2024 Concert Series: All Things Costumes

Hello, friends. I'm Amanda Barr.

And I'm Rebecca Lou Brennan. And welcome to Dance Principals United, the podcast.

Together, we are passionate about helping studio owners with the business of running their studio.

Join us as we talk everything from marketing systems, studio culture, motherhood, life, and everything in between.

This is the Dance Principles United podcast. Hey, friends, and welcome to the Dance Principals United Podcast. Bec, the birthday girl, Lou Brennan. How you doing, babe?

I'm super amazing. It is week one back. I did just have my birthday, which was so fun. And week one back at the studio of term four, all the craziness.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. And you have opened a new premises to try and stop the overflowing. A little bit of. If you're watching us on YouTube, you can see that Beck is currently spreading her children out across multiple studios. So good. Is it going well?

It is like, it's so much better, obviously, at the old studio and not so crazy. But the logistics of getting teachers across because they're about six minutes apart, it's going to be fine next year because we've got the new timetable and we can logistically do that. But right now, logistically doing that is a little bit crazy. But.

And the parking on it, it takes you longer than you expected for them to park, right?

Actually, the parking's fine. This is a massive car park. Like I'm talking maybe two or 300 car spaces. Yeah. Where we are. And it's very busy through the day, but of an afternoon is completely bare because all of those businesses are closed. So that's fine. It's more just the logistics of that teacher finishes there at 6:15 and also starts there at 6:15 that.

That doesn't work.

So it's that craziness. But other than that, it's. Everyone loves it. It's so bougie. You'll love it when you see it.

I can't wait to come for a visit. Hey, Term four means concert time. So we thought we'd bring you this little series on some of our best concert tips. I love concert time. It's my favorite time of the year. I love turn four. I love the adrenaline. I love the excitement of all the. Of all of the shows and all of that. Do you love it, too?

I do. I'm. I have nine concerts this term, which is a lot. And I feel like there's adrenaline and there's anxiety. No, I'm super excited. It's going to be amazing. There's a lot happening in our.

Yeah. And we have different venues as well, which is like managing different venues is a lot.

And different themes almost like. So we've got, you know, Circus Acro concert coming up, which normally we do a lot earlier, but because I've got brand new Circus Acro teachers this year, I wanted to give them that little bit extra time. We've got musical concerts, preschool troop. There's a lot.

Absolutely. Like, I used to run seven, but they'd all be at the same venue and all run pretty much the same way. Whereas yours are all very different, kind of like styles of shows and different. Yeah.

Stuff. All different weekends and it's a lot. Yeah.

Well, that's exciting, though.

I know.

Well, good thing we're talking about all our best concert tips.

We are, absolutely. And we're super excited to start with you guys on costuming. Now, I don't know if you've noticed this, Amanda, but it is such a big topic on all the pages at the moment of where are people sourcing costumes, how expensive costumes are, how much people are paying for shipping. It's a whole thing, right?

Absolutely, Absolutely. And I think it's important to really, you know, make sure you know what you're doing for your costumes. It's so hard because there are only limited suppliers. And as much as we'd like to go, oh, and this supplier and this supplier and this supplier and this supply, like, unfortunately, that's not always the way. But I know, like, coming to Expo is a great way to find new suppliers. Right. Bec.

You know what, I know we run Expo, but I have to say Expo has been a game changer for me and my staff with costuming because we've probably found at least least five or six suppliers that I had no idea existed. Quite a few of them are actually Australian suppliers, which means your shipping is a lot less. And we've got heaps of costumes from them this year and they've been amazing to deal with. And I think quite often, as you own, as we think there's only two or three suppliers because that's the people that we've used our whole life. So therefore there can't be any more than that. And there's so many more than what we realized. That's what I realized from Expo anyway.

Yeah, definitely. And I think it's, you know, it's so great to kind of sometimes spread yourself. I know sometimes in ease it's easy to order just from one costume company, but I did like to spread it a little bit as well. Especially if you're trying new suppliers and stuff just so that you can like see the quality of them, see how they are, I don't know, spread it out a little bit. Do you do that or do you just kind of like just do one or two big companies?

No, we totally spread it out. And I think as well what I loved about Expo, because I don't know about you, Amanda, but if it's a crappy website, I think that the quality of the costume is going to be crappy. And then when I went to Expo and looked at the actual costumes, I was like, oh, no, this is actually really nice. They just don't have great photos on their website. And so I think like, that as well has been a game changer of actually seeing things in person and seeing what that quality is like. But yeah, no, we've used heaps of different suppliers this year. There's probably a couple that I go main to. But yeah, trying out lots of different things and we've been really, really happy with all of them.

