#TAS23 Guest Spotlight: Dance With Style

Ahead of TheTicketingBusiness ASIA 2023, Javed Rasool, Founder of Hong Kong’s Dance With Style dance class business, discusses trends in the events sector. In particular, he gives a sobering take on the landscape from an entertainment provider’s point of view.

Rasool – also known as DJ Javed – has been teaching dance, deejaying and organising local and international dance events in Hong Kong since 2005. Dance With Style, founded more than a decade ago, provides salsa, bachata and Cuban salsa dance instruction to individual students as well as at social and corporate events…

What are the key current challenges and opportunities in your market?

Javed Rasool: My company is a dance and events company and it’s a small single ownership company. Most importantly, my business is based on people. If people join our dance classes and attend our events then life is good, but since Covid hit and now, post-Covid, the biggest challenge is to get people to join our events.

Corporates have completely disappeared. There is not much spending, so businesses like mine are bleeding.

Another challenge is getting the venues to pay us what we deserve, and on time.

What are the most interesting trends you are witnessing in the sector?

Javed: Unfortunately, the one trend I see is that everybody seems to be struggling to make ends meet.

What are your organisation’s major initiatives over the coming year?

Javed: My long-term plan is to organise and host an annual international dance competition where people from all over the world descend to Hong Kong for this event.

What are you looking forward to exploring more at the conference?

Javed: I’m looking forward to meeting with corporates, brands, sponsors and more to expand my business in new areas on my bucket list.

Join Javed and hundreds of ticketing and events execs at TheTicketingBusiness ASIA 2023 #TAS23, which takes place at The Wave in Kwun Tong, Hong Kong on 17-18 October.

We’ll explore what’s happening across sales, marketing and engagement tech for arts, culture, sports, live music, theme parks and visitor attractions throughout the APAC entertainment market.