House Life (Or Best Offer)

And so, without fail, it began once again—the flurry of e-mails hit the Eliot House list. With the famed Fete only days away, Eliot students of all classes, from rising sophomores through soon-to-be-graduating seniors, began posting their formal tickets for sale, along with desired prices. While the occasional solicitor lamented his or her inability to make the end-of-year ball, munificently allowing some layman the chance to enter the white tent in his or her place, more and more of the e-mails appeared to be planned and timed in advance. Deadlines of when last offers could be made on tickets, starting bidding levels preset for the buying audience, and offers to sell made less than 24 hours before the dance were among the signs that many students had calculated their sales to rake up the maximum profit. The e-mail list quickly became an eBay list.

While the Fete is particularly renowned, other formals on campus—including the freshman formal—draw similar patterns of behavior. With money to be made, more and more people seem to be looking forward to the green, not the gala. You don’t need to be an economics concentrator versed in game theory to understand demand; with friends from other houses, seniors trying to get to that elusive 12th formal, and guests visiting from out of town, there will always be people clamoring for admission. Buying formal tickets simply to sell them, however, is a cynical money-making enterprise, a watering down of house spirit, and a disincentive to actually attend the event. Expectations are set unrealistically high when a hefty sum is put down for a ticket, with people sourly wondering, “I paid $90 for this?”

Much like community dinners, barbecues, and stein clubs, formals provide a culminating opportunity to eat from chocolate fountains, renew your yearly account with Keezer’s, and enjoy a night with your fellow Housemates. Formals need not be entirely House-exclusive, but people from that house should make up the bulk of the crowd. It’s a chance for new members of the House to meet and get acquainted with their soon-to-be neighbors and for everybody else to renew their House pride. When House formals are sold out to the highest bidder, they revert back to being regular weekend parties, with the uniting factor being fancy attire, not residential allegiance. Formals are best when you can wake up the next day and have brunch with those same revelers in your own dining hall.

Equally disconcerting is the trend of students looking to sell tickets before they even consider going themselves. A vicious cycle has been created in which, before people can even get excited by the invitations posted to their door, they are bombarded with offers and flashing-light e-mails for tickets to buy. Open markets: great. Free country: fantastic. But if people are not able or do not want to go to their formal, then they should be given their dues back, rather than make a profit, because the House Committee has put a lot of time into creating a great event. Those tickets that aren’t taken can be put up in a raffle or lottery like any other high-demand event, with profits going to the House for future events.

Ultimately, the part I regret most is not that my Housemates are making money off the Fete, but that they themselves didn’t attend. Well, there’s always next year.


Marcel E. Moran ’11, a Crimson associate editorial editor, is a human evolutionary biology concentrator in Eliot House.