White Party Cost ASCMC $20,000

By Clancy Tripp | May 1, 2012 at 8:00 am | ASCMC News, News | 22 comments | |

Due to unforeseen expenses and lower than expected revenues, the total expense for ASCMC’s White Party, featuring DJ AN21, was $20,000.

ASCMC’s Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Sullivan ’12 noted that the original target, set in September, was a $4000 expense.  A few weeks before the party, in late February, party planners realized it was going to cost more than expected and adjusted target expenses to around $8000.

To account for the unexpected extra $12,000 in expenses, Sullivan explained that the lighting for AN21’s set cost $6000 more than anticipated and that the artist fees to bring AN21 were $2,000 more than originally expected. Additionally, ticket revenues were $6000 lower than expected, with about 400 fewer tickets sold than initially intended.

Overall, the White Party resulted in a $20,000 net expense: roughly $36,200 in total expenses while the total revenue was $16,200.

Last year’s ASCMC sponsored concert featuring LMFAO resulted in a $25,000 expenditure, and the year before that Lupe Fiasco’s performance ended in a $50,000 expense. Though each year marks a decrease in expense, the high annual cost raises the question of whether or not this type of event should continue on or, at the very least, be scaled back.  “The White Party was a very expensive success,” said ASCMC President Aditya Pai ’13.  ”It provided great benefit to students, but at great cost. The question going forward for everyone to consider is whether the benefit justifies the cost – or whether we should pursue other options.”

ASCMC conducted a poll to gauge student body’s response that indicated that over 60% of all respondents considered White Party among their top two favorite parties of the year.

“Undoubtedly the White Party was a success,” said Steven Limandibhratha ’14, Social Affairs Chair (SAC), “According to the responses on the survey, over 30% placed the White Party as their favorite party of the year, and over 60% placed the party in their top two parties.

“Regarding the significant expense of the party, I believe working with the new board, we will be able to reduce these expenses in the future,” Limandibhratha commented,

When asked if the party was worth the money, freshman Liza Farr responded, that depends on what one’s priorities are. “White Party was really fun, a bunch of people went out for it and danced like crazy in a cool location with awesome lights and a fantastic DJ,” she said. “However, it did cost [ASCMC] a lot of money while it didn’t seem all that different from any of other, much cheaper parties.  I don’t think it was worth the immense amount of money spent on it.”