Awesome. All right, let's talk about how we decide the pricing for costumes and the profits for costumes. Because that's a really important thing that we've got to decide as a business, rather than just plucking this number out of our head, which we have seen done before, it's really important that you really are maximizing your profits for your costumes because you deserve that profit. Right. You know, if you were in working in any retail store, they put, you know, at least 100% markup on everything. They double the price of what they pay for it in. Now, I would love to sit here and say you should be putting 100% markup on your costumes, but that's not the reality. And I'm not going to say that because no one would actually do it. And it's just. It's just too high. Right. However, you should be maximizing your profit the most that you can. Right?

Yes. And I think we forget how much time and effort goes into costumes. Like, you know, choosing the costumes, going back and forth with teachers, that takes so long sometimes, especially if they're a picky teacher that has a certain vision in their head. Then sizing the children, then going on and ordering, then finding out jokes. We don't have enough of that size in that costume anyway. So then going back to the, like, that is so much time. Then getting the costumes, unpacking the costumes, bagging tag, like all of that is time. So calculating that for a starter and making sure that you're getting paid for that if it's you doing it or if it's like me, I'm lucky enough to have a staff member who does that, but I have to cover that staff member's wage. It's silly for me to have that staff member doing it. I'm paying them, but I'm not putting any extra money on the costumes. And then also, you are a business, therefore you should be making a profit off each costume as well. So nutting all that out is there's a lot of moving parts there, and being educated enough on those moving parts is the key.

Absolutely. And I think the education part is the key. And knowing your numbers. So, you know, for me, I would always do a spreadsheet where I would have everything calculated. So, for example, if you're ordering something from the states, you know, having it written US Dollars, then what the exchange rate is on the day that you purchased it. So change to Australian dollars what the shipping is if you're going to get a customs charge for it as well. Also then going, okay, So I bought 15 costumes, but I'm only using 12 of them because three are spares. So when I work out my cost price, I actually need to work it out by, you know, divide it by 12, not by 5. 15 in that example, because those kids should be paying for the spares, because that's what has to happen. Right? So therefore, you then get your cost price and then deciding what your sale price is, really making sure you know those numbers. I think so often we're like, oh, and I'll just like, throw on $5 for, you know, shipping, or it'll be this without actually calculating it. So it's really important you have that. And then looking at the potential profit, I think, you know, adding that spreadsheet up and going, okay, so If I charge $100 for this costume, my profit will be X amount. What if I charge $110, what will my profit be? And then doing that for every single class, so then you can see your total at the bottom, I think is really, really important.

Also remembering, if you're charging $110, $10 of that is GST and not actually yours. I've made that mistake so much. I've been like, okay, the costume's $88. I'm gonna charge $110, and then I'm making a $22 profit. No, you're making a $12 profit, because $10 of that is just like. You know what I mean? Like, knowing that as well is important.

Absolutely. Hey, we have a great spreadsheet that does all of that. So if you would like a copy of the spreadsheet, either DM us on Instagram or comment below with the word costume. Costume. I'm just trying to think what the word is, the word costume. And we'll send you that spreadsheet so that you can use it as well because it's all laid out with all the, you know, calculations and stuff done. So that will help. If you use that word costume, just put it into the DMS and it will come up for you. And that might really, really help. So, Beck, when you have parents come to you and say, hey, I got on the Whatever Brands website and saw their prices, they're only charging $70. Why are you charging me 110? What's your answer?

Yep, I love this. And I've had this happen so many times, even on sites where it's only for studio owners because they're school teachers and so they also have those logins. And so I literally say to them, I have to pay someone, be it myself or someone else, to choose the costumes, to put those costumes onto Shopify, which is the shop that we use for it, to then order those costumes, to size the children, to then bring those costumes in, to unpack the boxes, to steam the costumes, to pack the costumes into beautiful bags and to put them out to the parents. And I'm a business, and businesses need to make profit off all of those things. And that's literally what I say. I'm not scared to say that. And I've taught my staff to not be scared to say that. And. And not one parent ever has then said to me, that's disgraceful. They're all like, oh, I never really thought of it in that way. Which is true.

