Epic Easter Events in your Dance Studio

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. Hi, friends, and welcome to the Dance Principals United Podcast. Lovely Bec. How are you, my love?

So amazing. Super excited to be here. I feel like it's a good week. Like, everything's just not as crazy in the studio, so I feel, like, really focused on expo and all the things and yeah, it's awesome.

So, so exciting. Expo's coming up so quickly. Oh, my gosh. I'm so excited that it is going to be out of control. And Beck and I were just talking before we jumped on it looks like we're going to sell out tickets, which is so exc. We cannot wait for an incredible event and hope meet some of our lovely podcast listeners there. Right?

Yeah. I loved that last year when people were coming up to us, Amanda, and they were like, oh, I love the podcast. And, yeah, that was so lovely.

It was so nice. It was so, so lovely. And I'm so glad that you guys have gotten some value out of our podcast. Drop us a message, let us know if you are a podcast listener that's coming along to the expo. We would love to meet you. Yeah, definitely send us a DM on Instagram or Facebook or, you know, all the places. But today we are here to talk about Easter celebrations, because Easter is like, oh, my God, so close this year.

So close. It's such a weird time of year this year, but it is super close. And I know my team at the studio has been working very hard on all the things, so I love Easter. I think it's a great time to connect with the families at your studio. I think it's a really great time to make the kids feel special. I'm. I'm all about it.

I love Easter because I feel like it's the holiday that falls at a really good enrollment time for us as studio owners. You know, like, we can make a big deal out of Christmas, but Christmas kind of gets. And of course, we do, like, right, we have Santa visits at our studio. We do all the things, but Christmas gets lost in the noise, number one, because it's just crazy time of the year. People aren't really looking for new activities as such. By the time it's Christmas week, you'd hope that most of them have booked it earlier than that same with Halloween or something like that. Whilst it's a great community building event, it's less of an enrollment incentive. It's. It's that hard. Yes. We should be enrolling kids all times of the year, don't get me wrong. But it's getting towards the pointy end of the year, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. I've actually never thought about it like that, to be honest with you.

Yeah, see, that's why I always love Easter, because I really feel like if there's any time you're going to push your enrollments around a holiday event, Easter's the time. Because we know so many people have, like, finished up their summer sports. It's a great time to still enroll. You know, it's early enough in the year that they don't feel like they've missed too much. So I think it's a great chance to obviously build community at your studio, and that's, you know, a really important part of it, but also to get those shares out there to show the general community all the amazing things that you're doing at the studio, which hopefully means that they're going to want to come and visit.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we make a whole event out of it, especially for our preschool. And what we do is we have the kids come in for like an hour and a half in the morning. There's an Easter egg hunt, which we do in one studio. We kind of just like. So we have. We have three studios downstairs. So we have one that's set up for the Easter egg hunt and that's set up beforehand. And they have like, you know, little things hiding all the eggs, which is super cute. They go in and do some crafts to start with. So we've got Easter craft set up, which you can find on Pinterest and stuff. It's so simple, right? Yeah, exactly. Then we have an Easter bunny suit that we've had for years and years. So the Easter bunny appears in the room and they hunt for the Easter eggs. Then they go into the big room, they learn an Easter dance, they perform it for mom and dad. And then this is the, really, the best part, I think, is once they've performed it for Mum and Dad and they. We have a morning tea with the parents where our teachers talk to the parents about how amazing their children are and how awesome it is and blah, blah, blah, and we do like hot cross buns and poppers and all that sort of stuff. So we make a big deal out of it, but I think totally worth it.

Oh, that Is such a cute idea. So can you tell me about that? Like is that as well as their weekly class or is it instead of weekly classes that day, like how does that actually work?

Yeah, it's actually instead of. And because we're doing, you know, little groovers, which has seven programs, we can't possibly do that in 45 minute increments. Also some kids stay for two or three so then they're doing the same thing three times, which doesn't really work. So we just do. Everyone on that day comes in for the hour and a half and then has the morning tea with us. And whether they're in ninjas or whether they're in ballet, they all do the same dance and then they have the morning tea together.

