Great comments and ideas---keep them coming. I'll just make another statement and try to cover some of the comments thru out the post. As far as Gymnastics being the same price---it is very similar but the number of participants is much higher and the amount of spectators is much higher. Trust me I own an even and I have never charged much over $100 per participant and we do very well----AND I even provide FULL MEALS FOR FREE to coaches all day, First place trophies are about $300 each, we spend $12,000 on trophies, $15,000 on hoodies fofr winners, $7000 on jackets for coaches of winning teams, $25,000 on stage sound and lights, $30,000 for rental of facility, then we host a coaches party for another $6000....then theres employee cost, equip rental and judges pay hotel and travel....the list goes on and on. But we still make out ok with only charging $100 per kid. I think some event are milking the system and they know people will come so they charge what we charge. If there was more emphasis on local events, then maybe less people would leave their own state so often and then these companies would cut back costs to lure people back to their event. Also, I commented about this in my note on Facebook but not here----Larger states have regions and only the winners go to finals ( Just like HS comp) We would need local chapters of Governing body to make this work. Its definitely in the beginning phases and we need all the input we can to see if this could ever become a reality.
As for gym fee's. We charge $100 a month for All Stars---thats it---and that includes all extra practices. Every other fee goes out of our gym and we do not mark up. All fee's are Uniform, practice outfits, shoes, Competition, choreography, music, coaches fee's 9 which go towards hotel, per diem, and travel costs for coaches). My cost to be an All Star for 11 months of about 5-10 hours a week is $1100 a year. The other $2000 plus additional hotel /travel costs is whats keeping people from cheering on All Stars. So Im losing athletes because of costs that I dont even make any money off of for my gym---this puts me in a spot wherre I have to make a decision.....do I let the kid not cheer or do I suck it up amd not charge them to do all stars and they only pay external costs---_Which is a BAD business decision.
Making USASF (or whatever governing body we have) sanction all local state championships is a start to making us lower costs. Keep the ideas coming!!!!!!