Having to pay to dance and/or sing...???

[SuzzeQ4]

well I have to say that I go to alot of powwows around the Va./DC/Md. area and I sometimes have to pay to dance sometimes not, I don't usually mind too much because I figure it goes towards the drums or the ppl putting on the powwow. The one problem I do have is when they say they will pay for ALL registered dancers to come and I register but have yet to recieve any money but I look at any money as bonus for coming and helping pay for my food (they don't feed) I understand if they run short of money or only pay for a given number of dancers they should at least let the ones NOT getting any money know. Around here there aren't many powwows that there is camping at and I miss that. I always enjoyed the afternoon dancing and the the evening dancing but it seems around here they are few and far between

Becca

Wow, I'd be going to new powwows. Never been to one where dancers pay, but obviously it happens or this thread wouldn't be here but not feeding dancers or only paying some and not others, I have never experienced. Why not just pay all the dancers a little less so there is some for everyone.
I think these commitees need to figure that if you got no dancers, you got not powwow, just like some of the other key roles.

[ndnMSW]

Almost all that we head dance at we dance at for free so that the money that would be paid to us goes to the committee, we dance for the joy that dancing gives us....Most of the people who are there never pony up one dime to help defray the expenses.

I don't have a problem with people being fed at a pow wow. What I have a problem with is people who show up and do absolutly nothing to help that pow wow that they are at. They don't volunteer to pick up the trash, to work the gate, to help in the kitchen or make a donation to cover expenses. They just show up and sit in the shade until time to eat and they are the first ones in line at the kitchen door... them and the 50 people that they brought with them.

I am not talking about the elders, they have earned the right to sit in the shade and tell their war stories. I am not talking about the sick. I am talking about those who are perfectly able to dance or get off their duffs and do something to earn their keep....

I don't pay to dance or expect anyone to pay to be dancers, drummers and singers. I think that if you aren't dancing then do something, or be ready to make a donation to cover your camping. It would go a long way to paying for that food that they are in line for.....

This wasn't exactly what I was talking about when I said that we didn't get much help at one powwow we ran for a few years. It was a college powwow and we got no funding from the college at all....then they had a problem with having any type of "raffle" to generate some change but we found a way to address that. Then they said we couldn't solicit donations from other tribes, that all requests had to get approved through the president's office first (and then it never went anywhere when we did that). There were alot of students and staff that wanted the powwow a certain way, but I guess they thought that just expressing themselves and complaining was going to do it...they never helped the committee out or even came to any meetings....now if they were a committee member and put in all the hard work that we did then they were more than welcome to express whatever they wanted...because they were a part of the planning and everything. But we had students that would come to the meetings just to see if they could vote their friends in on head staff or get themselves in - then once they did that we never saw them again. OR we would have staff come in and want us to give them time to do this or that, or they were requesting free booth space so they could fundraise for their group....in this instance it was just a matter of everyone taking and no one giving...but everyone wanted a big powwow....lol....with no admission fees. Well, it costs money to bring head staff in, even to get local staff if you want to treat people right...and we were doing good awarding comp time to those staff members that helped and then our president at that time cut us off at the knees and said she wouldn't approve comp time anymore...so then the number of our "volunteers" just went down the drain.

So there is alot of consideration that goes into whether to charge or not....and then even some "students" who powwow quite a bit and said they understood how powwows ran and the work involved were some of the ones throwing the biggest fits at the gate when they had to pay their reduced admission fee. Even one "elder" in particular was very insulting to one of our committee chairs...and they had been coming to this powwow for years and it was no big surprise that they had to pay an admission fee.

Bottom line of MY rant is that you can't expect something for nothing...this college powwow I worked expected a good powwow every spring...but no one wanted to help us out with ANYTHING...so finally all the chairs resigned because we got no support from the college. Then two of the chairs still hung in there and had an awesome powwow with an admission charge of like $2 for the entire weekend....and guess what....the same people STILL threw fits!!!! That's why I gave up on working that powwow. My powwows at home don't charge admission and are very good to visitors...but this environment of the college powwow is a complete different animal...and we have to do things that we wouldn't normally do if we had the resources that the reservation or community powwows do.