So cute. So you just basically say hey, it's a special event week. Instead of coming at you know, 10 till 10:30 this week, come 9:30 to 11, everybody come 9:30 to 11 or whatever that is. Is that right?

Yeah, that's exactly right. It's exciting.

So cute. So cute. So tell me, did the parents like, how's the response to that normally? How do the parents do they enjoy it? What, how does it normally go?

Yeah, they, they love it. I think they love the being able to talk to the teachers the most. And I think we forget how important that is. It is. And I also think like, I just think we forget how important that retention is, especially at this time of year. It's like week six or something now for us. So even at our studio now, we're text messaging every single parent and just being like, hey, how's Sally going in dancing? It's just that whole making sure that parents have a voice I think is sometimes really important. And also just getting that feedback and also just allowing them to have that, you know, chat with you I think is imperative. Like I'm, I don't know about you, but I always go to the parent teacher interview at the kids schools and I like think it's important for us to talk to their teachers. I, I think that's like a no brainer. Really?

Absolutely. Like that's really interesting and off topic from Easter, but I crave that from my kids schools. And I've talked before that, you know, I, I'm really happy with my girls school. They do an awesome job at the school school. However, since COVID we still aren't going into the, into the school. We, we wait in the cars and they do like a drop off kind of situation to the car. It's like we get out of the cars, but they kind of walk the kids to us, which means that there's different people walking them to us, not necessarily their teacher. They line them up again, and it comes with other people. Now, yesterday, you know, and I wouldn't say that I'm a. I don't know what the right word is, but I'm not one of those parents who's all over their kids and, you know, needs a single little thing. I'm not a helicopter mom. That is not what I am by any stretch of the imagination. And it's my third daughter, so, you know, it's like I got the school thing down, packed and all of that. However, yesterday, it just so happened that my daughter's teacher was the one that walked her out, which not isn't normally. And she's not normally there. And, you know, I crave that chance to. To grab her and go, hey, actually, how is Sassy going? And I saw a heap of other parents and I. I did have that thought that I'm like, I wish that we could do that more often. That's what I want to hear is, you know, I want to just go, hey, no, she had a great day. Like, just a quick. I know that the teachers are busy. I know there's so much. But all parents want that preschool parents even more so. So whatever you can sort of build in your studio to allow people to do that, I think is so, so valuable.

Oh, absolutely. I know this is totally off topic for Issa, but I was chatting to Shannon Atkins about this the other day, and she was saying, like, you don't understand what a difference telling a student in your class just something simple that they absolutely, you know, love and then the difference that can make in that child's day or life or whatever. And Shannon was teaching at my studio the other day. She was teaching a lyrical troupe. And one of the backliners she's sitting said to them, oh, I loved how you. I love your quality of movement in that or something. And this kid was like, oh, my gosh. She said something positive. And it's the same with parents. Like, the other day, Amanda, I just ran out quickly. I was doing back to back classes, but I ran out quickly and told this parent how well her child was doing because her child was really working hard and she was nearly crying. And to me, it was just like a simple, hey, I'm so proud of her. She's actually really working hard and blah, blah, blah. But to the parent, it was everything. And we forget the value in that. The retention around that is so important. And that's why I think this Easter thing is so important. And we really talk to our staff like it is their absolute. They have to go and talk to every single parent. I usually try and make the effort to be there that week, and I'm not normally there in the mornings, but I really try and make the effort to be there. And the reason I make the effort to be there is because I can then say to them, hey, I've noticed you haven't talked to that parent yet. Go and talk to them. Go and talk to them just to make sure that every single parent gets that attention. I think is, is key.

Absolutely. I think that's such a great lesson, you know, and it's like you were talking about on last week's or the week before's podcast with Jade from Dance Life. Like, even with 18 year olds, 20 year olds, how impactful it is sometimes as a teacher, the things that we say to them.

Yeah.

