High level Amateur competition can be more expensive than Pro Am. A good competition teacher will cost $100 a hour or more. You will have to have more lessons for both of you to be competitive. This is the main expense of Amateur dancing if you are trying to get good. You could easily take 3 to 5 or more lessons a week. You need someone for choreograpy, technique, general couple coaching, and maybe a psychology couple dance coach. Plus you get lots of frustation with who's right-wrong or not progressing accordingly.

I have to keep the position that youth is much less expensive. For example I just registered for a comp. A pro-am single dance entry is 30.00, AM 20.00 youth 10.00. The youth entry to the ballroom will be less than the adult. The youth will compete for 1/3 less than the pro/am and 1/2 less than the AM.. Adds up over a series of entries.

Now of course I am referring to a NDCA comp where AM/AM is not much cheaper than pro-am. Sure the AM is not spending money on pro fees, but the AM looses the benefit of traveling with the pro...they never get to see you in action, a pretty vauable piece of the overall picture. If we are speaking about USA Dance entry prices, then yes they are comparable. But to compete USA dance often you are going to get on a plane to chase these comps and there goes any savings. Our cost to dance USADance with travel is about the same as a NDCA that we can drive to.

I am not sure that an AM will spend more money in lessons than a pro/am will. We take 3 priviate lessons a week, and many of the pro/ams are doing the same. The AM/AM progress in most instances however will take longer.

Usually the only time even national-champion amateurs would take 3 or more lessons a week is they have temporary access to better coach than their usual one.

You have to keep in mind that there is ZERO difference between the lives and training of these "amateurs" and the professional competitors, which they usually become while changing nothing of their habits or teaching activity (other than be able to take their students to pro/am events)

And when it comes to a competition, you simply can't compare the $100-200 they spend (divided by two) with the price tags of pro/am competition. Even if they fly somewhere that's just adding a small piece of the pro/am price. And half the time their coaches will be present anyway. Sometimes, their greatest actual expense is losing a weekend worth of teaching income.

I do Pro Am and Amateur. I usually do 2 or 3 lessons a week. My competitions are usually regional or local. My last Pro Am comp. cost $200 for all dances (about 20 or so dances for l minute each dance) with the Pro and the comp. cost about $300 for entry fees and etc. Misc. was about another $150. This is as inexpensive as it gets. The event is on Sunday, so the Pro doesn't miss any lessons.

I know of some lady Pro Ams that take 3 to 4 lessons a day. They use the pro as a teacher and practice partner. They compete nationally and dance many dances. Very expensive.

Interesting about Amateurs not taking over 3 lessons a week. I know some that take 5 from various pros--especially if they do 10 dance. The problem for most Amateurs is quality practice time and using it effectively.
My partners and I had problems on what had been taught us and ending up creating bad habits that needed to be unlearned--even if we taped the lessons.

The thing to remember is that the more advanced the couple is - the closer they are to being professionals themselves - the more they take care of routine things themselves. In all but a few locations in the world, your actual pro competitors will take a ton of a lessons in a few days, and then none for weeks, because they have no one to study with. Most of the top amateurs do have local coaches, but they can get a lot done in between lessons too.

I think we are using the word Amatuar widely... Absolutley there is a world of difference between your top Amatuar championship dancers and the AM/AM dancing novice and maybe pre-champ. The top Amatuars are as close to pro as one gets, without earning money by teaching. While your novice dancers go to work everyday, and yes have both the means and the time to take 3 lessons a week.

As a previous poster said, one of the biggest issues for the novice AM is retaining what is taught. With our three lessons a week, the night immediatley after a lesson we are in the studio reinforcing technique or whatever we learned in the lesson, less we loose it. Simply it takes more lessons and repeat of the same principiles for someone at our level than a near pro.

Our costs in comps alone will run us about 2K a comp or 12-15K a year which includes entry fees, travel, hotels. Then usually another 10-12K in lesson costs... Every other year another 5K in costumes. Not a cheap hobby, no matter how you look at it. And yes it is true, this is less, probably much less expensive then the Pro-AM. Still it fustrates me to always read how cheap it is for the AM.... It is not!

"Our costs in comps alone will run us about 2K a comp or 12-15K a year which includes entry fees, travel, hotels. Then usually another 10-12K in lesson costs... Every other year another 5K in costumes. Not a cheap hobby, no matter how you look at it. And yes it is true, this is less, probably much less expensive then the Pro-AM. Still it fustrates me to always read how cheap it is for the AM.... It is not!"

You can obviously buy into all the same things the pro/am students do and end up paying nearly as much as they do, but there is just no need to spend that kind of money to compete am/am. You could fly over and compete at Blackpool for the kind of money you are talking about!
And for anything domestic, you should not be spending more than $700 for the two of you, unless you go all the way across the country (2x airfare at $200, hotel $100 incidentals $100 entry fees $100) - and even then, you are still talking about the price for two competitors working out well below the, vs. the price for only one.

There have been times in my life when competitions have actually saved me money because they were cheaper than the pair of lessons we would take on a non-competition weekend.

Perhaps we live in different parts of the US, and not being close to major airports... There is not once that I was able to secure airfare for 200.00. Our average airfare is about 325 per person, transportation to the hotel, airport parking...., ect

Double the entry fees you have quoted. Most USADance is $125.00 per person. Double the hotel. Flying in requires 2 nights, ect.ect.

I envy you if you can do a comp cheaper than a pair of lessons.

"Double the entry fees you have quoted. Most USADance is $125.00 per person. Double the hotel. Flying in requires 2 nights, ect.ect."

If you are already paying $325 to fly, try flying to cheaper competitions - the big ones are on the coasts, and priced quite reasonably.

Your point of where we choose to fly is a very valid one. Often we could fly much further for less or at least equal.