Winter Formal Cancelled

Victoria Kuebler, Managing Editor

As of Tuesday night, four days before winter formal, the Class of 2014, who is hosting the event, had to cancel winter formal.

Carly Athanasatos, a social work major and president of the Class of 2014, hosted an emergency meeting to make an executive decision to cancel the traditional Cedar Crest dance.

“The reason why winter formal is cancelled isn’t because it’s not ready or because hard work wasn’t put into it; it’s because no one signed up for it,” said Athanasatos.

Before the formal was cancelled, only 35 people had signed up for or purchased tickets. To break even on costs, the junior class would have needed to sell at least 80 tickets.

Athanasatos typed feverishly on the Winter Formal Facebook page the night the formal was cancelled begging students to purchase or sign up for tickets if they had not already done so. By 9:31 p.m., they had not had enough students who wanted to attend.
Athanasatos had to announce that the winter formal was officially canceled.

“Due to several reasons, the winter formal is being cancelled. We apologize for any inconvenience this brings and we will be refunding anyone who already paid. We are currently already brainstorming for an alternate date to this date. Again, we apologize to those who signed up,” Athanasatos wrote onto the Winter Formal Facebook page.

Within the last week, the junior class officers have tried different ways to increase ticket sales. They have been posting daily on the Winter Formal Facebook page, sending out campus wide emails and sitting at a table in the Tompkins College Center for the last couple of weeks.

The junior class started selling tickets for $30 about three weeks ago. Past junior classes began selling tickets before winter break.

“Nothing was getting done in time, but it wasn’t just us. It was also our problems with funds. We needed the money for the deposit which was $1000 and we struggled a lot to get money from SGA. There was a lot of miscommunication on how things were supposed to be done involving money,” said Amanda Pattison, class of 2014 treasurer and a genetic engineering major. “That’s why we had to sell tickets this semester instead of starting last semester.”

According to Joellyn Colangelo, SGA treasurer and junior biology conservation major, each year SGA provides the junior class with the funds to host winter formal but the junior class has to repay SGA with the money from ticket sales.

Each year the winter formal is traditionally hosted by the junior class towards the end of February.

This also raises the question: are the traditions at Cedar Crest dying?

“I believe traditions [and] the school are all dying,” said Chelsea Buffalo, a junior social work major. “[The school] will probably be a parking lot in a couple years.”

The winter formal was supposed to be held this Saturday, Feb. 23 at The Palace. The Class of 2014 is now going to try to adapt plans to hold an on campus dance sometime later this spring.

“I would still want to hold it because we have a responsibility to this campus to hold this event, so I don’t want to disappoint anyone and I don’t want to disappoint the seniors. We would hold it on campus because of funds and we would try to hold it with other clubs,” said Athanasatos.

For those who paid in advance for their tickets, money will be reimbursed. Please email the class14@cedarcrest.edu to coordinate with the officers to have your money refunded.