CityStep Ticket Sales Off to Slow Start

It features music and dancing. It's where your friends will be on Thursday night. It's the annual CityStep Ball.

But, despite the tantalizing posters with phrases like "Take Her to the Moon" placed around campus, fewer students have bought tickets to the only undergraduate all-campus campus formal than in previous years.

Tickets have been on sale since November 1, but CityStep had sold only about 150 tickets as of last week. Sales had about tripled by last night, according to CityStep's publicity producer Kristen Choi '99.

In addition, fewer tickets are available this year, according to Anna Su '00, CityStep's executive producer and a Crimson executive. Although about 2000 students usually attend, this year's venue, the Boston Center for the Arts, holds fewer people, Su said.

Organizers said they are not concerned by the low sales and added that numbers are already beginning to increase.

"I think there is a threshold where everyone starts buying," said Kristin N. Javaras '00, CityStep's corporate donor producer. "Everyone delayed this year."

The ball raises money for CityStep, a group of undergraduates who teach dance and dramatic arts to fifth and sixth graders in Cambridge public schools to promote self-confidence and team skills. "This is our major fundraiser, and the money all goes to the kids," Choi said.

CityStep members are making efforts to further publicize the ball this week by word-of-mouth, by placing "teasers" on all first-year doors and by tabling in dining halls.

Javaras attributed the delay partly to the timing of the event--Thursday evening from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Purchasing tickets "is an unusually difficult decision because, not only is it on Thursday, but it's the night before Harvard/Yale weekend," Javaras said.

Choi said CityStep is publicizing the ball as the kick-off to a weekend of partying for The Game.

Organizers said postering regulations for the Yard enacted last fall also caused difficulties in getting the word out to Harvard students. The new rules restrict posters in the Yard to the kiosks and sandwich boards, and prohibit signs on trees, posts or the ground.

But organizers said the lack of poster advertising should not decrease profits in the long run.

"The biggest thing is word of mouth," said Richard Ung '01, CityStep's special events producer. "It's a Harvard institution. That, by itself, is advertisement. People will come regardless."

Students can buy tickets through Bostix, the Sanders Theatre box office, CityStep members in each House or from tables outside the Science Center and in House dining halls.