Bonita Vista High’s (BVH) annual Winter Formal—Baronial—is taking place in Building 177 at Liberty Station on Feb. 10, the theme is “A Night in New Orleans”. Nonetheless, this year’s dance has sold lower tickets compared to previous years to date, there have only been around 80 tickets sold, versus the average 200. There has been student speculation around the cause of this, from low motivation to the extensive choice’s list.
Each school year the graduating senior class Task Force works with the Associated Student Body (ASB) to plan the dance and sell tickets. Baronial is a smaller dance, with most of the focus on Homecoming and Prom. However, the recent low ticket sales displays the abnormal disinterest this year.
“I think [the sales] will probably increase. Task Force just told us to lower the prices, which I think helped a lot. But, for a lot of [tickets] being sold for the dances or Grad Night, people usually wait until the last minute. Other than that, I think people will start buying,” ASB President and senior Alexis Acosta said.
In order to combat the attendance, the class of 24’ Task Force has decided to lower the price of tickets to 50 dollars, rather than the intended 70 dollars. They have also used more advertising, especially to encourage underclassmen to participate in school events. Nevertheless, there may be another cause for the low sale of tickets.
“It’s not that wildly popular as a dance, so a lot of people don’t really care too much for it. I think it has to do with the choices list, [650 students are] on the choice’s list. All of those [factors] contribute to people not wanting to go,” class of 24’ Task Force Treasurer and senior Kaleb Mayorga said.
The choice’s list is a list of students who are restricted from attending school events if they have six hours of unexcused absences, more than eight tardies, or below a 2.0 grade point average in Scholarship or Citizenship. This leads to a large majority of students finding themselves on it.
“If you’re on the choice’s list, you can’t attend the dance. Since [a large fraction] of the population [at school] are on the list, they’re not eligible to attend the dance. There are contracts out there, but for some students, they don’t know about the contract and we have tried advertising,” Mayorga said.
Both Task Force and ASB members have tried to increase the sales, however they find struggles in doing so. There are multiple barriers this year surrounding attending the winter formal. Force 2024 President and senior Ariel Villegas expresses her disappointment about the situation, yet the inevitability of it.
“I’m hoping it’s going to increase, especially after nominations come out,” Villegas said. “I think that people don’t really want to put in the effort [in order to attend]. I’m disappointed, but I understand, it’s not really as attractive as Homecoming or Prom.”
In order to receive and save money for other events throughout the year, ASB and Task Force encourage the attendance of students. Acosta explains the recent trend of students not participating in school activities.
“Separating myself from ASB, I think it’s pretty expected. This year students have been more disconnected from the school. It makes it a little worrisome, because it’s money that we’re dealing with. But, I think it’ll work out in the end,” Acosta said.
Villegas shares their faults with advertising the dance, as they are focused on the bigger events. As a result, there is less attendance. However, lower attendance might change the atmosphere of the dance, in both a positive or negative way.
“I think [we] didn’t really advertise as much. We didn’t expect that we would have to advertise so much. For next year, [Task Force] should advertise more from the beginning of ticket sales, not just in the middle of it,” Villegas said.
Although there have been low sales, it is not something that either departments are immensely worried about. However, Task Force intends to target the underclassmen through fliers, whiteboard drawings and announcing the nominations.
“Right now, we’re working on promotion, getting people to want to go because we can’t force them to buy a ticket. We’re really trying to put it out there by going to classes for the underclassmen, because that influences them to go. Encouraging them to be more involved in the school and wanting to go to these events help,” Acosta said.
Mayorga shares his idea that this year seniors are saving money for bigger events throughout the year such as prom, and don’t prioritize going to Baronial. Nevertheless, they still encourage the attendance of students to these events, and hope to appeal to them with decreased ticket sales.
“Because it’s Baronial and not something that’s huge, I’m not too worried about it. The bigger things we have are mostly for seniors. Prom and Grad Night, I’m not worried about [since] those are senior activities, and they’re gonna want to go,” Acosta said.
