Hi guys
Hope you all are enjoying your break. We would like to get some feedback from the Winter Formal yesterday. Thanks to everyone who came and supported/helped out, we really appreciate it.
Be sure to include:
Hope you all are enjoying your break. We would like to get some feedback from the Winter Formal yesterday. Thanks to everyone who came and supported/helped out, we really appreciate it.
Be sure to include:
- What you liked and why you liked it
- Things that could be improved and how they could be improved.
All feedback is appreciated and we hope you had just as much fun as we did!
ASB Social
I had a great time at my first winter formal; the venue was extremely nice. The DJ lights at formal looked amazing with the laser light show and the light table in the back, and the decor of the ballroom was fantastic. I thought the music this time around improved when compared to homecoming(which if I remember correctly was largely electronic house music) especially with songs like "teach me how to dougie" which brought people out to the dance floor.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of what could be improved: I thought that the way coat check was run, especially towards the end, could have definitely been organized better. There was a very large line waiting to get their belongings back and we also ended up misplacing tickets on items.
To help prevent this next time around from the very start it'd be helpful to designate areas of the closet to certain categories(gender, color), which might also help streamline the process of getting your things at the end.
Ok, I will limit myself to three of each:
ReplyDeletePros:
1. THE CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN!!!! LIKE WHO DOESN'T LIKE THAT
2. There was a LOT of good feedback for the music
3. The line for pictures never got unbearably long.
Deltas:
1. As Will said, the Coat Check took forever to get through the line. It wasn't the fault of the volunteers, but rather just the process in itself.
2. I know that we were trying to save money on the invitations, but I know a lot of people were disappointed in them. A fair amount of people straight up told me that they could have created better invitations and only paid for printing. In the end, the invitations don't really affect whether or not people end up going, but it may affect parts of the experience.
3. For the King and Queen voting, a lot of people were asking how the candidates were selected. I think that the criteria (can't have been HC royalty, have to be nominated by teachers, etc) should be publicized better so that people don't think that ASB chose friends or anything like that.
Pros:
ReplyDelete1. Music was really good! It was a nice mix of mainstreams and more edm/dance music. The laser light show was pretty sweet too
2. Venue was gorgeous
3. The food and drinks were lots of fun.
Deltas:
1. I was a volunteer for coat check, and I was there for probably 2.5 hours, so I have a pretty good perspective on what went on. Theoretically, the ticket system was a good idea, but a lot of the tickets fell off the hanger, or the owners lost their tickets, so it didn't work to well in real life. Additionally, there was little to no organization in putting the coats on the rods. They were on the ground, behind/under chairs, or completely out of order on the racks, and this made it really difficult to stay organized. We ended up almost losing a coat and taking a really long time to find coats/purses/shoes. In the middle, we begin reorganizing the whole room, placing the coats in numerical order, designating places for shoes and purses, and the whole process just became a lot easier. In the future, we should have 1. shifts and 2. a designated process for coat check.
Gj social!
Pros:
ReplyDelete1. I really liked the Formal King/Queen voting system. I thought using iPads and Google Forms was very efficient.
2. There seemed to be a good selection of snacks. The chocolate fountain centerpiece definitely caught the attention of many people. Everything was neatly laid out.
3. The photography company for this dance seemed really experienced! I thought that it was nice of them to position people to ensure that they looked good.
Deltas:
1. I'm not a dancer myself, but I noticed that the dance floor was really small and it seemed that there was always only a small group dancing. When they didn't like a song, they would walk off the floor so at times, there was nobody dancing. A group of "non-grinders," I'll call them, did dance for a bit. It was interesting how the slow dances brought the masses to the floor. I think this is mainly because there was a more equal distribution of attendees among all grades. Less upperclassmen and more underclassmen than in most years.
2. The music cut off in the middle of the Formal King/Queen dance. Bad timing? It made for quite an awkward minute or so.
3. I thought the venue, although nice, was pretty small. For me, it was hard to find one of those nice larger booths to sit in. But again, I'm probably saying this because I went to formal at the Tech a few years ago.
4. I was pretty disappointed in the invitations, if they can even be called that. I know we were working with a small budget, but a nicer invitation is justification for the cost for bids. $35 to hang out at a nice venue is still a pretty steep price and people want to feel like they got their money's worth.