Say it with kindness. Yeah, absolutely. Without being rude. You say it with kindness, but with an education. Because they don't go to Kmart and go, hey, I got on Alibaba and saw that you're getting this for, like, it's just. It is what it is, right? Like, that's how much things cost. So I think if you educate the parents around it, that's so important. But I think the point is, is that you're brave.

Oh, and I didn't used to be, you know, and I used to really think, oh, what if they, you know, see that? And Lala and I used to try and please everyone. But the thing is. And what I think we all need to realize is people who don't own businesses never think of that stuff. And, you know, I've said this so many times, but I know that Tim, for example, had no idea of the costs of just the small things sometimes inside your business that you know you've got to pay for this or that or. Whenever he complains about pricing of anything, Amanda, like the price of a coffee, I'm like, well, they've got to pay for this and that and the electricity and their waitress and you know, when they can't see that bigger picture because they just work for someone else and they've never had to pay all of those costs. So I think educating them on that is definitely the key.

Absolutely. So please make sure you're making good money out of your costumes. You deserve it, you know, in the very least, you know, how many hours do you spend like doing all that for costumes? For most of us it would be a hundred plus hours, like without a doubt on costuming. And it's important that you are paid for that time. If you think about that, if it's a hundred plus hours, you know, that's a good three weeks worth of full time work that you should be at least covering, if not more. So please make sure you are doing that. That is our like public service announcement of the data studio owners, right?

Absolutely. We want you guys to be making the money you deserve for the incredible hard work that you're doing.

Absolutely, absolutely. So let's talk about. We had a question today in one of our paid groups around the presentation of costumes, how you hand it out, all of that kind of stuff. Do you want to chat on that a bit, Beck? How do you hand them out at pause?

Yeah, look, I think this is really important and I think when you are putting prices up there for costumes, the way that you present it can make a big difference. We get really nice costume bags that have, you know, the little window with the child's name on it and look quite bougie. We have a bag, like a little printed thing on the front of it that's just got like the exact way their hair should be. If they need stockings, which we would include in the costume, you know what their makeup, if you're making them wear makeup or that they don't need makeup, whatever that might be. Just every little detail on that that the parent needs so that they know exactly what their child should look like on the day. We always have a picture of the child in a costume so they know, you know, it's so confusing for parents. It's like I always talk about the stockings on the inside of a leotard as opposed to on the outside. Like that is so Confusing to any par. Um, and just a little picture for them for reference I think is really, really helpful. I know you used to do this a lot at your studio as well and make it look so pretty and beautiful. It's important, right?

Absolutely. I also think a QR code's really important on that. On the front of that as well is a QR code, you know, to your concert information, for example, or whatever it is we do that as well is. Yeah. Having that QR code on the front. Do not do that.

I don't think so. And I don't know why we wouldn't do it. We wouldn't do it for our troop kids obviously. And that's the costumes we've handed out so far. But for our preschool that's a no brainer. I'm not sure if we did or didn't to be honest, but I'm definitely doing it this year. That's a great idea.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I wanted just to jump on that presentation thing and have a chat about like we've all, you know, purchased from dodgy Chinese brands where you know, the she in packaging comes and it's. It looks gross and the clothes are crushed or you know, they're just in that plastic thing and how much different experience to that is. If you go into a nice store where they have the really nice paper bags, they fold it in tissue paper, it's steamed for you, it's pressed or even hanging in a suit bag. You know the feeling we have about those clothes. And even though often she and probably isn't a good example, but other brands that you buy it from in those plastic bags, you know, quite often the clothes are actually exactly the same. Right. But it has to do with the presentation of the clothes that changes our perceived value. So your parents have that exact same thing. So really make sure that you are taking things out of bags, that you are hanging them up if you can, presenting them nicely, you know, whatever it is, making it look really lovely to present it to parents will show more value in it.

Do you know it's interesting little side story about that. Amanda, I haven't told you this so I love Chic and I know you love the shop Chic as well. And the chic in Penrith has started putting the clothes up without steaming them and it makes those clothes look so cheap and nasty that I won't go in there and purchase clothes anymore. Isn't that interesting?

They so like so interesting. I actually. So I was in chic the other day and I noticed that something Wasn't steamed as well. And I thought, oh, they just hadn't got around to steaming it.

