DanceSport Talk

The Fitness Industry Council of Canada recently sent a notice to dance and fitness studios alerting them to a royalty fee threatening to be imposed on all fitness and dance studios across the country. The royalty was proposed a year ago by the Neighbouring Rights Collective of Canada (NRCC) with the Copyright Board of Canada.

The proposal called for the collection of fees for publicly played music. The fees are pretty outrageous: $5 per month per person for dance venues, $3 per class for fitness classes, and 5% of gross revenues for fitness studios. If a dance venue can't determine an exact capacity, it would pay an annual fee of $250 and fitness studios would pay $100 if their gross revenues can't be calculated.

What's interesting is that the Copyright board received no written objections. Because this hasn't yet become law, the FICDN has stepped in and is objecting to this proposal in the hopes of averting problems. They are asking dance and fitness studios to get involved in fighting back.

Fitness Australia also struggled with music fees that increased to an absurd level -- some as much as 3,000 percent.

Once a tax like this is in place, it will never be repealed, and the amounts would only increase.

The music industry has long been aggressively trying to find what amounts to tax revenues. A few years ago, Canadian retailers were required to add a costly levy on the sale of all blank CD-R and DVD discs on the assumption that they were going to be used to "illegally" duplicate music. It didn't matter if you never use it for such purposes, you pay the levy anyway. In a complete reversal of standard precedence of Canadian rights and freedoms, you can't even avoid the fees if you prove that they don't apply.

Everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that fuel prices are the biggest economic issue facing every nation these days, impacting the cost of everything we buy. During a recent discussion with an active competitor who travels to many DanceSport competitions, it occurred to me that this reality will have an indelible effect on the dance world as well.

He mentioned that the price of airfare for an upcoming event in Europe has doubled from last year's cost. This is causing him to rethink his competition calendar for the year ahead. I realized that this will affect all of us, especially in Canada where the cost of traveling to competitions around the country has already been an issue.

We used to think nothing of a drive to Seattle, and that's just once every three or four months. As the cost of that drive now increases, these will still be cheaper than more distant events, but they begin to show the picture. For my wife and I, the smallest Seattle area competition will now cost a minimum of $200 to attend when you add fuel, entry fees and meal. Traveling to Vancouver Island, with the added cost of a ferry, runs about $700 with a hotel stay. A trip to Edmonton for the Northern Lights Classic will cost $1100 if booked now. The Embassy Ball, with entry fees and meals, will run about $1,500 for the two of us. Add a visit to Disneyland or other extracurricular activities and you're nearing $2,000. And Ohio Star Ball will run a little over that for two people. Those costs are only a little higher than they were a year ago. One wonders what the airfares might look like 6 months or a year from now.

For those who travel to take lessons, this begins to become ever more painful. Some competitors travel weekly to Everett WA for lessons, and we talked to one dance teacher there who travels to Vancouver weekly for lessons. As the cost of a tank of gas drives that trip price to $75 or more, a weekly trip will add almost $4,000 in gas alone to the annual training budget, not to mention the depreciation value of adding 18,000 km per year to the car's odometer. As costs go up, we'll see those increases applied to the cost of everything from guest coach fees to the price of rhinestones.