Django Dance School

Dance More, Work Less



About the Project

Partnered social dance schools are complicated. We run regular class series in all sorts of different configurations, which may require prerequisites, auditions, complex pricing, etc. We also often run public events, some of which require registration, and some of which do not. We often manage numerous instructors, teach in numerous locations, and have to manage schedules and finances for all of these things.

At the same time, partnered social dance schools are often run by amateurs, with limited time and resources. The founders of this project are all Lindy Hoppers, and in that community, even many of the most prominent and successful dance schools have zero full-time staff. We have seen many instances of schools that are simply unable to grow or expand their reach, because they lack the time and resources to manage all of the logistical details. Those constraints are a disservice to the dance.

Over a period of several years, in Boston, we have sought to address these issues by building our own custom registration system, complete with all of the features needed to run a sophisticated dance school. Surprisingly, the commercial options for dance schools are very limited, inflexible, and often expensive. We ended up with software that suits our needs well, but that is also adaptable enough to be suited to a wide range of dance schools, including partnered social dances of all types, but also to many other types of dance. This project is the result of those efforts.

Fully Integrated with django CMS and Bootstrap

The sophisticated django CMS system handles your front-end content and allows you or your staff to manage your website’s content without knowledge of HTML. It includes features such as front-end content editing, drafts, and sophisticated plugin features that make it simple to keep your school’s site polished.

Customizing your site’s layout can be a pain, but Django Dance School is built to use the popular Bootstrap library, so you can get your own designs up and running quickly.

Track your school's performance

Built in graphs using C3.js make it easy to track overall performance as well as things like student retention, performance by class type and location, and top students.

Easy Paypal and Stripe Checkout Integration

You can start accepting online payment quickly!

The system also handles invoice payments (for things like over-the-phone registration) and refunds for cancellations. Need to use another payment processor? Django Dance School is built to be easily extensible to use other payment systems.

Integrated Financial Management Tools

Don’t fly blind! Keep track of your revenue and expenses in one place. Automatic generation of expense items makes it easy to figure out who needs to be paid when, and Django Dance School easily generates financial summaries by month, year, or by individual class series or event.

Flexible discount system

Want to give your students a discount for taking multiple classes? Or maybe you want an “early bird” discount for preregistration? Or even an “all-in” class pass for the month? No problem.

Extensive voucher and gift certificate features

Want to make discount voucher codes, reward your students for creating volunteer work, or even run a referral code program for new students? Django Dance School does that. Want to allow customers to buy gift certificate, with automatically-generated codes and PDF attachments that they can print? Sure!

Prerequisites and Audition-Only Classes

Do you run audition-only classes or classes with prerequisites? Django Dance School has it covered.

Modular and Customizable

Don’t like the way that something works, or need a new feature? The Django Dance School project is designed to be modular and easily extensible. And, it runs on your own server, so you have complete control.

Open Source and Free

Whether you’re a small school running one or two classes per week, or a large and established school, you don’t need to be paying hundreds of dollars per year in fees to use third-party tools. Try out Django Dance School today!