The end of a dance season comes as a mixed blessing. Without regular performances to get to, balletomanes are set loose on the town. There are movies to see, invitations to accept, and restaurants to visit at normal dining hours. But in just a little while, the urge to see more ballet comes back. And when it hits, I do start to miss it all: the dazzling star turns, the corny ballet mime, the what-did-you-think conversations, the speedy Tchaikovsky under Andrea Quinn’s baton. I even miss the crinkle of candy wrappers just when a really intense and quiet passage begins. (Just kidding. It’ll be a cold day in hell when I miss that.)

The off-season is, truth to tell, pretty short, and the schedules for the upcoming ballet seasons have already been announced. (More on that below.) But those in the dance world have many ways to get through these days without ballet.

Wall Street Journal dance critic Robert Greskovic says he settles down for some research: “I stay home and play with my postcards.” Mr. Greskovic has a collection of about 1,500 cards from the Imperial Russian era of ballet. The cards, which he has collected all over the world, depict ballerinas, but some have few clues about the dancers’ identities. “It takes real digging because they’re often badly captioned or not captioned at all,” he said. To discover who’s who, he relies on costumes and postcard design to figure out which ballet it is, then does casting research to learn if a certain dancer had a role in that ballet.

For Eliza Minden, founder of the Gaynor Minden line of pointe shoes, the off-season blues are taken care of with music and video – especially videos of Mikhail Baryshnikov. “I loved him in classical ballet, hard-core Petipa roles,” she said. “I also listen to a lot of Stravinsky. I have ancient vinyl recordings of ‘Petrouchka,’ ‘Firebird,’ and ‘Rite of Spring.'”

Clive Barnes, dance critic for the New York Post and columnist for Dance magazine, doesn’t have much time to notice. “I’ve always got the theater to keep me warm,” he said.

Even so, he recommends settling into the couch with a video. “If you’re really suffering from serious withdrawal, there is a vast repertory of dance on DVD. I’m not saying that two dimensions is any real compensation for three-dimensional dance, but it does provide a fix.”

One balletomane does just that. Patsy Tarr, who holds two subscriptions to City Ballet and edits the dance-photography magazine 2wice,says she takes in some old movies at home. “During the off-season in dance, I watch Fred Astaire movies on DVD. ‘Top Hat’ is my all time favorite.”

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All these post season pastimes will soon enough fall by the wayside in favor of the real thing. Though it may feel like fall weather is still a long way off, soon it will be time to book your tickets for the upcoming season.

The good news, especially for newcomers to dance, is that City Center will again present its Fall for Dance Festival – at which every seat is $10. From September 27 to October 2, this festival will feature 30 different dance companies.

On each of the six nights of the run, five companies will perform one piece from their repertory. The offerings will vary from ballet (American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Houston Ballet) to modern dance (Paul Taylor, Alvin Alley, Pascal Rioult, Limon, Philadanco) to contemporary (Molissa Fenley, Keigwin + Company, Tania Isaac Dance) to tango and flamenco (Tapage and Eva Yerbabuena).

Every night will be a different selection, so on every program there’s a chance you’ll find performances you will like, love, and something you love so much you can’t live without seeing again. And that’s what this festival is all about: giving audiences the opportunity to sample dance without a price barrier.

As City Center’s CEO, Arlene Shuler, likes to point out, the $10 ticket price is less than the ticket price for a movie in Manhattan. And what with the state of Hollywood these days, a night at Fall for Dance is a better bet anyway. Tickets go on sale September 9. To purchase, call CityTix at 212-581-1212, visit the City Center Box office (West 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues), or visit www.nycitycenter.org.

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Later in October, City Center will be home to American Ballet Theatre’s annual fall season, which this year will run October 19 to November 6.The programs will include company premieres of Jerome Robbins’s “Afternoon of a Faun” and Kurt Jooss’s “The Green Table.” Several major revivals are on tap: Agnes de Mille’s “Rodeo,” George Balanchine’s “Apollo,” Antony Tudor’s “Dark Elegies,” and Twyla Tharp’s “In the Upper Room.”

There’s also a world premiere scheduled to debut on October 20. Choreographer Peter Quanz will present his first work for ABT. As yet untitled, the piece is set to Piano Concerto No. 5 by Camille Saint-Saens. Mr. Quanz’s work “SpringScape” was choreographed for the ABT Studio Company. Tickets are on sale now via CityTix at 212-581-1212, the City Center box office, or www.abt.org.

New York City Ballet will kick off its season on November 22 with a gala program, followed by a run of George Balanchine’s “The Nutcracker” from November 25 until December 30. The winter repertory season runs from January 3 until February 26.

The big news is that the season will include Peter Martins’s excellent production of “Swan Lake.” With sets and costumes by Danish Modernist Per Kirkeby, this ballet is an art lover’s dream. The production is a contemporary take on a classical ballet, but all the trappings of tradition are still very much present.

Returning from the repertory are Jerome Robbins’s “In the Night,” set to music by Chopin; Balanchine’s “Songs of the Auvergne,” set to 13 French folk songs, and Christopher Wheeldon’s “Scenes de Ballet.” Balanchine standards like “Symphony in C,” “Concerto Barocco,” and “Firebird” will be onstage, as will “Episodes,” which was initially conceived as a joint project between Balanchine and Martha Graham. Single tickets go on sale November 21. New subscriptions can be purchased from August 1 to October 28. Call 212-721-6500 for information and purchases.

With all this, there’s plenty to look forward to. But until those fall curtains go up, I’ll be watching Dance in America’s DVDs of Balanchine ballets. And waiting patiently.