On Friday, October 21st, students gathered in the commons to hear the band play and see the Northport varsity teams. The event was a pep rally, intending to drum up excitement for the homecoming game and dance scheduled the next day. As the band lifted their instruments to play, a voice came over the loudspeaker, announcing to much confusion that the homecoming dance was canceled.
Why did this happen? The driving factor for the cancellation was the ticket sales. Ticket sales are the way for the school to pay for the homecoming dance, so it makes sense that the reason the dance was canceled was from low ticket sales.
What went wrong? Why didn’t tickets sell? I believe one reason is that people were indecisive. I know people who wanted to go to the homecoming dance but did not know if their friends were going. This indecision resulted in not buying tickets.
To fix this problem, students should get their plans together. This could be aided by the school announcing the dance sooner. Emails and announcements were sent out four days before the dance, which is not enough time for students to make plans. If everyone were reminded of the dance a month in advance, plans would be made, and ticket sales would likely be up.
Another reason was that the ticket sales were not advertised enough. The ticket sales were announced in the morning announcements and sent out in emails, as mentioned above, four days before the dance. This gave only four days for people to figure out all of the details. This is not enough time for people to get a ride and coordinate with their friends, so they may have not been able to do all of this and buy tickets. Additionally, almost no one can hear the morning announcements or read their email, so just getting the word out can be difficult.
If you look into it, the issues lie in how the school communicates to its students. Instead of putting announcements over the P.A. system in the morning, which may be hard to listen to, the school could email each teacher the statements to read to their classes. We need an improved way to communicate with our students.
Although we were able to enjoy school spirit at the pep rally and homecoming game, the cancellation of the homecoming dance was a disappointment to students who were excited about it. If the school wants next year’s homecoming dance to go well, they need to alter several policies on communication methods with students and find new ways to publicize the homecoming dance.