But, like, I wonder if it's a thing. I don't know. But I think that that devalues that brand in my eyes because I would never, ever try something on that wasn't steamed. And it actually makes me walk out of the shop because I'm like, oh, this is getting really cheap, this brand. Now. I hate it. But it's not. It's just they haven't bothered to present it nightly. But see how that, like, we put a lot of time into steaming all of the things for our students and making sure that everything has no creases, that it's super immaculate. We fluff the tutu skirts up. Like, we put a lot of time and effort into that for that reason. Because if it's themed and presented beautifully, it looks and feels more expensive.

Absolutely. I love that so much. So, so important. So make sure you're presenting them how early before shows do you hand them out, Becky?

Yeah, like two or three weeks.

Yeah. Okay. I think that's a decent amount of time. You don't want to do it too late because if you do it the week before, like, what if the kid's away? Right. Then that makes it really, really hard. But you also don't want to do it too early either. I love the tip that you gave today around the week that tickets go on sale. I think that's really clever if you can time things like that. So if your tickets go on sale, you know, sending the cons that the costumes home that week, so everyone's excited about it. You could also include a little, you know, QR code to the ticket website link or a little reminder that tickets are going out or whatever that is. I think that's super clever.

And because, like, I guarantee that the kid's going to get home and want to try it on, and then parents will say to the grandparents, oh, look how cute they are in their costume.

Yep. All of that. Or the week before, so that it's ready before concert tickets go on sale or whatever. I think that's a really clever idea.

Yay.

Absolutely. Okay. Last thing we're going to talk about in terms of costumes to wrap up our costume tips is backstage, how you handle costumes. Different ways you do it. You and I do this a little bit differently. So why don't you chat about how you run costumes backstage at pause and how you organize it all in the concert craziness?

Yep, for sure. So I'll chat preschool and then main school, so preschool, we only do one costume. And our kids always arrive in their costume with their tap shoes on because we hate putting the tap shoes on most. And we collect all their other shoes the week before. We put them in buckets and then their buckets are set up. And then as they come off stage, say Wednesday, tap comes off, ready to put their jazz shoes on. They all sit down, they put their jazz shoes on, and off they go. So that's pretty simple. And we keep it super simple so that we can focus more on the fun of backstage and all of that sort of stuff.

I ask in that. So they've given you all their jazz shoes, do you put them in Ziploc bags? Like, what do you do? Ziplocs with their names on them. And you write them all on and they're just in like a tub with their class name on it.

Correct. So they have a band on their wrist with their name on it. So that because if helpers, they don't normally tell them their names, especially two year olds, then we have say their jazz shoes. Shoes will be in the Ziploc bag. We take their tap shoes off, we put their jazz shoes on, we put their tap shoes in the Ziploc bag, zip it up and put it back in the box. So.

And then they collect one for one.

Correct. And then they collect their shoes the week after. So the shoes they have on last. Yep. So the shoes they have on last are the shoes that they go home in. So let's say their last thing is ballet. They go home in their ballet shoes. And then the week after they collect all of their shoes from the studio.

Do you have a lot of people that don't pick up their shoes?

Yes.

Yes.

I can't fathom it. We, we have to text so many of them and say, don't forget to pick your child's shoes up.

Yeah, I'd forget. That would be me.

But like they're in the studio the next week doing dance. Anyway, that's the part that.

Anyway, okay, talk about main concert. What do you do for that? How's that different?

Yep. So this is my troop concert, just to be clear. So with troop, we collect all of our sixes and eights costumes because they've already had them the whole year, the week before. And we set them up in individual classes on racks and we take them to the concert. So they all wear their first costume to the concert. Everything else is on an individual rack. Same thing. Thing. So we're very big with our critical paths with this every rack would have on the front of it. Exactly. Pretty much what would be on the front of those costume bags when it went home with parents. So exactly how the costume needs to look, whether a bow needs to be cross pinned in, you know, whether the.

Headpiece sits on, like all of that kind of stuff.

Yeah, exactly. So very detailed for those changes. Who are doing it then. Also we have a list of kids who need to get into the next costume. And let's say it's jazz into musical theater, for example, and they need their jazz shoes. But twice we will have on the front of that rack, these children get into musical theater, please take their jazz shoes and put them in the bag in their musical theater. So we would then have a Ziploc bag on the front of their musical theater that they can slot the jazz shoes in. Because that is, I think backstage the hardest thing is when kids lose shoes. Like, how many times have you been there when the kids are like, I can't find my jazz shoe and then everyone's running around looking for their jazz shoe and then it's too late and they have to go on stage without a jazz shoe because they've lost it. So. So we're really, really big on that and making sure that all of those things are very clear to the changes so that they know exactly where things.