What I liked:
ReplyDelete1) voting for king and queen was easy and clear. IPads were a great choice.
2) venue: not too big or too small. Dance floor was a good size. There area was divided well in terms of pictures, food, etc.
3) music: song choices were great. Not too many or too less slow songs. Toward the end, the songs got pretty funny and encouraged others to come and dance.
4) food: the sundae bar and chocolate fountain were both a hit. Personally, I thought there were a lot of options for people to choose from.
Some things to work on:
1) pictures line was obstructing the walk way. Not a big deal but maybe cut out a side to others can still walk back and forth.
2) coat check: there were a lot of people there some of which didn't sign up. I think that those volunteers could've been used near the photo booth or food areas instead maybe keeping track of the photos etc.
3) parking: I couldn't find parking except it was about 10 minutes away by walk. Maybe we could suggest some nearby garages? I'm probably one of the few who had this problem.
Other than that, the night went very well! I think it would be best if the other social commissioners could check in every once in a while. I know Mira was helping out the whole time but a quick "do you guys need anything?" wouldn't hurt every once in a while. On a separate note, I think it would be great if we had one volunteer just going around and taking pictures. We could post them later in the week. I know a lot of people would like something like that even if it's informal.
That's all for now and great job!!
Because I was not able to attend the dance :( I definitely have some feedback for promo/price/venue/ and things I heard!
ReplyDeletePros: I think it's great that this year you were able to lower the price. This definitely initiated freshman to go! Great job on that! I also think the venue was beautiful and really nice c: I think the dress swap was a good idea, so girls didn't have to stress about buying dresses before hand. I also really liked the free bid idea!
Cons: I think more promo could have been done. The video was great, but I think it didn't really promote anyone to go. I know a lot of people that wanted to go stag, but were kind of hesitant. Therefore next year I think it would be great to show people that you don't have to have a date to go to formal. Because I know we all say that, but I think we need to target those people and push them to go! For the fashion show, I feel like there should have been more variety in the people we chose. When I was coming from my locker to the quad, I noticed many freshman/sophomores didn't even bother to come out. I think next year if you target people from different groups more people would be able to come out and watch fashion show! Also for choosing different people, I also think it's a good idea to choose those that aren't necessarily going to go to winter formal. This way they can promote to their friends to come out and possibly be someone that will be going. I feel like there's no point in choosing people that are probably going to winter formal to model because it doesn't promote the event for anyone else.
Overall great job! If you have any questions/clarification for anything I said, feel free to ask :)
As I was sick on the night of Winter Formal and couldn't go to coat check, I don't have anything to say about the event itself. However, I do definitely agree with the general ideas of what Hana said about promo, including:
ReplyDeleteA) that we should promote winter formal using a wider variety of students
and
B) promoting the idea of people going stag/with a group of friends could be emphasized more (to help people not feel like they need a date to go)
I was also concerned with how things turned out with the reduced price. Since I don't know what the details are on how many bids were purchased, this might just be irrelevant. However, I feel like lowering the price doesn't have as big of an impact as we might imagine. Since going stag is not as emphasized/promoted as going with a date, I think it comes down to more of "Do I have a date?" as opposed to "Can I save some cash?"
Again, if the lowered price really did encourage a considerably larger amount of people to go, then please just disregard what I just said :)
Overall it went really well from what I heard, so great job! :D
Overall, great job Social! A bunch of people came up to me and said that they had a blast!
ReplyDeleteThe dance was very well organized and executed! The chocolate fountain/snack booth was a huge hit, almost everyone absolutely loved it. Contrary to some concerns, the chocolate didn’t get messy!
People really liked the music/ambiance in general! Some people thought that the dance floor seemed small initially, but later felt that it was the right size.
The only obvious potential for improvement would be coat check. I was there the majority of the time, and the closet got pretty difficult to work with. Part of it is the infrastructure of the venue (they just had a closet, as opposed to a small room), but we need to enforce a better way to ensure that people are able to get coats/bags quickly and efficiently. The ticket system was a smart idea, but the tickets fell off/people lost them, so they became difficult to manage. One student almost lost his coat and couldn’t remember what it looked like, so it was difficult to find and return the right coat to him. In the future, we should either bring more hangers/ask the venue to provide more hangers, because I think it is unfair to the people whose coats had to be put on the floor.
