My dance studio is turning into a combined wedding venue/dance studio
So, I'm currently taking every single ballroom class I can since my studio got kicked out of their current lease that they've been in for well over a decade (owners sold the entire block). It's not great timing as I'm a little injured and preparing for another surgery, so I'm already incredibly fatigued in general, but I can't imagine I'll have an opportunity to learn ballroom again after this as I can't afford privates with as much medical debt as I'm in. The studio decided on a building with a "view" in an out of the way location that made no sense at the time. It's not near any dense residential or commercial areas.
Now, I get it. An instructor announced it will be a "combined wedding venue and dance studio, with fitness classes"
I can't imagine this will go well. It already takes me well over an hour to get to the studio in rush hour traffic and this adds another 15 minutes to the commute, and there's lots of dancers with longer commutes than me. It's going away from a central, dense location in the actual city that's near a major highway to a location that's not near any highways off a long, windy road and will only be convenient to people in the adjacent suburb. Almost every instructor and dancer on the South side of town left the studio when they heard about where the new location was and I'm sure everyone that has to travel to the new location will be thinking about gas prices. I also think that other venues will be less likely to work with instructors when they're working at a studio that's also a venue and this will lock in wedding couples that only want to marry at that location. I can't imagine all ten instructors will stay employed. They say they'll only close the studio for weddings on Saturday, but when you can charge similar prices on Thurs-Sun, I can't imagine that'll be the case. I don't think they can continue to be a 'dance studio' if they can realistically only provide classes Monday-Wednesday and will eventually transition to just a wedding venue with one or two instructors on site
It’s a shame because they’ve really been the center of our local dance community for 25 years, from swing to country to ballroom. Weekend nights were their big socials and there’s probably less incentive for people to learn in classes if weekend socials can’t happen. Yes, I know it’s a business, but was also a community.
Curious if this has happened to any other students and what happened.