From dress up days to football games, homecoming week is always a wild ride. But perhaps one of the most staple events is the homecoming dance Saturday evening, when everyone gets dressed up and heads to the school gym to dance the night away. But, the Wolf Prints news team wondered, is a $15 ticket really worth it for 3 hours in the school gym on a Saturday night?

When this article was posted, the Wolf Prints poll showed around 80% of voters thought that $15 was too high, while the other 20% thought that $15 was a reasonable price.

Junior Sydney Tonkin said that not just the price of the ticket but the larger cost of the night played a factor in her not coming to the dance. “I’m not huge on large social situations anyway, so having to take time out of my schedule to a) go shopping for a dress and then b) spend money on a ticket/dress when I’m not entirely sure I’ll have a good time isn’t something that’s extremely tempting,” she explains.

Sophomore Hannah Rider thinks the opposite, saying “I think $15 is a little high, but there are some things that the dance had, that would require a lot of money … the photo booth and the person running it, professional photographer, and the decorations” can cost $1000 each.

According to Mr. Karlblom, one of the student council sponsors, the school usually spends “somewhere around $10,000.” Encompassed in that sum is “expenses for the D.J., decorations, photo booth, chaperones, wristbands, tshirts, and other misc. items.”

Individually, the dance is costly as well. It usually ranges from $40 to $200 for girls, and $30 to $100 for boys. Junior Molly Matts said that her dress, shoes, makeup and ticket, added up to $170, while freshman David Bradshaw said that it cost him around $70.

Some suggestions students have to make next year’s dance more appealing are to get a better DJ, and provide free water. “Just fill up those big Gatorade water containers and have cups,” senior Alex Barker suggests. For next year, Alex thinks they should try another DJ, but this year, her homecoming “was pretty much what I expected it to be.” To find out what this year’s freshmen thought of their first homecoming dance, read this article by Neha Konjeti.

Even though the dance has its critics, approximately 800 students and 150 guests were in attendance. Mr. Karlblom estimated that the school made about $5,000 worth of profit from this year’s dance, which will go towards “a variety of student council activities throughout the year and to purchase and reserve items for next year’s homecoming.”