you heard something we just mentioned that you want to hear more about, let us know and we will dive in deeper on that topic in an upcoming episode!

Thanks for listening! 

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In episode 46, we're sharing 5 fun and easy ideas for photo shoots that you can use for social media, promotions, programs, emails and more! 

1. White Wall - Outdoors  - A white background always brightens up photos! We just did this with our graduating seniors to create some cohesive photos to use on social media, our year-end show programs and also to gift to them as a graduation gift! We found a closed grocery store with a simple, bright white brick wall! We spent about 10 minutes on each dancer, got a few action shots and a headshot. The pictures look awesome, and we were able to create a cohesive, fun page in our program and also a fun poster of our grads! You could do this in any situation you needed some promo photos for! Check out our pics! 
   
   
2. Seamless roll of photo paper: This simple option can be set up inside or outside in any space available to you.  Order online or buy locally from a photography supply store. If you don’t have tripods or the equipment to hang it in the middle of a room, you can simply tape it to a flat wall. You can shoot them plain or add in a few simple props. 
   
   
3. Take a photo anywhere that has good lighting and remove the background! Apps like Pic Collage and Canva make this so easy. We highly recommend the pro version and the team option! Both of these have a background remover where you can remove the background of any photo and put it on a plain background or a fun print background. 
   
   
4. Murals: This is a fun way to capture photos on a fun and colorful background requiring no effort other than finding the location. Almost every city now has painted murals and if you haven't seen them in person, you can likely find them by just googling “fun mural walls” in whatever city or town you live in. We recommend checking them out ahead of time to make sure the space is conducive to taking photos. Atlanta has quite a few mural walls and some of them are more recognizable than others.  We have one that’s been around for many years, and it’s painted on the back side of a grocery store. It’s a giant, fun disco ball with a John Travolta-ish disco dancing guy on it, and it’s just so colorful. It’s right up our alley! We took our cast of characters last year on a Sunday morning really early to be sure we didn’t run into too many cars in the parking lot and it was a huge success. The key here is simple and quick because other than googling and taking a quick drive to check it out, you don’t have to set anything up. You just show up and snap your fun photos!
   
   
5. Confetti Pic! The final easy photo shoot idea is launch some confetti around a dancer or group of dancers! Use your smartphone or a camera and snap as many times as you can as you launch the confetti. Tell the dancers to smile and jump around, and it is SO easy to get a cute photo! This always brings out those authentic smiles too! This is also a great video moment too to use for a reel!! 

We hope this inspires you to snap some fun photos! Try to do a quick photo shoot soon and tag us or let us know how it goes! We will be watching for those on instagram! 

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In this episode, Shelley Marshall, Queen of all things Confetti joins Becca and Dani and they all talk about what has been happening this week (hello, Texas!) and we do a fun "Confetti Cannon"! 

Our "Confetti Cannons" consist of 15 questions that we take turns drawing from a hat and answering on the spot! It is a different format for us and one that we hope you will find fun, informative and entertaining! We cover several fun topics from Rhythm Dance Center to Creativity to Camp Confetti! So, check it out and let us know what you think! 

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In episode 44, we're welcoming back our Rhythm Summer Camp Director, Emily Salerno! She first joined us on Episode 18 to talk about her role as Rhythm Summer Camp Director and all the things she does to help plan our summers to be amazing! Today, we 're chatting more specifically about Camp Confetti and how she preps and makes those camps happen successfully at Rhythm!

What's your favorite things about Camp Confetti and how it makes rhythm summers more efficient and fun? It can be dull doing the same princess or beach camp each year. Camp Confetti has creative, over-the-top themes that are fully planned out and does the work for you!

What is your general timeline for preparing for Camp Confetti? 

• Staffing: Send availability form mid-February and secure by Spring Break. 
• Pre-Summer Meetings: Meetings in April for each specific camp 
• Craft Shopping: Do big run in June to get majority of supplies

How do you prep each week for a Camp Confetti? Review camp print out again; Create craft and music list; edit music if needed; Final craft run for specific camp; Friday before camp begins on Monday: break down previous week's camp, decorate for next week's and prep the first day's craft. 

Camp Confetti Week: How does it run for teachers vs. camp director? Elementary camps are larger for us, we divide into 3 groups and each one takes a jazz, hip hop and across the floor class with different teachers. Focus on choreo early in the week and weave dance games and activities in between. 

Top 3 Camp Confettis we've done at Rhythm? Dance PAWty with My Pet, Donut Spytacular and Brightfeather Academy of Magic 

New themes you're most excited about? Confetti Clue Crew: Mystery at the TOYriffic Museum of Fun

Camp Confetti hacks or must-do-tips? 1: Cricut for crafts! 2: Use your assistants 3: Invitation crafts - print the invitations on Avery labels so kids can stick it on instead of gluing. 4 : Use 567cre8 Cards: elementary version and teen version. 

Final thought to help studio owners navigate Camp Confetti and make summers better? Have fun! Remember many dancers are trying out your studio for the first time - keep them engaged and make them want to come back!

