Things you should research before attending an audition

Some people get all crazy on audition season, attending every single company audition that gets  posted like its a mission to attend them all, but when auditioning takes money and time (and let's not forget time is money), is this really the best way to get through auditions season?

Let's make something clear to begin with, the fact that people have to pay an audition fee for work consideration, is already messed up enough. Talk to some non-dancers for a change, and ask them what they would think if they needed to attend a job interview where they would have to pay to be interviewed, and let me know what they answered.

Now, if its a school audition it is different, but when a professional company, searching for dancers to employ goes around the country having auditions charging $20-$30 dollars a pop, there is something absolutely fishy happening, specially when you consider in the fact that most likely there isn't even a handful of jobs to be offered to both men and women. And if you are saying its to pay for the costs of the audition, think again, a flight only costs about $300 and renting prime studio for 2 hours is roughly $150 (in Manhattan), say  the person conducting the audition is staying overnight, and hired a teacher to give class so he/she could look for work candidates, add $500, we are still under $1000 which is roughly 50 dancers @$20 dollars each.

Having said that, (and I'll get back to that on another post), there are many other things you should consider finding out before blindingly going to an open call and paying for the privilege to work your ass off for an hour and a half for someone who you might not even be certain they have a job to offer, so here is a list of Things You Should Research Before Attending an Audition

What kind of work they do?
Maybe the particular style of dancing isn't work you would be thrilled to be doing.

What kind of dancers do they currently have on contract? 
You should make sure it is work that you respect and you'll be proud to be working with them.

Who is in charge? 
Maybe you already worked or know someone who works with that director. They could possibly save you from working for a crazy. Or you could possibly want to work harder to land a gig with a super cool boss.

What Stats do their dancers currently have? 
Do you fit the look, height, shape and possibly level, of the company? There are a lot of different companies and some like more muscular people, some like tall, some like short. Where do you fit in?

Is the company is actually hiring?
Lets face it, most companies are suffering and are mostly downsizing. If you can, find out how many man and female contracts they have available for the next season. If you have a spine, you might even ask them directly when you arrive at the audition, before you pay.

"How many male and female full time contracts do you guys have available?"

What kind of pay do they offer?
Unless your parents are still supporting you, you might want to find a REAL dance job, and not one of those that pays $50 dollars a week and requires you to work full time (possibly after you had to relocate).

So having researched all of the above should save you some time, money and energy, and will allow you to focus on actually landing the jobs that are a good fit for you.

Don't forget, you ALSO get to audition the company, its not just them auditioning you!