Many of you have reached out privately to tell us how excited you are that we’re extending our platform to include ballet competition reviews. We thought it might be fun to give you a little sneak peek at what we’re seeing in the initial batch. We sifted through the data and here is what we found:

We asked a question about what the best aspect of the competition was and far and away the top answer was the overall experience performing – being on a big stage, getting constructive feedback from judges and the camaraderie that goes along with events like these.

Coupled with that was a large number of comments about the calibre of the dancers. We saw comments like “strong dancers,” “super high-calibre” and “the best dancers out there.”

Master classes were also mentioned as especially good. And, this applied to the three competitions for which we have the most responses – YAGP, ADC|IBC and UBC.

As far as the atmosphere at the event goes, ADC|IBC was mentioned several times as an event that was welcoming. We saw comments that said that the staff “seemed very invested” and the “organizer was positive and kind.”

One interesting point we noticed is that overall satisfaction with a particular event had little correlation with whether or not that dancer won an award. The quality of the experience, including the master classes and overall culture was a much bigger driver of satisfaction than actually winning anything.

There are also a few not so positive elements that we’re seeing. One comment we saw frequently was that the open stage was often extremely crowded to the point that dancers sometimes felt unsafe. Some also noted that it felt like some schools got “special treatment” during open stage, which allowed them to have more space and time to prepare.

Moreover, several comments mirror what many of us have heard before — a perception of favoritism in judging and pre-determined winners.

Note that this is only the first batch we’ve received and we look forward to getting more submissions. We’re really curious to see if the initial trends we’re noticing will hold true as more come in.

Because our mission is to bring as much transparency to ballet as we can, we also wanted you to see our ballet competition survey before you start to fill anything out. This form was reviewed by parents who have kids who compete, as well as by teachers who take their students to competitions. Finally, it was reviewed by a former executive of a ballet competition.

The goal is to allow parents and their dancers to provide a clear picture of what the overall experience is, so if you want to see all of the questions we ask before you start to fill out a survey of your own, you can see them here.

Ready to submit your own review? Find the form on our reviews site.

Once we have a critical mass of reviews, we will publish them in their entirety.