[Squaredancing] Re: [sd-callers] Is MWSD in trouble?

[ljknews]

At 3:00 PM -0400 8/29/05, Kathy Godfrey wrote:
> The discussion about the proliferating of square dance
> callers adding to the problem is something I hadn't
> considered as a serious issue before (I don't think
> it is one now in the way that Sweet describes,
> if only because there is now a de facto barrier
> to entry that didn't exist back then--finding
> enough bodies to call to as a new caller!).
> 
> But the phenomenon that Sweet describes is
> well known in economics--in an efficient
> market, with low barriers to entry, any
> arising opportunity to make money with
> relatively little effort will attract
> potential exploiters until the market
> achieves equilibrium again

Neither of the clubs where I watch the hiring process just looks
to hire a caller willy-nilly or at the absolute cheapest rate.
Hiring a guest caller always requires a champion within the club
who has danced to that caller, likes that caller, etc.

So for new callers entering the market there must be some special
value that makes them attractive other than price.  Choice of music,
adherence to "standard applications" (or not), style of entertainment
(the words the callers says that are not in the definitions) all play
a role in these decisions.
-- 
Larry Kilgallen