I don't expect our guests and visitors to pitch in at the powwows we work...the powwow is for them. WE put in all the hard work to make it good for THEM...asking them or expecting them to pitch in at a powwow where they are our guests is as rude as inviting people to your house and then expecting them to do the dishes after you've eaten. when people come to your powwow then they are your guest...they are your visitors...and that's what powwows are for...they are for our visitors. that's why it sucks to have to charge admmission fees, but sometimes its unavoidable...its either that or just don't have a powwow at all...and alot of times people just get horrified when you give it to them like that...to tell them do it right or just don't do it....lol.

[ndnsooner]

People always have choice. If you don't want to pay, don't do it. There always another pow-wow going on somewhere else that doesn't charge. The pow-wows that do charge have their reasons for it, if they could keep it free I'm sure that most would. Charging admission for some pow-wows isn't going to go away.

[kneegrow_native]

Our little family pow-wow (Chief Lookingglass, 3rd weekend in August, Kamiah, ID) hasn't charged in the 32 years that it has been put on. The subject was broached once at a pow-wow and my aunts all shot it down immediately. We serve a lunch on Friday around 11 or 12 and a friendship feast on Saturday afternoon before the afternoon session.

[ketch18]

when i was a kid..my mum always drag me along to her socialite friends and made me dance and sing for a 20 pesos..

[native nation]

People always have choice. If you don't want to pay, don't do it. There always another pow-wow going on somewhere else that doesn't charge. The pow-wows that do charge have their reasons for it, if they could keep it free I'm sure that most would. Charging admission for some pow-wows isn't going to go away.

I agree.

[~*~ShanLyn~*~]

most powwows i go to, you pay to register and then you get "powwow" money back to go and spend at vendors. the vendors turn their tickets in and get money from the committee. I've paid say 7 dollars to register, got 5 bucks in powwow cash and the rest went to the committee. i have no problem with that! You get a meal from it anyway! Some vendors will even make deals so you can get food and a drink for the 5 bucks even if they're charging more. at least you can pick and choose what you want to eat.

[cute_jinglin_sweetie]

Mt. Pleasant

I'm on the pow-wow committe for Mt. Pleasant, MI's pow-wow (1st FULL weekend in August). Historically, our pow-wow has never charged for parking, camping, or admission. This is just the way we do it; like someone before said (NDNMSW), the people that come here are our visitors and we treat them as such. We want our visitors to feel welcome and come back, it makes a huge difference and gives the pow-wow a sense of community. We do charge for the dancers and singers to register to CONTEST dance; if they chose to dance without competing, that is free. The registration fee is to offset the cost of the MANY specials that we have; this has worked very well for us in the past and we are able to throw in other specials at the last minute. We also feed EVERYONE that comes to the pow-wow; we provide a catered meal, but of course, elders first, singers, dancer, family members, etc...all the way down to spectators. This is how we were taught by our elders and I see nothing wrong with it at all. Everyone is welcome

[ndnMSW]

I'm on the pow-wow committe for Mt. Pleasant, MI's pow-wow (1st FULL weekend in August). Historically, our pow-wow has never charged for parking, camping, or admission. This is just the way we do it; like someone before said (NDNMSW), the people that come here are our visitors and we treat them as such. We want our visitors to feel welcome and come back, it makes a huge difference and gives the pow-wow a sense of community. We do charge for the dancers and singers to register to CONTEST dance; if they chose to dance without competing, that is free. The registration fee is to offset the cost of the MANY specials that we have; this has worked very well for us in the past and we are able to throw in other specials at the last minute. We also feed EVERYONE that comes to the pow-wow; we provide a catered meal, but of course, elders first, singers, dancer, family members, etc...all the way down to spectators. This is how we were taught by our elders and I see nothing wrong with it at all. Everyone is welcome

You girls are on the committee again? lol...I thought you were done after last year. They must have wanted you back cuz you were doing such a great job.

