As many know, the Spring Fling was canceled four times in a row. Why has this happened two years in a row? What’s the real reason? Is it our post-COVID generation, or perhaps dance culture as a whole?
Firstly, why did the Spring Fling get canceled this year and last year? According to the senate, the reason is quite simple.
“The Spring Fling cancellation was due to low ticket sales. The cancellation, while unfortunate, gives us as a senate a better opportunity to listen to what people at school want; maybe this means moving away from so many dances. We are working to give everyone the best high school experience, and are developing new ideas due to the trend in cancellations,” president of the Class of 2026 senate, Avneeta Basu, said. This year’s tickets sales were as low as under ten.
But why are ticket sales so low? I tried to talk to students across the school about why they didn’t buy tickets, and I got a nearly unanimous answer: they don’t know anyone going.
I am sure most are aware of the whole “if you go, I will go” exchange, but what happens when the first person doesn’t go?
Then the other person doesn’t go. Then the whole group doesn’t go. This seemingly dance-death-spiral leaves hundreds of extra tickets and a canceled dance and wasted time and money from the hosting class.
“Scheduling the dance after spring break was a risk, but the timing of other dances and events restricted other possible dates. We try to spread the dances throughout the year, but this trend of spring fling cancellations may cause us as a community to move away from the three to five dances we have each year.
Mid-April is also just a busy time of year; everyone has to work around scheduling for academics, sports, clubs, and just time away from school,” Basu said.
However, there are many other contributing reasons for the lack of sales, which may be caused by Gen Z’s habits as a whole.
Another reason may be due to COVID; Spring Flings were canceled in 2021 and 2022, which may have caused a snowball effect. It simply sped up the process of the low ticket count since “people would much rather just stay home,” according to Kshreya Arora, a sophomore who didn’t buy a ticket this year.
The comfort of home paired with the lack of friends attending discourages many students from going. However, according to a student who bought a ticket, “I kind of felt bad for the class who runs it, plus I want my prom tickets to be cheaper.”
Spring Fling acts as a fundraiser for the class, mostly the sophomore class, which goes towards lessening costs of senior prom tickets or other senior activities.
“The loss of the additional fundraising opportunity is something we have to work around in terms of fundraising for senior year activities and other expenses. While there is no specific event planned to directly make up for the cancellation, we are going to keep looking for new fundraising opportunities and are optimistic about future works,” Basu said.
This trend has even started to impact the Homecoming Dance in the fall.
“We run the Homecoming Dance and that is such an institution that we tend to not have issues with numbers, although I will say the numbers have been lower in the last couple of years,” full senate advisor Stephanie Jenkins said.
