Yes, we are funded entirely by the dancer community. The vast majority of that support comes from dancers just like you. In fact, we cannot exist without the donations from dancers — that support is essential. In fact, you can see who they are: take a moment to look at the select list of Dance Gypsy supporters. The Dance Gypsy thanks all of them for their support (and you should too — without their help you would not be seeing these pages today
Becoming a Dance Gypsy Supporter is simple and inexpensive: just make a contribution to the Dance Gypsy — in any amount. Seriously if everyone who used the site donated just a little — seriously, a little — the Dance Gypsy would do just fine. Use the form below,
What do you get in return for your contribution? Not much that is tangible, but an interesting list of special privileges:
First you get new and expanded searching tools:
Donors have more search options, including “advanced search” (find by state or key word), or fast single–day searches.
Your Dance Gypsy home page can include a short–form linked list of the dances in your default search. (No need to actually do a search.)
You may bookmark specific search results. Thus, you can select your favorite searches directly from your browser’s bookmark list.
You may save your default search so that whenever you go to the search pages, that default appears first. You may submit it directly or make modifications before submitting.
Access and display
If you have a webpage (associated with your donation), you may include live links to specific search results directly from your own website (or even embedded within your site). For example if you run a dance in Wonderland, you might include all similar dances within 50 miles of that event.
Donors will not be subjected to external ads (the ones that appear to come from other sources and may not have much to do with dancing). Avoiding these ads speeds up the searches and improves readability.
There are no longer any fund drives for anyone. No one seemed to like those. But non–donors will see periodic requests for funding interrupting their searches. Current donors are exempt from these.
Maps are optional (maps are one of the two slowest items in generating the Dance Gypsy event or performer lists). Skipping the maps will greatly improve your result speed.
If you are a performer (e.g., musician or caller), your name will always be highlighted with the “silver dot”: wherever it appears in the Dance Gypsy listings.
If you are a dance organization, your events will be highlighted.
Savings
As a supporter you are eligible for a discount on any ads or other items or services you purchase from the Dance Gypsy.
Much more importantly, you get the (less tangible, but very real) satisfaction that you have helped this service continue.
We can’t do it without your support. And yes, just like NPR, we know that many users will not contribute (in fact less than 2% of regular users contribute anything). However, if only a fraction of our monthly visitors contributed anything, the Dance Gypsy’s future would be assured.
How much should I contribute?
Seriously, You may contribute any amount you wish. In the past year, we have gratefully received donations from as little as $5 to over $200. The median for that year was about $25. For us it is far more important to get support from more users of the services than to get a small subset of them to contribute a lot.
Or perhaps you would like to know how much we need to keep delivering info. that is harder to answer. The bottom line is that in 7 of the last 10 years we have lost money. So simple answer is we need a lot more. Another way to look at that is that we desperately need new software. Our development software is now 6 years old — and becoming increasingly incompatible with newer operating systems and browsers. We have not replaced it because of the cost. So what? Development is slower because of the problems with old software — and every minute dealing with those problems is a minute taken from delivering the latest information to you. With greater support we can deliver more service.
Why should I help?
The Dance Gypsy provides several important services:
We believe we have the best and most complete coverage of upcoming dance festivals and special events nationwide. We list festivals year-round in all 50 states and 9 provinces (and even some in other countries), as much as a full year in advance, with full specifics including: featured performers, venue, contact information and price. Each year we list over 500 festivals — with more being added all the time.
We also have what we believe to be the most complete and up-to-date coverage of regularly–scheduled contra, folk and traditional dances. Historically we listed dances only in New England, but we now list them anywhere. It will take some time for other regions to catch up but there are already dances listed as far From New England as California, British Columbia and Alaska. . As far we we know, no other site provides monthly specifics (e.g., caller and band) for as many forms of dance (contra, square, folk, international, Balkan, Israeli, Scandinavian, English, Scottish and more), or for as large a geographic area: Our data base currently lists almost 4000 upcoming events.
We include an extensive directory of other dance sites including musicians, bands, callers, instructors, vendors and even other indices of dances. For example, you can look for appearances by your favorite band or find regional organizations that promote dance in your area. There are now pointers to over 2000 other dance-related organizations, groups and people (help now).
These services are unique and popular
As far as we know we are the only site that not only lists regular dances and festivals along with the performers, but the only site that is actively managed. That is, we attempt to update all listings at least every month. [Do the comparison: check to see how many other indices actually list the details of that small dance near you!]
All information is catalogued for easy navigation and the “last-updated” markers let you know how current the information is (or isn’t).
The Dance Gypsy may be the most widely used list of dances and festivals in the country: almost 10,000 dancers make 50,000 requests every month.