That we don't even realize and how impactful our words can be. I think that's so, so valuable and super, super important.

And like, even for us, Amanda, like, if we get a compliment, if something happens with us, that's like, you know, someone tells us that we've done something, well, we feel that too. So I think we forget about that now. The other big thing that I do for Easter is a big Easter picnic. And I know I've talked about this before, but we just love it. It is so awesome. So we've just been sending all our invitations out for it. We do it on Easter Monday and there's kind of like a big park and river, you know, quite close near to us. So we take everybody down there. We do egg and spoon races, we have face painting. You know, we do the whole shebang. And parents love it. What I love about it is parents connect with each other and meet each other and then become friends. And we know how powerful that is in our studio. It just makes us feel like a big family. And, you know, it's. It's such an epic event. And we've been doing that. I've had my studio for 20 years. I think we've been doing it for 15 of those 20 years. So it's a big tradition now. Obviously didn't do it through Covid, but we've done it every other year that I can think of. And it's. Yeah, it's a huge tradition. It's also a very busy spot down there, especially on an Easter Monday. So we put a lot of signs up and things like that. So, you know, it is good advertising as well.

Absolutely, absolutely. So do you want to tell everyone? I know you've spoken about it on the podcast before, but let's go back. So what is actually involved in your big Easter picnic? How does the whole thing work?

So we get everyone to arrive at about 10, 30, 11. They all bring their own picnic baskets and picnic blankets and own food. We don't provide any of that. We ask everyone to donate eggs the week before and that's like our prizes. And also for our egg hunt. So we start the day off by doing sack races, egg and spoon races, three legged races. We involve the parents in it as well, and we just give out, like, little prizes or, you know, obviously the preschoolers, everyone gets a prize. And then we do this funny thing with parents where they get raw eggs and they have to play catch and throw and step backwards from each other. And then everyone gets egg all over them and laughs and think it's hilarious. Then we do a scavenger hunt. So I get some of my seniors to go down scavengers. Quite a big park. So kind of down the back of the park and hide. Like, usually we just buy like some little bunnies or something like that. And there's like 10 or depends how many people we have coming. This year is going to be epic. So we'll probably have about 20 of them. And they've got to look for them in the trees and stuff like that kind of like Survivor, you know how they, like, have the immunity idols. It's that sort of feel. So they hide them, then they all find them. Whilst we're down there, everyone's hiding all the eggs and doing. Getting the egg hunt ready. So all the parents stay back. And then the Easter bunny comes. We have the big egg hunt and with the Easter bunny. And then. That's it.

Cute. I love it. So, so cute. What a great, you know, community activity. And it's that thing, right? Like, you know, the. The parents go back to school on Tuesday this year and they're talking to their friend at the school gate and they're like, hey, you know, what did you get up to on Easter? They go, oh, we went to this amazing, amazing, like, you know, thing with my girl's dance studio. It was so good to have the community together. And they're like, oh, tell me about. Do you know what I mean? It just starts conversations or they post it on Facebook or they. Whatever that is. And I think that's what it's all about because we know that referrals are the best way for us to build our studios. And so even if that person isn't thinking about dance classes right then it just makes you then think, oh, that's the place I would ever go. Because it sounds so cool. It sounds so amazing, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And we do a big setup, talking about sharing things. So we do a big Easter setup at the studio, and it's epic. And we try and take a photo of every child in that Easter setup, and then we share it on band. We can't share it on Instagram because we've got too many kids, but we share it on band. And then a lot of people will save it from band and post it on their socials. So I think that's really important as well. And we write, hey, feel free to post this on your Instagram. We'd love to see you all sharing it. Like, we always write that. I think sometimes we're scared to write that. But, like, why are you scared to write that? We want them to share it. That's why we're making the effort to take the photo. So ask for them to do it.

