In 2023, there were roughly 1,372 students at Grayslake Central High School. Out of those students, 40 of them bought tickets to the winter formal, known at GCHS as the ‘winter gala.’ Unfortunately, the lack of ticket buying is not a new trend; there has been a steady drop in gala ticket sales for years at Central. Because of this, the Winter Gala has been canceled for the foreseeable future.

It should be known, that this is no fault of the student council. Central’s student life coordinator Dianna Repp, said StuCo waited until the last day that they possibly could to get as many ticket sales as possible last year. However, the numbers weren’t in their favor; they couldn’t make the required 50 ticket sales needed to fund the DJ, with 40-30 dollar tickets they did sell amounting to roughly $1,200. The average DJ costs $1,500 for a single booking, so “[the student council] would actually be losing money” and “[they] needed to be able to talk to [their] vendors to save whatever money [they] could, to be able to still do events for the student body.”

Will the winter gala ever return? Maybe not as it was once known. National Art Honor Society sponsor Bonnie Shorr, has had her students work on the gala in previous years, painted scenery for the dance. Shorr has a possible solution to our “dance problem.” The gist of the idea is to create a multi-activity night of entertainment, including games, great food, prizes, karaoke, and a smaller dance floor. “Why dedicate such a sizable portion of our already-limited budget to an expensive DJ, when we already have everything we need on hand?” Shorr said.