Three days before it was supposed to take place, La Salle announced that its 2026 Winter Formal was canceled — a decision which stemmed from a lack of ticket sales and student engagement, Director of Community and Student Leadership Mr. Quinn Peoples said. All students who bought a ticket will receive a complete refund.

Mr. Peoples expressed sadness around the cancellation, as the dance, scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 21, would have been the first Winter Formal he helped organize at La Salle.

“I’m really disappointed,” he said. “I love bringing people together. I also love to dance. You know, I was ready to get out there, bust some moves.”

In addition, Mr. Peoples was excited to implement much of the feedback he received from Homecoming earlier this year, such as moving the dance to the gym, including song requests, adding more activities, and providing more refreshments, among other things.

However, in order to be able to put those things into effect, they needed to get more sales.

By Wednesday, Feb. 18, when the cancellation was announced, they had sold 92 tickets. In order to keep up with the projected numbers, Mr. Peoples said that they would have needed to sell over 100 more tickets in the three days before the dance. In comparison, last year’s Winter Formal sold 253 tickets.

“We wouldn’t have been able to do all of those things based on the revenue that we were generating from the tickets and the timeline in which that happened,” he said. “We sold the most tickets between [Feb. 16] and [Feb. 18], around 44 to 45, so it makes it really hard for us to then turn and get the DJs we want, get the decorations we want, and have an accurate number for things.”

However, some students, such as freshman Jade Chen, were planning on waiting to decide until the last day to purchase or decide on tickets, Chen said.

“I was deciding whether or not I wanted to go on the day that the ticket sales were [going to] end,” she said.

Additionally, she said that she only found out about the dance a week before, explaining how she thought a lack of advertising to students may have played into the low ticket sales.

Mr. Peoples also mentioned the complexity of the cancellation, stating that the ticket sales were only one factor in the decision to cancel the dance.

In addition to the low ticket sales, they took into consideration the lack of enthusiasm for the dance, Mr. Peoples explained. He had sent out a survey beforehand, and the results were that “the theme wasn’t great, the hype wasn’t great, it needed to be more like Homecoming,” he said.

Overall, according to Mr. Peoples, fully implementing student feedback from Homecoming wasn’t possible with the amount of students signed up.

“When I speak to students one-to-one in those more informal interview spaces, [what I hear] is ‘I’ve gone to Winter Formal three or four times, and it’s been the same way every time, and I’ve never liked it,’” he said.

According to Mr. Peoples, the Student Life Office believed that, since the dance had a high likelihood for no-shows, early departures, and general lack of enthusiasm, the funds would be better used for extra events or pop-up activities — such as the free Valegrams earlier in February — that would boost student morale throughout the winter months.

“There wasn’t an ability to do the dance in the way we wanted to, and still have some revenue left over to host some of those pop-up things we’ve been able to do this year … to spur little jolts of spirit, particularly in these rainy or darker months,” he said. 

Part of the planning also involves talking to Leadership students and other adults in order to get more context.

For senior Mackenzie Barrera, although she herself wasn’t planning on going, she feels bad for the underclassmen who have lost out on the opportunity to have a Winter Formal.

Both Chen and freshman Zadi Reyna were disappointed it was canceled and felt like they’re missing out on part of their freshman experience. They both were excited about potential improvements from Homecoming and saddened that they couldn’t see them manifest.

Mr. Peoples noticed some discrepancies between what the data says about the Winter Formal and how students responded when the dance was cancelled.

“When you’re looking at ticket sales, it says the dance is very unpopular, but when you cancel the dance and [see] the reaction you get, it lets you know that the dance is really popular,” he said.

To make up for the Winter Formal’s cancellation, Mr. Peoples is workshopping a new event.

One of the possibilities for this, he said, is a “choose-your-own-adventure” style event called a “Lock-In,” similar to something he did in high school.

According to Mr. Peoples, it would have many different types of activities — such as movies, snacks, and games — and would account for every student’s wants and needs, addressing some of the feedback they received related to the music and moshing being too loud and intense at Homecoming. 

The event would also be significantly cheaper, allowing students who aren’t as confident about attending to feel more comfortable with purchasing a ticket.

And although Mr. Peoples feels sad, he recognizes how the staleness of the Winter Formal concept as a whole played a role in the cancellation, and he is ready to start a new chapter for the community.

“Winter Formal has not been a popular dance for many years, and I think we’ve just been rinsing and repeating,” he said, emphasizing the importance of student input. “How do we really listen to our students here and our community here and put something together that’s going to be fruitful and really uplifts community more so than tradition?”

Additional reporting contributed by Kieran Crist-Kenworthy.