Absolutely. You know a little bit about what we do. And it was interesting last year being a parent on the other side of it at Dance Sensation. So we've always done, like, a really great Easter setup for a really great photo opportunity and done it for all the preschoolers. Exactly what you said. But I noticed last year seeing some of the parents and what they actually wanted to do with their older kids. And so at ds, they left, you know, it up in the waiting room and said for anybody to use, but they actually had, I want to say, maybe five or six parents who pulled their kids out of school half an hour early, dressed them up in matching outfits, and came to do a whole photo shoot and asked to do it. Like to do a family photo in front of the wall. Like, how cute is that look?

How smart is that?

Not something I would do. But, you know, how good was that? That they obviously want that place. People want something to do because, you know, you have to Santa photo, but there isn't the Easter photo. So that's obviously what people are craving. So create that new business, have your logo on it. You know, just like when you go to the Westfield, it says Westfield, wherever you are in the Santa photo, do it in your studio as well.

Well, Easter photos are actually becoming a thing out here, Amanda. Like, oh, really? Yeah. So it's like photo studios are hiring Easter bunnies, and there's a Whole Easter photo thing out here. So cute. Yeah. That is actually so smart. I've never thought of doing that or offering it to them for that reason, but that is really smart. Yeah.

So they had a lot of that. So, you know, we always did that. We used to. We've done a different ways. We used to take a photo of every kid and then airdrop it to every parent. Works really well. We also have done like Polaroids for them to take home of every kid in front of it. And we'd all like. We'd pre write something nice on the back. We've done that for Mother's Day too, which worked really, really well. Just as a off topic for Mother's Day, we actually like had like it in a card and then we'd like slight, you know, like, you know, when you put the photo into the card and we wrote to my mum, you know, happy Mother's Day, I love you so much. And we did it in secret of all the kids and then put their photo in and we did that for Mother's Day and it was like their present to take home for Mom. That was super cute.

That's a big effort. But that is so like all of this stuff is big effort, but I feel like it's so worth it. That's the thing. Like, yes, it takes time, it takes energy. You know, my staff are packing bags with Easter eggs the other day. It's. It's a part of it, but it's. It's worth it. I think it's totally worth it.

Absolutely. Hey, I want to tell you about one other thing that I've done during isa. We didn't do the big parade that, you know, not parade, sorry, the big picnic that you've done. We just do like, the Bunny comes to class and gives eggs and has a bit of fun at the end of every class kind of thing. And then the photo wall. However, one thing that we started during COVID and we kept doing even since COVID was a dance at home class with the Bunny, an Easter morning dance at home class. And what we did is I actually live streamed it to all the community pages in the area, which probably a lot of people did similar things during COVID but then we've all kind of forgotten about it. Right. So I had it coming up on obviously the Dance Sensations page and Instagram, and then also sent it out to all of the local community pages that let me live stream onto it or I'd link back to it, either one. And it was like a half an hour, you Know, let's dance at home with the Easter Bunny, with a host and the Easter Bunny doing the dances to go out. And I've done it, tried it on different days as well. Like, Easter Sunday probably isn't the best day for some people, unless you do it a bit later when it's like they've done their eggs and then the parents, like, you were up too early, you know, go and entertain yourself in front of the tv. Oh, this is on. Here you go do that. But also, you know, on Easter Monday when the kids aren't at school, like, stuff like that, which really pushes you out into the community, makes you a leader in the community, is giving something to the community as well. I think that's really, really beneficial and just kind of shows what you do. I had great traction from that before and a lot of people that said, I saw that, that was so awesome. I'd love to, you know. And then, you know, inquiring through that.

Did you reach out to the pages beforehand or did you just live stream it and not tell them.

Different for different groups and pages? Now, in our area, our groups are not like, I speak to other studio owners and they talk about that their local community groups are like, oh, so strict with the rules. You know, you can only post on. Yeah, post on certain days you've got to pay to post. You've got it. Like, yeah, the ones in the shire, a couple of our studio owners in the, like, shire kind of area and they've got to pay per post and stuff like that and everything has to be approved. Mine aren't like that, luckily, so I haven't had that experience, but I think give it a go. Even if it's only on your own socials. Right.

