liangjz said:
I'm pretty sure my wife & I will be dancing amateur silver standards.
I've heard of comps where there are only 4 or 5 couples in a given event actually competing against each other. Is this common?
It depends.
If you go to a college comp, chances are you'll have a whole big lot of people to dance against. It's quite common to have quarter-finals in Silver Standard out here in California.
If you go to a USA Dance run comp on the west coast, the size of the field really depends on if there's a college student presence. I've been to some comps that have 8 couples in Silver Standard, and some -- where all the college students turned up -- with quarter-finals.
If you go to a NDCA run comp, you have two options. One is to dance in the "student/student" events, which are run as part of the rest of the Pro/Am program. I do not recommend entering these if you are looking for decent-sized fields. Chances are very high that you will be uncontested. However, if the competition runs an amateur syllabus event, that tends to attract more people. Out on the west coast, you can tell the difference because the "student/student" events are listed on the Pro/AM form, and the amateur syllabus events are listed on the amateur form. Anyway, out here on the west coast, the vast majority of the NDCA comps do not offer separate Bronze, Silver, and Gold syllabus. Instead, they have one combined event that is usually called "Pre-Novice" and sometimes is called "Closed Syllabus." These events are restricted to syllabus moves only, and costumes are usually not allowed. I've danced in a few of these over the past year, and the size of the field has ranged from 5 couples to starting in a quarter-final.
Things are a little different with respect to syllabus competition at NDCA competitions in other parts of the country.
One good way to see what competitions tend to draw people is to look on their web sites, and see what the previous year's field looked like.
