By Sarah Hansell |
Nautical Nonsense, the silent disco fall dance held at Jeld-Wen Field, had low turnout but good student feedback
Last Saturday, the fall dance, Nautical Nonsense, saw a lower turnout than fall dances in years past, with almost 450 students in attendance in comparison with around 700 students at last year’s fall dance, according to CPB.
With about 150 tickets sold by Friday night, CPB made the decision to give away the remaining tickets for free, and refund those they had already sold.
“They thought that it would be most fair to make sure that if a lot of people were getting free tickets, those who had already paid would be refunded,” Late Night Programming Coordinator Eric Luke said.
The dance was the first silent disco CPB has hosted and its first event held at Jeld-Wen Field.
“Though the dance was a little rocky because it was our first try at it, it was a really cool venue and there were a lot of positives to the event,” Assistant Director of Dances senior Joel Lara said. “You got to see such a positive vibe from students who were there and who really embraced a new concept and were open to something new.”
Luke thinks advertising could have also played a role in the attendance.
“I think word could go out earlier,” he said.
However, CPB says the students who did attend had a great time.
“I think the most successful thing for us is hearing that great feedback, just that positive, ‘Oh I really had a good time,’ especially from the people who were like, ‘I wasn’t sure about it, and I came and I really liked it,’” CPB Director senior Evan Castro said.
Luke agrees.
“I do think there were some initial hesitations, but once people had headphones on and got the hang of it that they were having a good time,” he said.
There were also minimal problems with alcohol, which has been an issue at dances in the past, particularly at Dance of the Decades. Two students were denied entrance due to alcohol but no other problems involving alcohol arose.
The venue also proved to be a success.
“One of the things I was pleased with was at the end of the night Jeld-Wen security and staff approached me and just said that they were really pleased with the way students handled themselves and the way that the event went,” Luke said. “So at least from an adviser standpoint, that’s always good to hear.”
The dance was a community effort: it required about triple the amount of volunteers needed for many other dances, such as Dance of the Decades, doing jobs such as headphone distribution, registration and coat check. According to Lara, 60 to 70 percent of the volunteers were CPB members, and the others were their friends and housemates.
"If I were them, I would want to be on that dance floor, but they’re doing card swipers because they want to give back to the community,” Lara said.
