Upcoming membership and pricing changes (July 2026)

First, a bit of background

You may have noticed a frustrating glitch in Mindbody: when you cancel a booking for a class you can't attend, the credit doesn't behave the way it should. It jumps ahead and attaches itself to an already-scheduled class in the next 4 week cycle.

After a lot of investigating, I've traced this back to the extended 8-week validity period we added to memberships. Unfortunately, it's a hard system limitation. Mindbody simply isn't designed to handle the longer validity window, and there are no settings that can fix it. Rather than leaving you stuck with a clunky workaround forever, we're using this as an opportunity to redesign our membership options in a way that better reflects how different people use the studio.

We've also been listening to feedback from a range of members about the booking system and our pricing options. After collating it all, and considering system limitations, we've come up with some new pricing options.

Membership or pass?

Given that we cannot offer you both 8 weeks to use classes AND the ability to manage your own bookings as needed, we want to give you a chance to decide which membership will best suit your circumstances.

We are now offering two types of membership (standard or flex) which you can apply to your membership package (silver, gold, platinum, diamond, or ultimate). In addition, we are adding a Class Pass for 13 weeks, which aligns with our 13 week terms.

The meaning of membership

Membership is about more than paying a fee for a service. It is about building something special together.

For many years we've offered memberships, which have been intended to provide an option for those dancers who are passionate about dance and about being part of Dragonfly Dance. It is designed for those dancers who want to attend regularly, who want to play an active role in sustaining our community and the quality of our teaching and facilities. Membership is what helped us survive COVID, and what meant we were able to raise $30,000 via crowdfunding to install sprung floors with dance tarkett in our two studios.

The premise of membership is that you pay a regular fee to attend the number of weekly classes depending on your membership package. You have flexibility to attend alternative classes if you can't make it to your regular class. Plus, you receive a significant discount to (a) recognise your commitment to the studio, (b) account for those times where you might not get to use all your classes before they expire.

You understand that you are paying for a place in the class, and that your regular payments and attendance make a real difference to the continued existence of the community. You recognise that the result for you is:

• facilities purpose built for dance (the sprung floors, mirrors, barres, heating and cooling, access to customer support

• high quality teachers who are able to meet regularly to ensure a consistently high standard of teaching

• development of our adult specific dance curriculum and teaching method.

Membership pricing is based on a discount from the drop in class rate. We calculated these prices based on the assumption of a 12 month commitment. We have had a no-lockin policy after 12 weeks for some time, intended to accommodate unexpected circumstances. But in recent years, we've found many people cancel well before they've completed 12 months. This has meant that our pricing has been too low to sustain the studio.

New membership options - choose Standard or Flex

Our intention has always been to offer both affordability and flexibility, but that has been problematic with only one option. So we've decided to offer two memberships to suit the different needs of our committed dancers.

You can still choose a package based on how many classes you attend each week (silver, gold, platinum, diamond, ultimate).

Standard Membership

• Our most affordable option, best suited if consistency and value are your priorities.

• Classes, payments, and expiries all run on a clean 4-week cycle, which is what keeps it simple and keeps the price down.

Flex Membership 

• Runs on a 13-week cycle, giving you much more flexibility around scheduling and rescheduling.

• Slightly less discounted than Standard, but ideal if your schedule varies and flexibility matters more to you than getting the lowest price.

Both memberships will now be a 12-month commitment, without holds, cancellations, or downgrades (upgrades are always possible). This reflects what membership is really meant to be, as outlined above. We will be working on a system to accommodate extenuating circumstances, but that will be the exception, rather than an entitlement.

Pass options

Drop in pass

• Pay as you go

• Full price

• Valid for 2 weeks

• Best suited if you can't attend regularly

• Pre-book, but not an enrolment

13-Class Pass

• Pay as you go

• Discounted compared to dropin, but not as much as membership

• Designed for those who want a committed, structured option without a 12-month contract.

• Énrolled (your spot in class is secured for the term, just like members.

Annual price review

From July, we will be increasing our prices based on an annual CPI adjustment. This is something we will be doing every year, based on the March CPI figures each year.

Our lease and overheads are indexed to CPI, so this keeps us sustainable without big unexpected jumps. To give you some context: during the cost-of-living crunch of the last few years, we held our prices steady while CPI rose by around 15%. We're now well behind where we should be, and small, regular increases each year is a much fairer approach for everyone than playing catch-up with a large one-off rise.

What's next?

Stay tuned — full details, including pricing for each option, are coming soon. In the meantime, I'll share a post in the Facebook group where you can ask questions in the comments. That way, if others have the same question, they'll be able to see the answer too. Nothing is changing until July, so there's no rush, but do start thinking about which option might suit you best.

Frequently asked questions

Below are some questions, which we will add to as we receive more queries.

If I am enrolled in a class, can I still manage my own bookings in Mindbody to reschedule classes when needed?

Yes. Your enrolment will mean you are automatically booked into class. If you can't attend, you have up to an hour before class to cancel it so you can use it to book another class.