Happen and anyone knows where to find it. Right, Correct. And that it's super clear that it's not like, oh, the changer decided to put all the shoes this way. And I hate that when check like when you've had. Look, this used to happen years ago, but some changes were like trying to be organized and do their system. But then someone else didn't know their system and all that kind of stuff. So you have to decide the system and tell everyone that's what's how it's running, right?

Yes. And not on the day. I can't stress that enough that people like put these systems together and then tell people. Which I've made this mistake myself. That's why I can say it. But they tell people the morning of the concert and then expect them to know and remember. It's too hard. Like you need to go through. We do multiple times. Yeah. We do a zoom with our people and we really talk it through bit.

By bit by bit and show them and. And have it there as a physical thing. I think that makes such a difference. Right?

Absolutely.

What's your backstage. Backstage tips now? We did higher costumes, so it's a little bit different. However we. So we would Take every single costume to the concert. So, yeah, like two trucks worth of costumes to the concert. A lot of costumes. Um, what I would do though, in terms of organization is it wasn't with the class group. It was with their. What we would call their fruit group, color group, whatever it is. Right. Like it's a group of kids that are together and obviously they don't all do the exact same amount like classes. We'd obviously try to put, you know, kids that do a lot of similar classes together, but it was very much organized like that. Okay, so in this group of 20 kids, 10 of them have jazz first and that was lined up, ready. Then three of them then change into the tap, but the other six of them change into hip hop. Then this one, then this one, then this one. So very, very organized that way. Rather than them going to find different costumes from different rooms. I did that once. That was a bad choice. A long time ago. So have that all very organized. The same thing with shoes as you do. We actually didn't allow kids to bring in bags into the concert. They had to come in their finale costume ready because we couldn't. I would love to do first costume, but that didn't work for us. So they would come in their finale costume with their shoes that they were wearing. The further finale, which we suggested jazz, ballet, or hip hop shoes. So that they want to bring the least amount of things in. In a snap lock bag. They had their name and their shoe with their other shoes if they needed them, or another pair of tights if they needed them. And a water bottle. That was it. So all the shoes would sit into a shoe tub for their group. All the water bottles in a water bottle tub for their group. Same thing. You know, shoes come off, they go straight back in the bag. There's no, like shoes on the floor. There's no craziness. There's none of that. It was very, very clear where it had to be. And I think it makes a difference when kids don't have their bags, because that's the problem, right? When there's heaps of kids bags and things are hiding under someone's bag. And you know, all of that something.

That we did last year that we've never done before, but my. One of my teachers came up with it. It was really cool. We had a wash basket for every child with their name on it. And as they. Yeah, as they took their costume off. So say they take their jazz costume off, they just chuck it in the wash basket. And then they take their wash basket over to the next costume or the next station. And that way at the end of the night, parents aren't running to different racks trying to find their costumes. Everything's just in their wash basket.

Amazing. Yeah, we did that for our comp classes. We did. They had to bring like clear plastic boxes, you know, like clear plastic tubs. That's the only. They weren't allowed to bring a bag. If they had things to bring, it had to come in a clear plastic tub with their name. The same thing. Because then I find that it's just all in there and it's not all spread out everywhere and I feel like that's easier. Same as wash baskets, right?

Yeah. And we just. Well, we bought the wash baskets for them and we just chucked their name on it and perfect them all around the room and yeah, off they went. So it was.

It was great.

Worked really well.

So, so good. I think, you know, it doesn't actually matter sometimes what the process is always as long as it's a very well designed process with no holes and everybody knows what it is. I think that's the biggest key, but. Awesome. Hope you've loved our chat about costumes today. We love chatting all things concert. This is the first of our concert series. So make sure you jump back next week and give us a follow on Instagram. Tell us if you got any good tips from this. We'd love to hear from you.

Right, absolutely. And if you would like to join Tribe or sgc, we would love to hear from you. We just did a concert system call in Tribe. That was super awesome. So let us know if you'd like to join and we can send you all the info. Thanks, everyone.

Thanks, friends.

Bye.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dance Principles United podcast. If you'd love to learn more from us, we have a special offer just for our podcast listeners. Go to the link in the show notes right now to get two weeks free in Dance Principles United. Tribe, we would love to see you there.