By Katie Murphy ’14 | Staff Writer
Due to a lack of ticket sales, the Barn Dance was cancelled around 2 p.m. yesterday, Thursday, Dec. 5, Class of 2015 Student Council vice president Ellie Flom said. This is the second dance in the past year that has been cancelled because of a lack of interest.
The usual winter dance every year is the Glow-Out, Class of 2016 Student Council vice president Connor Mallegg said. The reason for a switch in theme this year was because of the negative and inappropriate behavior displayed at Glow Out last year.
“We changed the theme because the atmosphere at the ‘Glow-Out’ was getting to be too much like a rave,” said student council secretary Mary Spencer ’15. “We figured that the Barn Dance theme was something that a lot of people could participate in.”
Usually, the winter dance every year is held after Winter break in mid-January, Class of 2015 Student Council adviser Danielle Peck said. Since there was limited availability for gym time this winter, the dance had to take place much earlier this year than in years past.
“We decided to move the date of the dance earlier than in years past because of the dropping ticket sales from last year’s Sadie’s,” said Peck. “With the dates more spread out, there are hopes that there will be a bigger turn out.”
Many considerations and ideas had been taken into consideration when evaluating why the ticket sales were so scarce this year. One theory is that the timing was too early and students were not prepared to have a dance so early in the year, said assistant principal Terry Flint.
“What I don’t know is how much real legitimate interest there is. There are certainly a core group of kids all over wanting to do it,” said Flint. “Eighty kids out of 1,750 is definitely a small group of kids. That’s something I think should be looked at. Was it the time of the year? We just finished Thanksgiving, I don’t know if the timing is off.”
Having a different theme this year also could have sparked the student disinterest in the dance, said Mallegg. With not having much time to construct a theme and advertise, it was difficult for the word of the dance to be spread to students.
“We were really crunched for time and I think that because we were crunched for time we did not have as good as a theme as we could have had,” said Mallegg. “I think that we can find a more appealing theme that can help the interest of students.”
Student council is working to resolve the issue of low ticket sales that result in their cancellation, said Mallegg. Last year, the annual Sadie Hawkin’s dance was cancelled because of a small amount of student involvement.
“I think we need to find a theme that is appealing so we can get a chain reaction started,” said Mallegg. “Sadies’ got cancelled last year, and this year Glow-Out was disapproved, so we had to change the theme and then that got cancelled. I think it is just that we need to find a way to appeal to more students, and then it will start. I think that’s where we need to go.”
For future dances, student council is going to work on advertisements and spreading the word to students to create interest to attend, said Flom. Although there were numerous posters and announcements, the length of advertising was very marginal.
“I think part of it that doesn’t help is that I think all the kids were looking forward to thanksgiving break and there was not much advertisement before the break but then after the break it was like all of a sudden there’s a dance scheduled,” said Flint. “So the amount of time to advertise I think was pretty limited. The only way I think I would see it increasing the participation is spending more time advertising.”
Although the winter dance was cancelled this year, student council hopes to see a better turn out for Sadie Hawkin’s.
