What to do Now to Plan for your Next Recital

It's never too early to start planning your next recital! My team and I are shameless over-planners when it comes to our year-end shows. For the past two years, we have already known our theme and had song ideas picked out BEFORE the current shows had even taken place!

Although you may be excited to FINALLY be in the DONE CLUB, there's no better time than now to start thinking ahead while everything is fresh on your mind. Keep reading to discover the most important things you can do in the week or two after your shows have taken place.


1) Start Thinking About Your Next Theme/Show
As I said, you might have already started planning your new season, but if not, it's not too early! As creatives, it only seems natural to move on to the next thing once all choreography and planning are complete, right? Go ahead and brainstorm your ideas for next season and consider the following:

If you follow a theme...
-How will those themes work with your current students?
-Is there are large variety of songs?
-How excited is your staff about these ideas? Do they have any ideas of their own?

Even if you don't follow a theme, you probably want to start thinking about the number of students you're expecting and how many recitals you will need to have. How does this fit in with how things worked this season?

2) Make Post Show Notes
One of the very first things I start doing is making notes about the current show. I just create a note on my phone so I can quickly jot down anything that comes to mind...

"What went well?"
"What do we want to improve for next season?"

You might have found some things you want to add or do differently. Did you recently see something fun on Instagram another studio does that you want to try? Jot it down!

Here are some small things my staff and I noted for next season, as an example:

-Give a free ticket to new dancers who are not in the show
-Increase Show Fee
-Create custom medals
-Need to add a third show when enrollment increases
-Credit choreographers in the program

These are just a few examples of some things we had ideas for and ways to make the experience even bigger and better.


3) Review This Year's Numbers
This one is SOOOO important and a piece that many SOs overlook. Once I give myself a day or two of rest, I immediately open up my Ultimate Recital Spreadsheets and get to work calculating all of the current expenses, revenue, average ticket sale prices, average tickets sold per dancer, etc. The longer I wait to do this step, the fuzzier the details become and the less clear everything will be.

4) Determine Next Year's Costs
Based on the previous step, I'm now able to look at the shows I just held, and make important decisions and inferences about the next season:

-How many students do you predict for next year?
-Will you need the theater any additional days?
-Does this affect ticket prices or recital fees?
-Was your profit this season substantial enough for the work and time invested?

These are just a few thoughts to get you going. If you can have a clear pathway of what next year's recitals will look like NOW, you are setting your studio and dancers up for even more success next year!

5) Takes Notes About Anything You Might Forget
As I go through the next two weeks following a show weekend, random thoughts and ideas will hit my mind, especially when I'm driving or teaching, lol! Pull out that note you created on your phone and continue to jot down anything you think of.

6) Create Timeline
This might be a process you already have in place, but if not, take some time to do it now! Simply chart out which recital tasks should be done each month leading up to the next recital. As you go, you will be able to build this out into a detailed framework, giving you and your staff clear expectations and guidelines for super successful shows, which also takes a lot of the stress out of it!


Remember...Take Action While Excitement is High!

Don't let your summer schedule or the craziness of summer get in the way of planning for next year's shows! Do this work as soon as you can, take notes, and remember where those notes are, and you will be on your way to your best year yet!