Attendees and organizers deemed the revamped Winter Bash a general success except for mishaps surrounding the coat check and departures from the hotel.
“I would rate it a B plus,” said junior Sarah Habib, the Programming Board co-chair. “Everything that we could control went well.”
Approximately 2,700 tickets costing $10 each were sold for the overhauled event, held off campus at the Sheraton Boston Hotel for the first time, according to Habib. This fell slightly short of the 3,000 tickets that Programming Board was hoping to sell.
Programming Board decided to make Winter Bash, now named Break the Ice, a more upscale event in response to students’ past misbehavior at the annual dance and other community events.
Sophomore Jimmy Zuniga, marketing chair of the Programming Board, felt that the changes went over well.
“We designed it to be a classier, semi-formal event,” he said. “I think we did a great job … a lot of people had fun and were very happy with the venue, food and dancing.”
Zuniga added that students behaved well for the most part, in contrast with previous years’ events that featured excessive drunkenness and public urination.
“[Attendees were] largely…respectful of the rules, and the Sheraton was fine at the end of the night,” he said.
Habib agreed and said having students board buses to the hotel at pre-assigned times worked well.
“Students’ behavior was great,” she said. “The DJ was awesome; people who were dancing had a lot of fun. People loved that there was real food. The shuttle system worked out well too.”
Many students, however, complained of problems with the shuttle system, which they said caused lines through Cohen Auditorium and delays while en route to the hotel.
Students agree that the main problem they faced at the event was the coat check, especially during the mass exodus of students at the end of the night.
Junior Dirk Fruitema waited in line twice for a total of 50 minutes trying to collect the correct coats for himself and others. He described a chaotic situation.
“There were girls crying, everyone was pushing and trying to get out,” he said. “I left [the dance] at 1 a.m. to get my coat, and I didn’t get back to my room until three, so [getting my] coat and leaving was a three-hour ordeal.”
Students corroborated Fruitema’s description, citing multiple instances of hour-long waiting times, physical injuries and missing coats.
Attendees and event workers said the coat check, which was staffed by hotel workers and members of the Building Understanding through International Learning and Development (BUILD) program, was not sufficiently prepared to process the number of coats they received.
BUILD is part of the Institute for Global Leadership, and members worked the coat check to raise funds for their projects, which center on promoting sustainable development.
Junior Kathryn Taylor, a BUILD program co-coordinator who was working at the coat check, cited a poor organization system and insufficient coat hooks and workers as reasons for the complications.
Some students tried to avoid waiting in line by staying away from the coat check until the crowd thinned out.
Sophomore Lydia Chevalier said that she “waited in another room for an hour, then in line for another 40 minutes.” She added that aside from the wait, the event went smoothly.
“I think [the dance] worked out well,” she said.
Responding to complaints about the coat check, Habib said that the fault lay with the hotel, which did not supply enough racks and manpower.
“The coat check was run by the hotel; they were in charge,” she said. “So we cannot take the blame for that. They only provided 800 racks when they knew more coats were coming. Maybe 25 people were working the coat check but a thousand people needed to get [coats].”
Some drunken students were prevented from attending the event, and there was one report of a student being sent to the hospital from the hotel, according to Habib.
Habib felt that the event was successful enough to justify continuing to organize other off-campus events if funds were available.
“Students were great. The behavior of students was one part of the night that went well,” she said. “And you learn from the things that didn’t go right, because you can’t control everything.”
She added that money from the Tufts Community Union Senate’s buffer fund will make up for the event costs that were not covered by ticket sales.
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