On Feb. 22, students dressed in tuxedos and dresses walked through the Sports Center doors to this year’s Winterfest dance, revealing the colorful decorations of this year’s theme: Candyland. As usual, Student Council (StuCo) went all out with dance preparations, but students felt that the turnout seemed lower than previous years, following low ticket sales.

The decrease in ticket sales impacted attendance at the dance and led to reconsidering how to plan future dances. Maura Newman, an executive officer for StuCo, notes that Winterfest may look different next year, so its future is a little more secure.

“Going forward, our executive board, has discussed a Winterfest “rebrand” to encourage more students to buy tickets,” said Newman. “We aren’t exactly sure what that could look like yet, but we know many schools do a more traditional “turnabout” dance, and we could implement those traditions for our next Winterfest.”

With limited discussion by students prior to the dance, StuCo looks to the future to ensure that all aspects and requests of students are listened to. Yet, StuCo member Shrihan Patnaik believes that the school’s requirements are crucial and calls for students to be more considerate of what is realistic for Stevenson events.

“People have high expectations for the event coordinators, but they also have to cater to the school’s needs,” Patnaik said. “Hopefully, we will find ways to meet those expectations.”

While Patnaik feels the expectations are clear, Newman details the challenges of meeting these expectations. With this year’s iteration of Winterfest’s low ticket sales, Newman feels that the challenges of planning community events have been amplified.

“[Planning Winterfest] is always a challenging experience as there is a lot that goes into it, but with this year’s Winterfest, we had the extra challenge of trying to combat the record low ticket sales that were being discussed throughout the Stevenson community,” Newman said.

It’s not just the difficulties StuCo has experienced when putting Winterfest together that have been affecting its attendance, though. Patnaik believes that the dance itself requires some reworking and a possible ‘rebrand’ in order to become the thrilling experience that it used to be.

 “However, friends older than me who are Stevenson alumni have told me about the great Winterfest experience, leading me to believe there’s realistic room to improve based on previous years.” Patnaik said, 

Although this year’s Winterfest did not live up to previous years’ expectations, it was still quite the spectacle. Newman lauded the many activities there for everyone’s enjoyment.

 “Overall, we noticed that those who attended the dance seemed to be enjoying themselves,” Newman said. “I made my way to all the different areas of the dance and saw many students having a good time, especially by the DJ and karaoke sections. Last year, karaoke was a big hit, and bringing that back this year was a highlight of the dance, in my opinion.”