ASB, Spring Fling, Dance Commission succeed in Sadies ticket sales despite setbacks

The Sadie Hawkins Dance was canceled last year for lack of interest of ticket sales, but this year, the school was able to host a successful dance to kick off Spring Fling week.

Since February, Spring Fling Commission, Dance Commission and ASB worked together to ensure the success of this year’s Sadies on March 28. They coordinated a school-wide asking competition and planned to include a number of incentives for more attendance. Despite their efforts, however, they struggled to sell at least 100 tickets, the minimum number of tickets that they had to sell in order for Sadies to be held.

“It was really terrifying to think that Sadies would be canceled twice in a row,” said ASB treasurer Aakash Thumaty. “I was really hoping that our publicity would boost Sadies ticket sales, but I guess not.”

Head dance commissioner Jade Bisht thinks the decrease in attendance at dances is a result of the “face-to-face” anti-freaking policy.

When Sadies was canceled last year, 37 percent of responders said in a poll the Falcon conducted that they stopped attending school dances because of the ban on the controversial dance style.

“People wanted to show their defiance to the policy, but they didn’t realize that the dances are so much more fun than presumed,” Bisht said. “They can still have fun without freaking.”

Sophomore Jacqueline Han believes that the date of Sadies was one of the main reasons ticket sales lagged. Since the day of the dance is close to this year’s Junior Prom, few upperclassmen intended on going.

“This year’s Sadies is pretty well publicized compared to last year’s,” Han said. “I think we have lots of people who would ask others, but they would rather save it for prom.”

Despite this, ASB was able to sell at least 140 tickets for the Saturday night dance.

At the dance, Spring Fling Commission had student photographers take professional pictures. The photos can be printed off ASB’s Facebook page for no additional charge.

“A lot of nearby schools had professional pictures taken in front of a backdrop at Sadies, but we had never done so,” Spring Fling commissioner senior Katelynn Moriarty said. “We just wanted to see how it went for us by having student photographers for this year’s dance.”

To play off of the blacklight theme, Spring Fling Commission distributed glowsticks and set up a facepaint area and a table full of finger-foods, which included a white chocolate fountain.

Due to student complaints about the music and the DJ at past school dances, Spring Fling and Dance Commision shared music survey in each of the classes’ Facebook groups, so students can give song suggestions for the DJ.

With these new additions to Sadies, the Spring Fling Commission’s work with ASB and Dance Commission paid off and resulted in a dance that successfully kicked off Spring Fling Week.