Tap Dance Floors

A tap dance floor is made using hardwood or specialist dance vinyl (also known as Marley floor). Tap dance floors are more durable than standard dance floors as they need to withstand repeated impacts from metal taps. Moreover, a tap dance floor needs to have excellent resonance, giving deep and rich sounds when tapped.

Installing a professional tap dance floor can raise a studio’s profile and allow students to perform to the best of their ability. Furthermore, a modern, shock-absorbent sprung floor can potentially offer long-term benefits for dancers.

Knowledge Hub

Best tap dance floors 2023

How to choose the right tap dance floor

Nocturne™

Tap, Irish & Multi-purpose Dance Floor

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Nocturne™ Heavy-Duty Dance Floor

From £24.51 per m²

This highly resonant roll-out dance floor brings performance to life with fantastic tap sound.

The advanced, multi-layer construction is highly resistant to shoe-taps, making it one of the most capable floors ever made for tap dancing. It’s also incredibly versatile and can be used for all dance styles.

Meadow™

High Shock-absorbency Sprung Floor

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Meadow™ Sprung Floor

Offering our highest level of shock absorbance, Meadow™ creates a beautifully sprung surface that’s ideal for all types of dance.

Finished with a hardwood top, it looks visually stunning and creates vibrant sound for tap performances.

Woodland™

Dual-Zone Sprung Floor

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Woodland™ Sprung Floor

This hardwood-topped dance floor is not only gorgeous and immersive, but also provides incredibly rich sounds for tap dance.

The foam-sprung base provides progressive shock absorption, benefiting both adult and junior performers. This added cushioning makes dancing much more comfortable, potentially offering long-term benefit for dancers. Installed anywhere in mainland UK and supported by a 25-year guarantee.

My Dance Mat™

Home Tap Practice Mat

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My Dance Mat™ Home Tap Floor

From £74.94

Never miss dance practice with our studio-grade dance mats; the same professional dance floor you’ll find in studios around the world.

Safely practice at home on a slip-resistant, controlled-glide surface. All our dance mats are cut-to-size to give you a practice mat you can use at home and take almost anywhere.

KNOWLEDGE HUB

What is a Tap Dance Floor?

Tap dance floors are either made from wood or specialist vinyl (also known as Marley floor). They’re super-durable and provide the perfect resonance for tap shoes. Traditionally, tap dance floors were made from hardwoods like maple, ash, and oak. However, specialist vinyl floors have become equally popular in recent years, thanks to their affordability and ease of installation.

Best tap dance floors for studios & academies

The best tap dance floor for a professional studio or academy is a wooden sprung floor with a heavy-duty vinyl top. This combination offers the exceptional durability required to resist percussive taps as well as excellent sound. Furthermore, it also considers the performers themselves, ensuring they have an optimal level of impact absorption, comfort and grip.

Read more in our article Best Dance Floors for Tap 2023

How can I tap dance at home?

You’ll need a suitable dance floor or performance space to regular tap dance at home. Tap dance is very demanding on a floor; the metal shoe taps can quickly scratch laminate flooring and chip stone tiles. As a result, it’s important to practice on the right kind of floor.

Thankfully, you don’t have to spend thousands to have a tap dance floor in your home. A simple Dance Mat can provide an ideal performance space for home practice. Furthermore, dance mats can help protect your hard floors.

Alternatively, suppose you’d like something a little bigger. In that case, full-size vinyl dance floors can also be easily installed at home, providing you have a suitable subfloor.

Moreover, it’s also possible to have a fully-fitted, sprung floor in your home too. With some DIY knowledge, a sprung floor can be easily self-installed. Alternatively, we offer professional installation of all our floors. Please get in touch for a quote.

Portable Tap Dance Mat

Our studio-grade tap dance floor mats are the perfect solution for home practise. They’re low-cost and can help protect delicate floors that could be damaged by tap shoes.

The mat lays flat when in use, but can be easily rolled up and brought wherever practice takes place.

Portable tap dance floors are a fantastic alternative to installing permanent flooring in your home or studio. Combining world-renowned performance flooring with sleek portability, you’ll never have to worry about missing practice again.

Our portable tap floor mats not only provide flexibility, but can withstand years of dance. Furthermore, they’re suitable for beginner, intermediate and advanced users.

Can you tap dance on laminate flooring?

Tap dancing on traditional laminate flooring is not recommended. Metal shoe taps can easily scratch most laminate floors. Furthermore, laminate may not offer the optimal level of grip and control.

However, you could quickly transform laminate areas into a usable dance space by laying a portable dance mat over the top. Furthermore, full-sized vinyl dance floors are also available for larger areas.

For a dance mat to work effectively, the floor must be smooth and level, with the dance mat securely held in place.

Can you tap dance on tile floors?

Tap dancing on tile floors isn’t recommended as tiles can be easily cracked, especially when used for percussive dance style, like tap or Irish dance. Similarly, some tiles provide little grip, making injuries from slips and falls more likely.

Adding a portable dance mat to your tiled floor can be an ideal solution. Dance mats cover the existing floor to help protect it and provide the performer with an optimal level of grip.

It’s worth noting that for a dance mat to work effectively over a tile floor, tiles must be smooth, level and the dance mat securely held in place.

Can you tap dance on vinyl flooring?

Tap dancing on domestic vinyl flooring is not recommended. There’s a big difference between the standard vinyl floors in your home, and the professional vinyl dance floors in a studio. Percussive dance styles, like tap, are very demanding on the floor. Repetitive shoe taps can quickly damage a regular vinyl floor. As a result, tap dance requires a specific type of dance floor; one that’s tough enough to withstand regular use, provide a confident grip and respond with rich sounds from shoe taps.

Does tap dance damage wooden floors?

Tap dancing on wooden floors can cause scuffs, scratches and dents. Especially if the wood is unprotected. A loose screw in a tap shoe, grit walked in from outside, or even the metal shoe tap itself can damage a wood floor. However, this is quite normal as wood is a natural product.

Alternatively, if you’d like to protect your wooden floor, we recommend adding a heavy-duty vinyl top. Dance floor vinyl (also called Marley floor) is a dance-specific vinyl that can laid over the top of an existing hardwood dance floor to help protect it from scuffs and scrapes.

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