M-A’s winter formal, Galaxy Gala, scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 7, was canceled on Tuesday. The announcement came in a schoolwide email from Leadership Advisor Michael Amoroso. “We will gather input from the student body and make it better for you next year,” the email read after Amoroso stated that low ticket sales led to the cancellation, and the 20 students who bought tickets were reimbursed.
The Galaxy Gala Leadership committee worked diligently to plan the event, pulling similar inspiration from more popular dances during the school year, such as Homecoming and Prom. “We started out with our theme [and] we wanted to choose something different from last year’s winter formal. We chose galaxy,” committee member Alexa Habibi said.
While Homecoming and Prom are typically highly popular and well-attended, in the past few years, winter formal has broken that pattern, with students spending their night at other events or simply staying at home. “It’s a difficult thing because we use the same amount of advertising, the same amount of everything, but I guess people just don’t want to go to winter formal,” Habibi said.
Last year’s winter formal had similar low attendance, but this year’s ticket sales were much lower. “Only 120 people went last year, but it was a big jump from 120 people to 20 people,” Habibi said.
For Leadership students, the decision to cancel the dance was difficult but ultimately necessary due to the low sales. “It would have been more bothersome if we had done all the work and then people didn’t show up,” an anonymous Leadership student said.
Despite the time and effort put into planning the event, most of the decorations and resources weren’t wasted. “A lot of the stuff we use we already had from rallies or previous events,” an anonymous Leadership student said. The decorations were kept to a minimum and will be used again in future activities.
Leadership hopes to create a more engaging and well-attended formal next year by listening closely to student feedback. “Leadership is going to send out a survey to actually hear from what the students want,” Habibi said. The goal is to rebuild interest, increase participation, and make winter formal feel as meaningful as Homecoming and Prom. “We are trying our best to listen to the students, and we want to do something that they will actually think is fun,” Habibi said.
Responses from the survey by M-A students have already been received, with the feedback being harsh but overall, helpful. “We’re going to use this next year to make it better,” leadership student Charlie Weber said.
