When entering a pro-am competition I'm wondering about what expenses the amateur covers: I understand that entry and admission fees, the travel expenses and such like of the pro, are paid by the amateur. Is there any kind of "pro fee" that should be included in the calculations? Is it usually set on a per day or a per entry basis? What is a fair range? Am I leaving anything out? Thanks for any advice.

Cal,
From my experience, the usual costs involved with a pro-Am competition from the point of view of an amateur include the competition fees, boarding and lodging, and travel costs for the professional (usually split among all the amateurs using his/her services for the day/week). Aside from this, as mentioned earlier, the professional will charge a fee for his/her time. This is meant to cover lost time that might have been employed giving private lessons at their studios. Hence, typically at least, the professional will ask all his/her amateur partners to split the cost of his/her time computed as an hourly fee for a typical 8 hour day, for the duration of the competition. Hence, if he/she charges say $60 for an hour of privates, you can well expect to have to pay up to $480 a day if you are the only amatuer competing with her, and divided forthwith of course if there are others.

I hope that is not too convoluted. Pro-am dancing is more expensive than amateur couple dancing because of this, but when you cannot find a good amateur partner with whom to compete, you have to bear the brunt.. But it is well worth it.

Good luck and enjoy.

Sri.

Thank you for explaining that. I wonder if you would be willing to go into some specifics about fees? What is a typical per day pro fee? $10 per day? $100 per day?
What is the typical per entry pro fee? $10 per entry? $100 per entry? 50% of entry fees? I need some kind of rate to start negotiations with.
If you, or anyone else, would rather not have your fees/rates broadcast over the webpage, feel free to contact me privately. I promise I won't tell everyone.
Thanks.

This will depend upon the pro involved, but generally there are indeed pro fees. If the amateur just covers the pro's cost of attendance, then the pro wouldn't actually make any money off doing the comp (in fact, it's possible that they would lose money because of teaching time lost by traveling to a comp).

In my case, I normally pay for the following things: event entry fee, pro's admission for the session in which we compete, some portion of his travel/lodging (depends upon how many students are going), a per dance pro fee, and a per day pro fee.

The fees may also be different if the teacher competes with a pro partner. For instance, when my teacher and his wife were competing, they didn't ask me to pay travel/lodging costs when I "went along" with them to a comp. Basically (and thankfully!), they didn't charge for the expenses they would have incurred without me.