paying your coach to social dance?

[samina]

one affordable option works nicely:

have more than one student/dancer engage the pro for his/her services for that event. the pro can then break up the evening in whichever way makes sense (1/2 hour a-piece strung through the event, or first half/last half).

the pro is paid for the full event, but the dancers each pay less for his/her services during the event.

And then there's the pro that charges all the students for the evening and splits his time anyway.

Well...that's just not very nice, and it's short-sighted. Hardly the way to build trust, loyalty and credibility.

At the same time, if those students accept that agreement, it's also on their head. 

[elisedance]

Its in part abusing the teacher-student relationship... the students suffer it for fear of losing their teacher.  Well, most do - the others go elsewhere...

[phoenix13]

one affordable option works nicely:

have more than one student/dancer engage the pro for his/her services for that event. the pro can then break up the evening in whichever way makes sense (1/2 hour a-piece strung through the event, or first half/last half).

the pro is paid for the full event, but the dancers each pay less for his/her services during the event.

This is what I have seen most often.  I think it's a win/win.  The teacher gets added insight about her/his students, the students get practice time, and there's minimal, if any, weirdness about spending the whole evening alone together.  Having several students "share" the teacher's time keeps things clearly on professional footing.  That works.

[elisedance]

one affordable option works nicely:

have more than one student/dancer engage the pro for his/her services for that event. the pro can then break up the evening in whichever way makes sense (1/2 hour a-piece strung through the event, or first half/last half).

the pro is paid for the full event, but the dancers each pay less for his/her services during the event.

This is what I have seen most often.  I think it's a win/win.  The teacher gets added insight about her/his students, the students get practice time, and there's minimal, if any, weirdness about spending the whole evening alone together.  Having several students "share" the teacher's time keeps things clearly on professional footing.  That works.

Pretty good - except the pro dances non-stop!  And there is plenty of room for jealousy, not to mention non-paying social dancers who want a dance (the pro then has to think of snaring a possible additional customer..)

[phoenix13]

I think this is one of those cultural things.  In the places where I've seen this work, very few pros went strictly social dancing, so it was pretty widely know that, if a pro was at a social, he/she was doing a "starlight" AKA acting as a hired social dancer for the evening.  Other random students rarely interfered unless they were brand new and clueless, in which case yes, there were ruffled feathers.  But put yourself in the shoes of the pro.  Would you rather ruffle the feathers of an unknown onlooker in the bush who may never become a student or the two to three paying students you already have in hand?