Yep. No, so smart. I was just thinking about. Yeah, we have a lot of. We've got a lot of different groups, so I feel like some are more stringent on rules and all the things than others. Like, we're not allowed to advertise on most of our groups. But giving free value like that, I think super amazing.

Absolutely. Even if you're not live. Absolutely. Even if you're not live streaming it. Just like, hey, looking for something to do tomorrow morning with your little one? An Easter activity? Come over to our page. You know, maybe you can do that and then not live stream it. Maybe that's an idea. But I think that was really cute. A really great thing to do. We, like during COVID we actually went all out with it and we had the bunny on the bike riding down the main street trying to find the studio. And like we were, you know, filming next to the, like we went all out with it during COVID because look, we're all bored and we just needed some ideas, right?

Love it, love it.

So we did do that during COVID but then it's kind of just turned into like a little half an hour dance at home class, you know. But it's also that thing like, you know, if you, if you did wondering Covid, pull it back out. I think we all forget that a lot of us did great content and there's no problems with recycling it. You know, just pull it back out, put it back on. Especially if you did something fun during that time or did something cute that you're like, hey, that was really cute. Find it, post it again.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I love that like we forget how powerful online is, I think like, Cause you know, we had to do it and so we have that whole, oh, never want to do it again. But it actually can be very, very, very powerful. I was thinking one of my friends, her son still does karate online every week.

Oh wow.

Yeah, yeah. So it's actually a karate school that's a good hour away from where we live here. And they've just kept the online class and you know, probably have hundreds of kids that are doing it all over Australia. Doesn't matter where they are and teaching it online. So smart.

Absolutely. And it's so scalable as well, which is what I love that it's so, so great. And I think there's benefits to it, like not always, not for everything. That was an idea we toyed with afterwards was doing like an additional, an additional class that was paid. That was like an upsell, that was like a technique or a flexibility class before school at home.

Yep.

But online as part of their regular, you know, they paid X amount to be on the unlimited package and then an extra $5 a week to also do be part of this class. You know, that was something we really toyed with. We never took it off. But I do think those things would work.

Oh absolutely. And like, I think, you know, being a dance mum as well as a studio owner, you just, you do realize how much time those kids are sometimes at the studio. And sometimes that online thing is just so much easier when you've got four other kids at home and you don't have to take them. You don't have to be the taxi and do all the things. I think that's a no brainer. Hey, I just wanted to say I don't Know if you saw this morning, but Jen wrote, one of our amazing SJC members wrote up. Hey guys, who's doing, you know, advertising over Easter? It's a really great time to advertise because everyone's sitting on their phones and I thought, very true. So the last thing I wanted to say about our Easter convo, Amanda, was great time to up your spend on your Facebook ads.

Absolutely.

You could do an Easter special or you could do a after Easter week free trial. I mean, I know we probably do free trials every week, but it doesn't matter what you call it. Right. People will just see it and go, oh cool, that's a, that's great that they're doing a free trial week after Easter.

Maybe I'll go free pair of ballet shoes. And, and we know that everyone's social media, you know, consumer consuming, goes in during those crazy times. It's like people are in the car a lot if they're driving to go away, people are not at work. There's all of that. So whatever you could do if you've got some sort of Easter special, such a great time to drop it.

So have a really good think about that, guys, and have a think about how you can really, you know, make Easter special in your studio. It's not too late. It's definitely not too late. And you know, even if it's just something simple this year and maybe putting that spend behind the ad and then plan for it next year, but hopefully we've inspired you to do something a little bit special with your studio.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us. Hey, you know what would mean the absolute world to us is if you jumped onto Spotify or Apple and left us a review. Because that's how we grow our podcast. And we would so, so be appreciative of that. Natalie left us a review last week, which we so appreciate. Thanks, Nat. And if anybody else out there wants to leave us, a 2 second review would mean the world. Thank you so much, guys for listening.

Thanks, guys. By.

Sam.