Last week, Student Government announced the annual Spring Formal to happen on April 27th, eleven days before the event. Following the announcement, students expressed concerns via the NYUSH All Classes and Study Away Facebook page on the timing of the announcement and the increased price for an event that is supposed to be open to all students. Cheryl Li, a senior who was previously Student Body Vice President and Director of Internal Affair, posted on the Facebook page the day of the announcement. “Early announcement for major events,” “budget transparency,” and “transition between classes,” are three reasons that Li is concerned about the Spring Formal event this year. Having worked on Student Government in the past, Li said that she understood the difficulties of working with a committee made up of only five members with a mentor. However, she specifically stated that her concern stemmed from the lack of notice besides an OrgSync event, which students rarely check. Li emphasized that a longer notice period was importance, as many students had planned trips over the long holiday weekend.Cynthia Wang, Director of the Student Government Events Committee, said that the date had been decided earlier on in the school year. “We sent out the email this week because we had to prepare everything after the completion of our last event. I personally wish that we could have announced it earlier, but if there was no information on ticket sales then people would forget about it,” Wang said. “I don’t want to hear of anyone missing it and being disappointed, but we cannot satisfy everyone’s schedules and expectations.” Spring Formal tickets cost 80 RMB for “Early Bird” tickets purchased before April 25 or 100 RMB for tickets purchased on April 25 or later. The increase in price is due to an increase in the price tag for the overall event, according to Wang. “We contacted the hotel and the decoration company for stage building and facility management,” Wang said, stating that these are the two main costs. Student Body President James Bromley said part of the increase is due to rising prices year over year. “The venues we’re looking at have prices increasing 30% each year,” Bromley said, “we thought about hosting it in B1, but the Facebook group would explode if we did that.” Furthermore, Student Government made the decision to allocate less of a percentage of their budget to Spring Formal this year. “Last year, Spring Formal was half of the whole Student Government budget. One event on one night and everyone that goes has to still pay,” Bromley said. This decision was made, because the expansion in Clubs on campus calls for a greater percentage in the budget as the student body grows. Senior Michelle Huang thinks that students upset over the event may be overreacting. “Yes, it would have helped if Student Government had sent a reminder email or Facebook post a month or two ago. The reality is, however, that if Spring Formal was really that important to someone, they would have made an effort to look for the date of the event themselves,” Huang said. “It’s not hidden.” This article was written by Allison Chesky. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: NYU Shanghai Student Government