Beginning/renewing a dance company is 2010

As promised the post--I will try my best to make it informative!

I read last week that a former dancer of mine is re-launching her company. Good luck in 2010, as money is hard to come by and businesses are closing up everywhere. But if it is destined to succeed, it will.
*this is one reason why I will not begin RDC**

First off, a business has the first seven years of hard and trying times--if you pass that 7 year mark, you have done well. {mine just hit the 8th year}.
As a dancer in this economy is extremely hard to make ends meet without a normal job - not dance or related. In order to have a company you need to have a savings, a fulltime lucrative income, or grants {if you are lucky}. Those are the three basic things I would say that a person needs to have. You cannot simply work as a dancer and/or a dance teacher and expect your company to work. It won't work. It can't. Think about it is murder to do this if there is not plan well thought out.

Secondly, I would say keep working and build a nestegg. You could also use real estate as a way of building a profit. Applying for grants are good--but there is alot of red tape to meet their specifications - not to mention you have to write the grant! A non-profit status is ideally the best bet - sadly, I have never chose to go that direction and have not the first clue of how to go about applying.

Thirdly, what is the money used for?? The basics of dancers pay/salary, costuming, rental space {if you cannot get it free}. Other points to ponder are the cost of choreographers {they worked and need to be paid--if they are a working professional}, theatre rental {s}, lighting and sound people, lighting designer, printing, music editing {if not using a pro-rather a computer program...mine were mostly professionally done}, office space {if not a home office, then you cannot write it off as a home office--see CPA for details}, and advertising.
Then the biggest thing is to add into the cost of each ticket what the sales tax is. If you sell tickets for a performance--then guess what, you are re-selling dance! I was lucky--I only sold one performance! All of the others were complimentry. Of course, my problem with dancers were never funding, I alsways had the money to pay. some even chose to resign before a show - no pay or not even ask for their check. But those are rare and only happened to me!}

Well, I hope this is a run down of what it takes to be in the buisness of running a dance company.