Check out all our Camp Confetti Themes! 

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In episode 43, we're sharing all details of our annual Performing Company Party:  planning, location, food, decor, awards, senior speeches and more! This event celebrates all our Performing Companies and graduating seniors and is one of our favorite things we do and our dancers love it too!

PLANNING: The very first thing we do is secure a venue. Because our party involves all of our companies combined, we need a place that can handle about 400 guests. Once the venue is confirmed, we meet with a caterer and get all the food squared away. For us, this is a full dinner and desserts, so it’s pretty full out. We’ve been working with the same caterer for several years now, so we have a system and they know what we like and don’t like. You may be thinking, how in the world do they afford this? I will admit, it is a pretty big investment for us and Rhythm does pay for a large majority of the party, but we do charge a fee per person who attends and that usually covers most, if not all of the food and catering, which is a big help. Keep in mind, a party can be done at any budget and scale. This is just something we started several years ago and it’s become a tradition for us, our dancers and their families. We also select table cloths and napkins through our caterer and that’s when we really start envisioning what we want the space to look like for the night of the event.

Decor: We go VERY full out but we re-use everything for our show. We have colorful table linens and create our own centerpieces (~6 versions) inspired by the characters and main aspects of our show. We also use tons of balloons, create a step and repeat, multiple photo op areas and lots of over the top fun decor!

Event: It takes many people to load/unload the truck and set up! We meet at the venue and centerpieces make their way to all the tables, balloons are blown up and distributed throughout, dessert tables are created, and we don’t stop until it’s done! We have about 5 hours to make it and it is a marathon. But, when it’s done, it feels so special and we just know the kids are going to love it when they walk in.

Presentations & Awards: Once everyone arrives, mingles and takes a ton of photos, they take their seats and we begin presentations and dinner.  We create personalized company awards for each and every dancer by creating personalized bag tags. We keep with the theme of our show and come up with fun awards names to coordinate with the characters of the show. It’s super fun and really personalized to each dancer. In addition, we give each of them a company t-shirt. It’s always so fun seeing so many kids sporting their new shirts! We also award scholarships to select dancers for their hard work and accomplishments. 

Senior Speeches: We have our graduating seniors record speeches where they share what their experience at Rhythm has meant to them, thank their teachers and parents. It's their big finish to their Rhythm career! They send 50-60 photos that we show on a big screen while playing their speech. We have a lot of Seniors so we always have to get started on these early! 

We hope this behind the scenes look at our company inspires you to start a tradition of your own, or if you already have one, maybe we sparked an idea that you can incorporate into what you’re already doing. It really is such a fun event that our kids look forward to all year long!

Camp Confetti of the Week -

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In Episode 42, we're covering our process for our performing company auditions. Every studio has their own process for selecting their performing or competing companies. What works for one may not work for another. At Rhythm, we’ve always held auditions for our companies and we have a formula that really works for us. That being said, we tweak a few things each year to try and make the process as efficient as possible. 

Company Director Meeting: This initial meeting is to discuss what went well, what changes we want to make and then we work on a comprehensive audition packet that is very specific to what we do! We make updates to each company, set dates for all the auditions, create audition forms, update pricing, etc. We use a google form for dancer audition forms and that is filtered right into a spreadsheet which makes organizing all the things pretty easy! We usually have over 300 dancers audition so organization is key! 

Tip: We give all existing company dancers who submit their forms prior to spring break (which is early!) a free summer open class. In addition, the first 3 dancers from each company to fill out the form earn a quick photo shoot and dancer feature that we used to promote auditions with on social media!

Informational Packet & Parent Meetings: Before auditions begin, we are very upfront, clear and honest with as much information pertaining to our performing companies as we can. Of course, the packet has the dates and times of the auditions, but we also talk about what it means to be a part of our company, the weekly schedules & rehearsals, performance and competition schedule, approximate cost, our expectations from a commitment, conduct and ethics standpoint. We hold mandatory parent meetings to go through all the details of each of our different companies so parents to hear the details directly from us and can ask any questions. 

Company Format: We cast for four different levels for a total of 11 Performing Companies. Mini Stars - ages 5-8; Connection - ages 8-18: Mini, Junior, Teen, Senior; Fusion - ages 12-18: Teen and Senior; Edge - our most advanced level ages 8 - 18: Mini, Junior, Teen, Senior

Preliminary Audition: Ballet and Jazz, then callbacks (via posting their # on website) for Hip Hop, Tap and Contemporary.  After the call backs we post the final results on the website (again using #s only) and also send out detailed emails with an invitation to join our company or to let them know that we did not feel they were ready for company. All dancers get an email no matter what! We always try to provide feedback in those emails and even set up meetings if needed to help the dancers understand what they may need to work on in order to reach their goals. 

We hope you’ve found our process to be informative and helpful in some way when you start planning your company auditions or selections for the new season. 

Camp Confetti of the Week: Marquee Mixup! Elementary camp that focuses on musical theater and jazz movement. 

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