Inadequate ticket sales lead to dance cancelation

Isadora Groves and Kiley Hatcher

Cupid’s arrows could not penetrate the hearts of Jackson-Reed students this February, leading to the cancellation of the Valentine’s Day Bash. 

The dance, originally scheduled for February 10, was canceled to save money after insufficient tickets were sold to cover the costs. A lack of student enthusiasm toward non-homecoming dances and implied emphasis on romance may have impacted sales. 

The dance was an attempt by the SGA to “create an event for students to look forward to, especially between Winter and February break. There’s kind of a dry patch for a few months, so creating an event could be exciting,” Francesca Krevat, sophomore class president, said. 

But when it came time to sell the tickets the sales were very low. “We unfortunately weren’t able to sell enough tickets for the event to be successful and take place. All in all, we decided to cancel to save the money,” Krevat said.

Among the Jackson-Reed student population there was very little motivation to attend the dance. 

“The planning was good, it just failed because there wasn’t enough interest in it,” Rayhan Matovu, an SGA member said. “A lot of people in this school are single, and no one wants to go to a Valentine’s dance by themselves.”

Lucaya Navas, a junior at Jackson-Reed shared this sentiment. “Especially if you didn’t have a date, or a valentine, going with your friends might have been a little weird,” she said.

The theme was a consequence of there being too little time to plan the initial dance idea, a Winter Ball. For a dance to be approved, the SGA must clear everything with administration prior to any action, something that can take weeks.. 

“Originally, the plan was to do a winter ball towards the end of December, but there wasn’t enough time, so we pushed it back to early January,” Matovu said. When the dance was pushed back further to February, a Valentine’s Day dance made more sense. 

To avoid cancelations from happening again in the future, Krevat said that the SGA plans on taking more student feedback. 

“The SGA will work on getting more input from students before going all in with planning any dances or events. Learning from our mistakes is something that can be really helpful in the future,” Krevat said.