This powwow has always been a community powwow...it didn't always have the huge prize money it does now way back in the day, but it still has retained that sense of community. The Saginaw Chippewas have always treated their visitors well...their giveaway at the end is AWESOME, the food is great, and they always have alot of dance specials. We pay like $5 to compete, but that's nothing compared to the hospitality that we receive when we are there.

[ndnMSW]

Lol...I forgot to add that when I worked KU powwow as a student, the administration that banned us from having on-campus food sales, wouldn't let us have our own concession stand in Anschutz Pavilion, said we couldn't do 50/50 or other types of "raffles" because it was considered gambling, and wouldn't let us use the KU logo on our powwow t-shirts (which would have made them easier to sell to students/staff/etc.)...that same administration asked us, "Why don't you charge admission to cover the cost of your event so you won't have to ask student senate for so much money?"

And trying to explain why we didn't want to do that (we knew students and staff from KU wouldn't come if they had to pay and we were advertising it as a free educational opportunity) was like talking japanese to them....they just didn't get it. And also, if we could show that we had a small source of revenue for the powwow they would have cut back on what little funding they gave us....lol. And they said again, that we needed to become self-sufficient...lol.

[Iowa_Boy]

Lol...I forgot to add that when I worked KU powwow as a student, the administration that banned us from having on-campus food sales, wouldn't let us have our own concession stand in Anschutz Pavilion, said we couldn't do 50/50 or other types of "raffles" because it was considered gambling, and wouldn't let us use the KU logo on our powwow t-shirts (which would have made them easier to sell to students/staff/etc.)...that same administration asked us, "Why don't you charge admission to cover the cost of your event so you won't have to ask student senate for so much money?"

And trying to explain why we didn't want to do that (we knew students and staff from KU wouldn't come if they had to pay and we were advertising it as a free educational opportunity) was like talking japanese to them....they just didn't get it. And also, if we could show that we had a small source of revenue for the powwow they would have cut back on what little funding they gave us....lol. And they said again, that we needed to become self-sufficient...lol.

our campus has an exclusive food vending contract, for everything, so no food vendors for our powwow, and we have to have them do the feed as well. With our current economic state, I could see alot of the college powwows getting cut way back

[ndneyez]

Not me :)

You girls are on the committee again? lol...I thought you were done after last year. They must have wanted you back cuz you were doing such a great job.

This powwow has always been a community powwow...it didn't always have the huge prize money it does now way back in the day, but it still has retained that sense of community. The Saginaw Chippewas have always treated their visitors well...their giveaway at the end is AWESOME, the food is great, and they always have alot of dance specials. We pay like $5 to compete, but that's nothing compared to the hospitality that we receive when we are there.

Just for the record, this sister did not reapply for the pow-wow committee this year. Just so there's no misunderstanding.....lol

[molelake2006]

I also feel your pain and so do many elders of my tribe but when you look at the world today you cant do nothing without money money money. At our powwows we try to at least have one feast a day to feed our family friends and visitors. we also have a honor song were the dancers and singers dance and get paid. so they pretty much get there money back times two. but still is not right

[ndnMSW]

Just for the record, this sister did not reapply for the pow-wow committee this year. Just so there's no misunderstanding.....lol

Bummer...lol. You all did such a good job. So is it just the little sister that is helping out again?

[cute_jinglin_sweetie]

Bummer...lol. You all did such a good job. So is it just the little sister that is helping out again?

This middle sister and the little sister both re-applied We decided that we would put in our letters of interest again and hopefully get re-appointed. We're keeping our fingers crossed! I myself knew that I couldn't just sit back and enjoy the pow-wow without wondering if everything is going ok or not...lol! And the week "off" that tribal council gives us doesn't hurt either

I'll keep ya posted!