Why was Sadies canceled?

On Friday, March 21 — the day Sadies was supposed to occur — the Small Gym sat empty but for a few students taking photos of the empty room. Facebook caption: “Sadies!” 

The cause for the cancellation was a lack of interest. While Sadies is generally the least attended dance, this year numbers sharply declined. On the afternoon of the dance, only 40 tickets had been sold, according to principal Paul Robinson’s email, which meant the dance wasn’t worth having. 

On campus, students have started wondering why interest in dances has fallen. 

Senior Lauren Lin, a head commissioner of Spring Fling, attributed Sadies’ failure to timing.

“Sadies is historically the least attended dance of the year because of its awkward position in the middle of March,” Lin said. “[This year] we had to move it to the Friday before Spring Fling week, so not enough interest was generated throughout the week.”

According to Lin, the lack of school-wide publicity could also have contributed to the low attendance. Lin noticed that many of her peers were not aware that Sadies was coming around.

“People expected Sadies to be following Spring Fling week as usual,” Lin said.

Senior Vivian Wang, a member of the spirit publicity commission, said students have lost the incentive to go to the school dances. 

“What’s happening this year is that girls who still want to ask do go ahead and ask, but they won’t go to dance,” Wang said. “Instead, they’ll go do something else with their date.”

But according to ASB vice president Anup Kar, the problem goes beyond Sadies. Students don’t know what to do at dances anymore, he said. 

“In middle school, that was jumping up and down. In high school, we transformed that into ‘side to side’ with other people,” Kar said. “But when that’s taken away from you, it’s hard to figure out what to do.”

In a poll The Falcon conducted earlier this year, 37 percent of responders said that they stopped attending school dances because of the ban on freaking— a style of dancing the administration has tried to stamp out with a face-to-face dancing requirement.

Sophomore Arnav Pawar went so far as to say that the student body was trying to prove a point by not attending Sadies. Pawar also said some of his friends boycotted the school dances. 

“I feel the reason that the Sadies was canceled because of the anti-freaking policies,” Pawar said. “The students wanted to show that the policy was bad and didn’t show up to the dances this year because of it.” 

Pawar said that the “vibe” for Sadies as well as the first dance of the year faltered because of the policy. 

Robinson disagrees with the idea that the freaking policy has affected the attendance. 

“I don’t think the anti-freaking policy was the reason for the cancellation because looking at other schools that don’t have the anti-freaking policy, their attendance has also dropped as well,” Robinson said.

In the end, Kar said that the low numbers might result in the end of Sadies. Next year, the dance commission might instead show a movie projected onto the football field. 

“That would bring in a lot more people than Sadies could have,” he said.