How do you select your competitions ?

rels77 said:
Well, you can go to pretty much every comp website and get a sense for how big the fields were last year just by poking around.
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Of course, I can poke around and spend days and months on millions of mouse clicks. I'd just prefer more efficient way - running a script or something to get all data from one comp together at once. I wonder if anyone here has figured it out.
 
Lai Lai said:
Of course, I can poke around and spend days and months on millions of mouse clicks. I'd just prefer more efficient way - running a script or something to get all data from one comp together at once. I wonder if anyone here has figured it out.
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And we keep asking your age and level and part of the country because we can help you skip that because with that info, we can probably give you 5 or 6 comps to look at specifically.

And you can get all data you need from one comp at once - you click on the results and look for the scholarship you'd be in. Bam- all the entries at once.
 
rels77 said:
And you can get all data you need from one comp at once - you click on the results and look for the scholarship you'd be in. Bam- all the entries at once.
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Not quite. Typically the result pages lead to lookup by persons.

rels77 said:
And we keep asking your age and level and part of the country because we can help you skip that because with that info, we can probably give you 5 or 6 comps to look at specifically.
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Is this royal "we" or is it customary to speak for everyone else on this forum? :)
And I keep asking - how do you know what comps to recommend? Have you been going to every single competition all over the country for several years? Have you kept track of heats for every style and category in all age groups and levels?
 
Lai Lai said:
And I keep asking - how do you know what comps to recommend? Have you been going to every single competition all over the country for several years? Have you kept track of heats for every style and category in all age groups and levels?
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No one individually has been to every single competition all over the country, but as a collective it's likely that someone knows of a comp that has a non-trivial field for any given demographic. If you're not comfortable giving this general information, it's fine. But then I'm not sure how 'we' or anyone can help you.
 
So it's not just me?

@Lai Lai I'm guessing that since you don't already know some of this, you're probably bronze. Okay, so bronze standard. I'll try it another way. Good comps for standard: Embassy, emerald, San Francisco Open, Manhattan, Ohio Star Ball, Millenium, USDC.

And no, you usually get results per person, but again, depending on age and level, someone here could probably tell you a pro to dancer to look up and you'd find the results from the entire scholarship. And scholarships are usually the rounds people pay attention to more than singles...

Or, you know, you could be difficult and act like you know something that the rest of us don't and not let anyone else help you.
 
Ignoring the possibility that Lai Lai is a troll, I'd posit that Lai Lai simply doesn't know very much about the way ballroom competitions are organized or scrutineered or the way in which results are compiled. Lai Lai, if you can write a program to pull and compile all ballroom competition results from every competition and every event ever, the ballroom dance world would be greatly indebted to you. Speaking simply, the reason it hasn't been done is that the ballroom dance world is incredibly disorganized, with several competing competition management SaaS websites and some comps that are scrutineered on paper (incredibly old-school), whose results you cannot find online anywhere. Dancesportinfo has a compilation of open competitor results, which won't be helpful for bronze dancers, and o2cm lists results for events only hosted on o2cm, but if you are a pro-am dancer in the bronze levels, none of the existing websites are going to be helpful to you. Competitions are largely recommended by reputation and word of mouth, as well as prize money offered. Of course, if you prefer to attempt to write a script to compile all results at all competitions, please do let us know if you are successful. I'm sure many people would be interested in seeing such a compilation.
 
Lai Lai said:
Is this royal "we" or is it customary to speak for everyone else on this forum? :)
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It is not unusual for regular posters to speak for the forum on common issues. People trying to figure out what would be a good competition for them to enter is a common issue. Usually when it comes up, one or more of the regulars (there were at least a couple in this thread) will ask about age, level, style, and category (pro/am vs am/am) so that those with experience in those categories (either from competing in that category, or from observing various competitions while spectating and or competing in other categories) can speak up and guide you. The collective experience of the group can be helpful for this sort of thing.

If you prefer to stay more private, and not reveal to us your level, age category, and whatnot, that's fine. But it will limit how helpful we (as a group) can be with our suggestions. You can also search for previous threads on competitions and on how to find contested competitions for previous suggestions. Some of those may be helpful for you.

We are trying to help. I hope you can appreciate that.
 
I really appreciate everyone trying to help. Especially, since I didn't even ask for help, nor expected. I was only whining about the exsistance of uncontested heats and single dances, and wanted to see if there are any computer nerds here, but somehow it all turned into arguing, sorry. It seems that I got out some market research, unexpectedly. If that makes me a troll, oh well... ☺
 
I don't think you're a troll. You asked for help in a way that made sense to you (looking for a computer answer to the problem), and since we didn't have that, we responded with questions to try to help you get some of the same information another way. Anyway, good luck with your competitions! :)
 
Ballroom dance competitions are a world unto themselves and there is a culture which takes awhile to figure out, when you are a newby. I have been doing comps for maybe 3 years and dance at an open level. And I am old; let's just leave it at that. Some things made no sense to me in the beginning, like uncontested single heats and the sometimes, seemingly random marks. For me, I went along with the pro-am flow until I realized it was important to understand that there are different reasons WHY people do competitions and to also figure out honestly why I dance. Otherwise, I would end up crying in the hotel room afterward, wondering why I spent so much money to be so miserable. Totally my own thoughts but I think first of all, people have different levels of intensity and resources in wanting to achieve these goals and some reasons are: To get exercise and have fun at a hobby and just do lots of dancing; to get dressed up and look gorgeous, to express their competitive nature and win, to socialize with a group of people with common interests, to perfect a skill and have it validated with improving scores. It took awhile for me to understand that my main, personal motivation was actually none of these but instead exploring the "craft" of dancing and the process of trying to dance at the highest level possible for my age and body for as long as possible. And to be honest, hopefully get some positive feedback (as well as endless corrections) from people who really know my dancing. I enjoy watching a rehearsal of pros more than the actual show and I just adore working in the studio. I could live in the studio and be perfectly happy. Once you figure out what it is you want, you can try to engineer your experience to match what it is that makes you happy. For me, based on my realistic resources, I do about 3 local comps a year. No real competition, but the prep and feedback is very useful to my dancing development. I am just about ready to do another national comp but I realize I have to pair it with coaching/clinics and maybe a showcase, so that if I get kicked out at the first round, I still feel the trip has been worth it in terms of my dancing development. I totally respect other people's motivations, but I am very happy now that I have sorted things out and am true to myself.
 
ugh, my competition selection for 2018 has just gone wonky. Pro is not available for the two of the comps i was looking at, and i'm stuck with lack of competition at others :/ It's a bit demotivating. So now i need to go back to the drawing board to find comps that are in my cost range, studio will attend (it's an FA franchise, so they can be picky), pro will have availability, and (hopefully) are big enough to have some competition. Of course, that last one is so hard to predict. I feel like there seems to be a lot more ndca comps nowadays, but maybe that's just me? i know there are three local ndca comps, and i know people who went to all three - and they all said there wasn't a ton of competition, at least at my level (pro-am silver B). but i know there is a lot of competition at the larger comps. blergh the decisions
 
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