Whether you live in New England and are primarily interested in ongoing local dances, or elsewhere and want to know about upcoming festivals or dance related sites, the idea is the same:
We help dancers find dances of interest:
And since we do not have membership fees or other charges, there is no problem if you have no money (help now).
We help organizers of dance events and venues attract dancers to those events.
Believe it or not, the fact that we do not charge the dance sponsors a fee is even more important. It means the listings are complete: dancers looking for a dance never need wonder if there is actually no dance or if there is a nearby dance that simple didn’t want to spend the advertising money.
Note that unfortunately, some dance web indices have started to charge individual dance venues for their listings. In contrast, the Dance Gypsy believes that the only way to assure complete coverage is to list all dances — independent of the sponsors’ ability to pay. Also unfortunately, some dance listing services have recently gone out of business — presumably lack of funding was a contributing factor. Others are no longer updated on a regular basis.
Whatever the cause, these are dance resources that are no longer available to the dance community. The Dance Gypsy pledges that we will continue to list all dances that we can find — for free — for as long as we can exist. And we intend to exist for as long as possible. But to continue to exist, we do need your help(help now).
And these services are all free!
Well, that is free to the reader and free to the dance venue. But unfortunately they are not free to provide.
Alas, it does cost us money to provide the service!
Obviously, the Dance Gypsy incurs many expenses in providing this service: direct computer expenses, computer network services, security, software, hardware, telephone, legal fees, advertising, postage, paper, printer cartridges… and the list goes on and on. Because we are now paperless, we no longer receive subscription income from the newsletter, but we still have many expenses (help now).
Become a Dance Gypsy Sponsor
This opportunity probably isn’t appropriate for every individual or group, but it is an excellent way for dance organizations as well as for the larger or more successful dance venues and vendors to assure the continued dissemination of their dance information: If you contribute $100 (or more!), the Dance Gypsy will gratefully acknowledge your help by providing additional services. First, you get the same nice ’thank you”; letter, update notices, listing on the Dance Gypsy Supporters page, and satisfaction as do supporters. In addition, wherever appropriate, the Dance Gypsy will:
include your color logo or selected image in our “Supporters and Sponsors” page (all such images may be “live linked” to your own site)
highlight specific entries for your dance events in our calendar (regular dances) or special events pages (formerly Summer Planner) (e.g., using using larger font, and a small “supporter” icon)
include your logo randomly within our pages (again linking to your site)
provide more complete information about your events, and
allow you a 10% discount on all additional paid advertisements
(all of the above will last for a full year!)
Note that $100 is still cheaper than many organizations used to pay for an occasional ad in the Dance Gypsy. And since sponsors get a display ad, hey it’s still a great deal.
Other ways for dance organizations to help support the Dance Gypsy
Take advantage of Dance Gypsy services
In addition to the public listings in the webpages, the Dance Gypsy provides several services that help dance organizations promote their dances. Use of these services help your organization and also helps support the Dance Gypsy.
The Dance Gypsy is happy to list all events — even those that do not advertise — with no charge! But advertising your event or service gets you much greater visibility while providing the Dance Gypsy with much needed revenue. See all that you can get for our current ridiculously inexpensive (the star ads start at just $10!) rates.
With the Dance Gypsy’s help, you can promote your dance through your own web site and help support the Dance Gypsy at the same time. For our prices, you couldn’t even talk to a commercial web-development service.
Email forwarding helps you sift through those requests for information, while helping support the Dance Gypsy.
Other ways to become a Dance Gypsy supporter or sponsor
Send us a letter. Many of you will want some additional communication — e.g., to provide the logo to use in the newsletter, or information for the sponsor’s web pages, or perhaps you want to place a discounted ad right away, or need to provide the support via a formal check — before becoming a supporter. Contact the Gypsy through any of the the methods listed in our contact page.
Too busy right now? Then simply Pledge (just like you might to NPR) with an Email. We will remind you periodically if you forget to follow it up with a check.
Using PayPal
Electronic payment does not require that you join PayPal. Join or not, it is free and relatively painless. Essentially PayPal works as a middleman: they charge your credit card and send the money to the Dance Gypsy. If you do not join, this is just like any other online payment using your credit card. If you do join Paypal, you can give them the credit card number once and never need to do that step again. provide them with a credit card number (or if you prefer, you may use your bank account or simply deposit money with them). When you make a purchase from a PayPal site (e.g., the Dance Gypsy — or any other vendor), you authorize PayPal to charge your account and send the money to the vendor. Both seller and purchaser receive immediate confirmation via Email. All transactions are through secure sites and there is no service charge to the purchaser. One big advantage for many contributors is that you provide your credit card info only once, rather than with each purchase or contribution you make: after the first use, you never have to provide credit card numbers, etc. again.
You may open a PayPal account by clicking the button below. Their site will allow you to cancel the process at any time.
wherever it appears in the Dance Gypsy listings.
start at just $10!) rates.