COMPETITION DETAIL

This is what Dance Educators of America used to be. Friendly, accommodating staff, organized competition, great workshops. The only reason I didn\'t rate it 5 stars is because it just started this year and I don\'t know how it will be when it gets bigger. At the regionals we attended, we were the only studio that showed up so we competed against ourselves. It was exhausting for our dancers with all the back-to-back numbers and quick changes. Nationals in Las Vegas was better. More studios participated and it was a positive atmosphere (despite the presence of Abby Lee). With regard to judging, I thought it was fair, and the comments were relevant and constructive. I like that there are workshops along with the competition. We are attending again in 2014 and I have high hopes for regionals this time. EDITED on 11/21/13: I am disappointed with how Sheer Talent has been fawning over Abby Lee Miller and her group for the last few months. So many posts on their Facebook page are Dance Moms related, and on their website they are even advertising a staged competition (for the TV show) in New York next week. I realize they are just starting out and need the exposure but it is just too much. Not sure if Nationals is going to end up being an ALDC love fest but I wouldn\'t be surprised if it did. For these reasons I\'m taking the rating down from 4 stars to 3 1/2 stars (except it doesn\'t show half stars). EDITED on 7/11/17: Ok I've watched this comp pretty much go downhill over the last three years. My daughter and I went to the 2014 Nationals in Vegas and that was the last time we ever attended Sheer Talent. They were still in the midst of their collaboration with Abby Lee Miller and the favoritism toward her studio was glaringly obvious. FYI, those Sheer Talent competitions that Dance Moms goes to are set up just for the show. They charge $20 for each dancer to "compete" and $20 for anyone who wants to sit in the audience and watch. Everything is staged, including the standing ovations you see on the show. The scoring is another issue. Three years ago, the top award was titanium, and there was only a three or four point spread (you had to score 296-300). Now the top score is diamond, which has a six point spread (294-300). This is the equivalent of vanity sizing in clothing. My advice: save your money and go to a convention like Jump, Nuvo, 24Seven, NYCDA, or Radix. We have attended all of those since the fall of 2014 and have had very positive experiences. The point of competing is to grow as a dancer, and if you keep going to comps where you can count the number of studios attending on one hand, you're not going to have an accurate idea of where you stand as a competitive dancer. Taking my rating down to one star.

by far the worst, most unprofessional company we have ever attended. The blatant disrespect to studio directors, dancers, and parents was unlike anything I have ever witnessed before. I do not recommend this company to anyone. The program was not followed, backstage was run by studios that were competing, errors were made when giving awards, judges forcing girls to hug them when accepting awards, cursing in front of young dancers, the list goes on!

This company owes me $125 for a service that I did not receive. I recently attended a dance competition with my 8 year old at Sheer Talent. I paid for my daughter to attend a convention with the dance company on Sunday the 26th. However, while the competition was being run I observed judges flipping each other off in front of the children (others younger than mine), 2 male judges grinding on stage as a joke at an awards ceremony for young children, children and teenagers being forced to hug all three judges (they actually refused to proceed with the awards until the children that tired to avoid this to come back up and hug them, which borders on harassment), and the director yelling at his confused employees. These same judges were the teachers at the convention. I was not comfortable having my child being taught and subjected to this inappropriate behavior for her age and requested a refund on Saturday. The owner of the company refused to even speak with me and simply replied thank you for your comments contact your own studio director. Three parents pulled their children and calls resulted in the same thing, they don't speak to anyone other than studio owners. Considering I paid for the service I find this ridiculous. There was not a notification, nor did I sign anything stating this fee could not be reimbursed. Lost awards, studios competing working as the behind stage contact and moving their own dancers up to get out earlier after the comp started late (awards ended at 1AM with no apologies for starting late), missing large numbers of routines in adjudications and lengthy delays to figure it out, and a lack of a male dressing room resulting in dads coming in and out of the room (their site says they assign them, but the indicated at the event they do not), this was an overall complete nightmare and waste of my money. The judges were complaining in front of parents about how long they had to be there. No customer service.

