The Winter Ball, originally scheduled for Dec. 7, 2024, was canceled due to a lack of ticket sales, Associate Student Body (ASB) President Atharv Vyas said. All students who bought a ticket will receive a full refund, he said.
Before the winter ball was canceled, ASB had sold roughly 115-120 tickets, Vyas said. ASB ultimately determined there to be four main reasons why enough tickets hadn’t been sold, Vyas added.
“It could have been the timing of the event, the ticket prices, poor publicity on our part, and the fourth was not publicizing in a way where we called it ‘winter ball,’” Vyas said. “Just because we had to get approved by admin, we called it ‘Jack Emery Benefit Ball,’ and people thought it would be more of a middle school benefit dance rather than something similar to Hoco (Homecoming).”
ASB secretary Billy Banh also believed that ASB could have done a better job at publicizing the dance to better reflect its true nature without overworking the publicists, Banh said.
“I think what happened was an oversaturation (of work) on our publicists because it was very difficult for them to get out all the information for everything and then also have all the events (like Pie Wars, Duct Tape Wars, etc.),” Banh said. “There were a ton of events, but it was only a few people working on that. (…) They were working on all the events and there were so many, that it became difficult for them to keep track of what needed to go and what had to come out. So I think it’s on us for not planning properly and giving them a proper schedule.”
Originally, the ticket prices were placed at $20 (ASB cardholder) and $30 (regular), before the price went up to $25 (ASB cardholder) and $35 (regular), Banh said. A $10 discount was then given for the special, Banh added. ASB needed to sell roughly 800 tickets at the original prices and 450 tickets for the regular prices, Banh said.
“We wanted to make it (Winter Ball) $20 because we believed every dance should increase in price and formalities because the dance is supposed to be a lot more inclusive and higher quality,” Banh said. “Then we would also give a portion of the proceeds to hit the Jack Emery goal so we hit two birds with one stone by pricing the dance a bit more, but I think people were shut down by the doubling (of price) from homecoming, especially because it (Winter Ball) was seen as another homecoming.”
The refund process, for those who bought a Winter Ball ticket, should be fairly straightforward and can be handled at the student bank with Jim Hollenback, ASB treasurer Armaan Raj said.
“From my understanding with my conversation with Hollenback, it’s that they (students) will have to provide proof of purchase and then they will sign a statement that says ‘Hey, I bought this ticket, and I got my refund,’” Raj said.
With the benefit of hindsight, ASB and the district as a whole believe they miscalculated by not accepting cans as donations and only taking money, Raj said. ASB is considering going back to collecting cans alongside money to increase total donation amounts, Raj said.
“Cans have been one of the main sources of the food pantry, and that a large proportion of the donations had been from actual cans,” Raj said. “I think it messed with people visually because normally when you can see cans during Jack Emery, ‘Oh, it’s Jack Emery season’ and it provokes more people to donate. So then since that didn’t happen, and we only collected money, that lowered the number (donation number) and people are more stingy with giving money away rather than cans.”
The high school ultimately raised $12,306.26 which is short of the $15,000 goal, Vyas said.
“As one of the biggest districts contributing towards the food bank, we’ve built up a reputation towards the food bank, and not meeting our goals this year stained that reputation a bit,” Vyas said.
Despite struggles with Jack Emery this year, Vyas still believes in the Milpitas population and hopes that people understand the cause and meaning behind Jack Emery, Vyas said.
“I would urge people to donate more,” Vyas said. “I know it was difficult this year because we’re not given (enough) incentive, but remember, it is for charity. It does go towards a good cause. (…) I’d urge people to participate (in events) more next year, and if you want to have more fun events, please keep a look-out on what ASB is releasing, and please give us suggestions on what you would like to see.”