Today we’d like to introduce you to Angi Larsen.
Hi Angi, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Back in 1993, one year after my husband Keith and I were married, I was finishing my last year as a competitive dancer and Keith & I were at a competition and some of us started talking about ways it could be done better and someone mentioned that dance competitions were decent money-makers. So on our drive home that night we talked about the possibility of starting our own dance competition, renting the USU spectrum and trying to really “do it right”. We decided we would give it a go. So we called the university and booked the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum for the following spring, Keith talked to some studios he sold bags and apparel to in his job with Logo Shop (which back then was called Logo Watch), I talked to the studios I knew, I went to the library and copied dance studios in the yellow pages in Utah and Idaho, made a simple flyer on my first home apple computer I received as a teacher, used a dance photograph of myself plus a logo circle from a shopping sack to create a logo and sent invitations… and hoped people would come! That first year we had 52 teams, our family all worked for us for free and we took them to dinner after to say thank you, and we made enough money to make it worth our time. We have done it every year since then, making our 2025 season our 32nd season of Utah Dance Fest. We added a second event in 1998 and have had as many as 280 teams and over 1200 teams in attendance in one weekend, and as many as 3 events in one season. Our profits increased by 30 times in 30 years and our business has very much become a family-run business that has brought much more than monetary blessings to our family.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
We have certainly made mistakes along the way and learned a lot of hard lessons, but fortunately, growth fairly consistently over the years but there have definitely been better years and slower years. I was always having to find the new studios and new ways to reach out to them to keep people coming and studios excited to attend year after year. In the early 2010’s dance convention/competitions really started to multiply in numbers and popularity – traveling events that would go to cities all over the country – and a lot of studios were attracted to them over local competitions so I had to work harder to keep people coming to Utah Dance Fest but we never had a bad year really. And in 2018 we even added a brand new event called The Battle of the Best which provided classes as well as competition to go to bat a bit with the national touring competitions.
But the technology changes over those 30 years have certainly been one of the biggest challenged to keep up with even though it almost always helped to streamline and improve our methods of doing things. For example, when we started judges scored and commented on routines on paper scoresheets that were printed and sorted and organized before the event, then physically run back and forth from the tabulating room to the judges and back to the tabulators between routines and tabulated with adding machines and returned with an adding machine paper stapled to the sheets and handed out to each dancer or team at the end of the event! So much paper handling! Now the judges comment on voice recordings and score routines on Google Docs on laptops which are read live by our tabulators and are tallied with excel spreadsheets and emailed to dancers at the end of the day! SO MUCH EASIER!
We’ve been impressed with Utah Dance Fest , but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Utah Dance Fest is known throughout the region for being one of the mot organized, on-time, family-friendly and classy dance competitions around. Studios have traveled to Logan from all over Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada and even from as far away as Hawaii! Dancers LOVE our trophies because they actually aren’t trophies – they are dancer figurines. We only used traditional trophies our first year, in 1994, and then found a ceramic business who made dancer statues for many years, then when our demand exceeded his ability to create the ceramics, we found polyresin figurines and have used them since. Many dancers come just for the beautiful figurines. I think people also love Utah Dance Fest because we are a family-run business. I have 6 children and our kids have worked at Utah Dance Fest since they were old enough to do simple math and sell treats and drinks at our UDF snack booth. In fact the snack booth was conceived by our oldest son Jordan when he was in Kindergarten and wanted to be able to work at UDF, so he found some empty water bottles with our logo on them we had given away the year before and had the revolutionary idea (there was no such thing as bottled water in 1999) to fill them with water and sell them! As our boys grew they did more complicated jobs, like checking in dancers, handing out awards, being our MC’s and taking care of judges and technology. And as our 2 daughters grew up they began to help run the show backstage and help design our UDF apparel line each year which is extremely popular and sells out year after year. We have added daughter in laws who sell our apparel and do professional photography for us. We are unique in the dance competition world that way – we are very visibly a family run event and I think people love that because most of our customers are also families. In fact our first two grand-daughters even did their first on stage performance together at our Battle of the Best event and the crowd was so kind to them and they were so proud. After all these years, and two of our children married with children of their own, they all still travel back to Logan to work at UDF each year, because they say “we don’t know why but we just love it.” And I LOVE that.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I was a dancer growing up. I was trained at Tueller School of Dance here in Logan and I lived only a block away so I walked or rode my bike to dance many times. I loved it. I was also a cheerleader at Logan Jr. High and at Logan High and was also a Logan High Hi-Lo (drill team) for a year. I was privileged to tour the country with a dance competition/convention called Hoctor’s Dance Caravan right after high school graduation. . I attended USU and earned my degree in Mathematics Education and was also a Sunburst dancer for the famous Glenn Miller show at USU for a year. I served an LDS mission in Hawaii and married Keith Larsen in 1992. I taught math at Logan High for 5 years before and during the first years as we started our family. Keith owns Sports Academy and Planet Fitness in Logan as well as 2 other health clubs in Idaho Falls and Johnny O’s Spudnuts in Logan. We have 6 children – Jordan, James, Shanae, Kobe, Kort & Demi. We love Lake Powell every year as a family, boating, playing sports, exercising, traveling and spending time with the people we love- both friends and family. And we are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the gospel of Jesus Christ is the heartbeat of our family. We love the Savior and we love each other and we just do our best everyday to be a force for good in the world!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://utahdancefest.com
- Instagram: utahdancefest
- Facebook: utahdancefest
- Twitter: utahdancefest