Our studio attended Sheer Talent in Springfield MA this past weekend. It was simply the most horrific experience ever. I have been a competition mom for 13 years and I have never seen anything come even close to this. To start out, the competition was scheduled to start Friday afternoon at 4:30, with the last awards ceremony to be held at 11:45. They were over 1 1/2 hours late starting, still building the stage and the judges arriving late. Even after the judges arrived, they still sat around before finally beginning the evening. No apologies made, or acknowledged the parents. The announcer looked like he rolled out of bed in his sweatpants. He was chewing gum like a cow during the entire evening. Saturday at least started on time, however, the events of the day was horrifying. The announcer was seen flipping off his coworkers out in the main lobby. Judges were overheard in the bathroom, complaining about being there for the weekend. Time was wasted during awards ceremonies, in one session, having parents compete in a dance off on stage. One dad proceeded to grind against the announcer and performing a dance worthy of only a lap dance. Another mom inappropriately dancing on the ground. There was not a care in the world that there were children as young as 5 sitting on this stage watching this happen. Special awards were distributed and the winners were forced to hug all the judges on stage upon collecting their trophy. They would not move forward if the dancer did not hug one of their judges. Adjudications were incorrectly announced on multiple occasions. My daughter was even overlooked for her solo had we not yelled out her number after the ceremony was done. The backstage manager, who was the best part of the weekend, went home sick 3/4's of the way through the day. I found it a huge conflict of interest that suddenly moms from a studio in attendance were the ones who worked the back stage area and the sound booth. Props. The website states there is a 3 point deduction for any props that take longer than 45 seconds to get on, or get off the stage. We had a large prop that we were taking off, not sure if we went over the 45 seconds. The routine after ours had their music start and I thought it was disrespectful to them to have to start their dance before our prop was completely removed from the stage. We had no help. So imagine our surprise when there was a dance a little later in the evening that had Sheer Talent staff helping assemble and disassemble their prop with them. This was also done in much longer than 45 seconds. Our girls went to ask the back stage manager at one point where they were in the program to see if they needed to check in yet. The door was shut in their face! When the director of our studio asked to speak to the director of Sheer Talent to express a few concerns, he would not listen to anything she had to say. "We need to move forward." He was so rude and unapologetic! I am a small business owner myself. I know if anyone ever expressed concerns to me, I would apologize for their experience and speak with them to see how we can resolve our issues. No apologies were ever made. I think that is what angers me the most! Save your money and steer clear!

This is my studio\'s first year competing and Sheer Talent was our first event. It was a fabulous first experience - well organized, plenty of space, flowed well. I liked that they had awards ceremonies throughout the day, so younger dancers did not need to wait until the end to find out their scores and awards. Everyone was super friendly - staff was helpful, other studios in our dressing room were welcoming. The day got a little behind and the backstage team a little stressed, but nothing major to complain about. I thought scoring was tough and fair - not too many high scores, and I felt the ones I saw receiving the top two tiers earned those marks. We will definitely be including this competition on next year\'s schedule and are even planning a possible trip to their National in Foxwood this summer.

This is our second year attending Sheer and I don\'t think we will ever go back. Our First year was wonderful but in one year boy did things go down hill fast at our event. Backstage manager was mean and yelled at the kids all day, the made 3 mistakes on awards which they claimed were human error, but how can you tie the senior solos when one dancer got a diamond and the other got a titanium! Something just wasn\'t right this year. Although the workshops on Sunday were still very great for my dancers

Really enjoyed this competition! The workshops were age appropriate, which was nice and a number of scholarships were handed out for future workshops.

My students and parents have had a wonderful experience at Sheer Talent. They make every student and parent feel welcome, even as a small studio. The judges comments are positive, encouraging, and constructive, with high quality videos. The students enjoy the workshops and getting to interact with the judges. They bring back much of what they learn and apply it to their classes.

Fabulous ! Love them!

We were planning to attend the convention in Sacramento this year. Found out today it was canceled due to them losing their venue. Not happy.

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I THOUGHT THIS WAS AMAZING AND I SAW SOO MUCH PASSION!

we attended Sheet Talent LTD. for the first time this past weekend in Sacramento, CA. We had a wonderful experience. We attended as a independent entry and felt the competition was fair. Independents and small studio entries were given the same opportunities to win as large studios. They did skip around a bit with the order; as most competitions do as numbers are added. That\'s to be expected. They provide excellent feedback on comp. performances. We got feedback from three judges synced to the actual performance which allowed my daughter to see what she needed to correct. The feedback was very professionl. The customer service was excellent at the competition as well as the convention. Staff was very helpful. The convention was small; which allowed for a more intense session. Many scholarships and awards were given out in the end rewarding the students hard work during the workshops. Classes consisted of ballet, jazz, hip hop, contemporary, and tap. Parents are not allowed to observe the workshop. Only teachers can observe. The venues were nice and appropriate for the competition and convention. I look forward to seeing this competition and convention grow over the next several years.

Our studio only had a few girls come and perform solos and do the workshop. The judging was based on who had the most sparkles on costumes and no one seemed to care about technique. They kept jumping around in their program which was annoying. We felt like we were at a glitz pageant not a dance competition. The next day for the workshop the ballet teacher yelled at the kids and told them they couldn\'t talk or cough or move...jazz and contemporary had the same choreo which was just rolling around doing shoulder rolls on the floor. My DD didn\'t want to stay for the last class which was tap, we didn\'t stay for the closing awards. The only person we\'d like to commend was the mc girl Anna Quarter, she was super friendly and helpful towards my daughter. It was an experience and we won\'t do it again.

Scoring seemed inflated. Very small - less than 100 dancers total across all age groups in the workshops. Kids seemed to enjoy the classes. Quite a few scholarships were awarded.

This one was a bit of a mess...the numbers were all out of sequence for no discernable reason, (the dancers were lined up three deep for the most part), and often the staffers were just short of rude. The venue in Durham was smalll, old, and crowded, and there was no direct access allowed from the hotel to tbe performance hall, even though it existed, because the hotel had booked a large wedding party at the same time. The hotel was totally unprepared for the number of guests so far as their restaurant was concerned, and there were no other restaurants conveniently close to the venue. Overall this could have been a LOT better, doubt we will go back.