The recital's over. The glitter, costumes, and show props have gone away for another year, and your studio calendar is looking suspiciously... empty.

Summer is a strange time for studio owners. Regular classes are paused, families are coming and going on holiday, and your teenagers have vanished off with their friends. 

Which means revenue slows to a trickle, or stops altogether,  while the bills carry on going out as normal. If anything, summer can cost you more if you're using the quiet weeks for marketing, repainting the studio, or finally sorting out that storage cupboard.

But there's one thing that can bring in some extra income, keep your studio community warm, and help the working parents in your area all at the same time: summer camps. And if you're running a camp, there's one thing you shouldn't skip at the end of it.

What is a Dance Studio Summer Camp? 

Summer camps don't have to follow one format. Some studios run a couple of days a week across two weeks. Others do a single three-day intensive. If you've got the numbers, you can run a full fortnight split into age groups.

Whatever shape yours takes, camps solve a real problem for parents. School's out, work isn't. A week of dance camp means their child is somewhere safe, active, and doing something they love while mum and dad are at work, and that's an easy sell.

One thing to plan for: your camp might have children anywhere from 4 to 13. That's a big spread. The little ones need shorter activities, more games, and plenty of variety; your older ones can handle proper rehearsal time and more responsibility. If you can, split sessions or group activities by age; it keeps everyone engaged and saves your sanity. But this is all covered in a blog post by our sister company, Class Manager, here: Wondering What to Do This Summer? Host a Dance Camp! And The Ultimate Summer Dance Camp Checklist.

Then, the show

Here's the bit you don't want to miss: the end-of-camp show.

Mini summer shows, we like to call them. They're not as polished as your recital, and they don't need to be. No elaborate sets, no costume changes, no two+-hour running order with a fifteen-minute interval. Just a small group of dancers, a modest audience, and a moment on stage.

Ten or so students. Their parents. A grandma or two. That's it — that's the show. It's not big, and it's not flashy, but parents, grandparents, aunties, and uncles will still turn up to support their family. They always do.

Who runs it? That's up to you

This is where the summer show gets really fun, because you've got options.

Hand it over to the kids. Make the show their project for the week. They pick the songs, decide the run order, and choreograph their own dances. You're there for safety and the occasional nudge, but the show belongs to them. For older children especially, that ownership is gold, they'll work harder on something they made themselves than on anything you could set for them.

Or direct it loosely. Maybe you pick the theme and shape the programme, but give the kids the time and space to plan their own dances within it. You steer; they create.

Either way, the show becomes the point of the camp rather than an afterthought. Every day builds towards something. And with a mixed age group, the older ones can help the younger ones, which is half the charm on the night.

And you never know, a parent who's just watched their child beam on stage in July is a parent who re-enrols in September.

That's the quiet superpower of the summer show. It's not really about the performance. It's about keeping families connected to your studio through the off-season, so the new term starts with momentum instead of a cold restart. Kids get their moment. Parents get their photos and a reason to feel great about the money they spent on camp. You get a September that starts at full speed.

"But it's already July..."

Yes, it is. And yes, you still have time.

A ten-student showcase doesn't need months of planning. It needs a date, a space, a short programme, and a way to get tickets into parents' hands. That's a fortnight of prep, not a term.

Stage Stubs can help with our range of free tools:

• 🎭 Planning and themes — stuck for a format, theme or songs? Our show picker helps you (or the kids) land on the right one in minutes.
• 🖼️ Posters — design and print a simple poster to invite the grown-ups along. No big marketing push needed.
• 🎟️ Ticketing — paid or free- selling your tickets with Stage Stubs takes less than 10 minutes to set up, and everyone gets an easy way to book their seat. 

Find out more about how you can use Stage Stubs to support the running of your event and multiple shows, with our range of resources: 

• Make additional revenue with Stage Stubs event tickets
• You’ve done the hard work, let Stage Stubs do the rest 
• Benefits of offering a tiered seating plan for your events

Create your event and start selling your tickets in minutes. (Interested? See how Stage Stubs compares to TicketSource, or Eventbrite, and Trybooking.)