Other than that, the event went smoothly! Keep up the good work!
Pros:
ReplyDelete1. Voting system was good the iPad made it very efficient.
2. Food and drinks were awesome
3. I LOVED the venue it was beautiful and i loved the fire place
4. Good choice in music.
Cons:
1. Coat check took forever
2. Dance floor was to small i felt the tables took up a lot of room
3. Invites took a bit away from the expireance
4. Nominees were not notified if they were nominated for queen/king
Lots of people enjoyed the dance! Good job social!
Also, another idea might me to introduce the idea of going Dutch? Its where the boy pays for his half and the girl pays for her half. I know lots of girls that didnt go because they couldn't find a guy that had the money to pay for both of them and the girl didnt have enough money to pay for both of them.
ReplyDeletePros:
ReplyDelete1. Lowered price was a great incentive especially after knowing the prices from other schools.
2. The DJ did a great job with the lights and song choices.
3. The chocolate fountain and sundae bar were attractions, and a lot of people seemed to love them.
4. The whole environment was nice, since the decorations for the venue was done nicely.
Cons:
1. The dance floor did seem small and squished, but this can be fixed by changing the table and chair arrangements near the center.
2. Coat check took a longer than expected time, but we can always come up with a better system.
3. As Rani brought up earlier, the parking was pretty bad. Even though I was only dropped off, I saw the streets were full and many people parked further than I expected.
I would definitely say this event was successful, and it gave me a good impression about Winter Formal. Amazing job to Social! Keep up the great work!
To further add to what was talked about in class, I just wanted to add a few other pros/deltas.
ReplyDeleteI think that the pros were the venue and the atmosphere. Many people used the tables and booths that were available that were often lacking in previous venues. People had the chance to just talk with one another. I also liked the photo system, they were relatively organized and the photos came out much faster and with better results (word of mouth) than in previous years.
In terms of deltas, I think more promo could have been done not so much in terms of big ideas (fashion shows, videos) but more in terms of encouraging members of groups to go. I think that a lot of people were talking about it, but in the end, never had the final push to go because "none of their friends were going". I think it would be best to target different groups either through the fashion show (still felt like the people in the fashion show were from the same crowds) or offering raffles for a bid or something at different events (IDC Fantastics, choir concerts, sports events, even the play). I also think that there were some issues with the music not being censored out which gathered some negative feedback.
Overall, the formal atmosphere was very fun and lively, the location was great for eating and Christmas in the Park!
So everyone has already given great feedback (and we've already talked about feedback in class), but I can give some comments about our financials that are SUPER important for the 2014-2015 Social Commission/ASB Team to consider:
ReplyDelete-Venue: we usually do not have to pay for extra policemen, but because this venue was in Downtown San Jose and St. James Park was right next to the Corinthian, security was a must. Something to consider for next year is whether we want to have Formal downtown, and if so, how much we have to pay for extra security.
-WF Culture: I think that no matter what we do, Formal will always, always, always be considered a "couples" dance. For the three years I've seen formal come together, we've always tried to make it a dance that is "friendly for singles and friends", but the fact of the matter is that if people want to go stag to a formal dance, they go to junior or senior prom. Instead of trying to make Formal appeal to everyone, I think our time would be better spent either replacing Sadies with another casual dance (like this year) for good, or introducing another casual dance again, e.g. Aloha. To give some stats, we had about 450 people come to Welcome Back, about 350 come to Homecoming, and 220 come to Winter Formal. If ASB wants to continue relying on dances as moneymakers, then we need to focus on low-cost casual dances.
-Price: This year was a great indicator for us that low prices do not make much of a difference for Winter Formal. I would highly suggest making the minimum price $40 or $45 for future years.
-ASB and Volunteers: I propose the following rules for payment --
a. All volunteers and ASB leadership kids (except for Social, look below) have to have already paid for a dance to enter the event.
b. Social commissioners' dates do not get free bids if we make a profit.
c. Social commissioners receive free bids if and only if we make a profit.
Unfortunately, our accounting this year has turned into a big problem for Mrs. Boehm and I (a big part of which was my fault for not communicating volunteer prices to her), and we are being audited this year! So to avoid any financial fiascos, I'm going to get those rules written up and approved by our class this year.
Hope this helps give greater insight on WF financials :)