Houses Join Forces to Plan Winter Formals

UPDATED: December 2, 2016, at 12:56 a.m.

Nine of Harvard’s 12 undergraduate residential Houses are planning winter formal dances this weekend, and most are teaming up to throw bigger bashes in Boston.

Around 1,750 attendees will descend on the House of Blues in Boston Sunday night as Quincy, Winthrop, Currier, Pforzheimer, and Cabot Houses, for the first time, are combining efforts for "QWinter Formal" at the famed venue.

Leverett, Dunster, and Mather Houses will host the "Rue Royale" formal Sunday at Royale nightclub in Boston, while the Adams House Committee will host an "Enchanted Forest Formal" Saturday back in Cambridge in the House.

“There’s really been a recent push to do more activities with our neighborhoods, which I’ve been a fan of,” Mather House Committee co-chair Trevor A. Mullin ’17 said. “If you look at our joint Yardfest events, our Harvard-Yale tailgates, I think that those have been successful for getting together with not only your blockmates but also your linkmates.”

Quincy House Committee co-chair Brittany L. Wang ’17 said tickets for the five-house QWinter Formal were not restricted to only residents of the host Houses, and have sold out. Wang said 250 tickets were earmarked for residents of the host Houses and one additional guest, and an additional 500 tickets were available online for all undergraduates.

Wang said she hoped the size of the event would drum up more enthusiasm about House life. “I think the House of Blues is such a pinnacle point of Boston. We’re hoping this gets people more excited about House social events,” Wang said.

Wang said reasons for combining House formals included driving down the cost and being able to afford the House of Blues as a venue. In addition, Mullin said, being able to divide up organizational tasks among multiple Houses made planning more efficient.

The committee also hoped that by having multiple Houses involved, the QWinter Formal would garner a larger turnout and attract friend groups across Houses, Wang said.

While the QWinter Formal will be a new endeavor, Leverett, Dunster, and Mather House Committees have been teaming up for years.

“It’s kind of a tradition of recently,” Mullin said. “With any off-campus event, partnering with other Houses is kind of essential because the cost of the venue would not be feasible for one House Committee to take on from their budget.”

Adams House will take a different tack, hosting its in-House formal alone to to keep down costs.

Jason F. Herrmann '18, Billie Wei '17, Anna T. Wechsler '18 and Christie Tzelios '18 cut out paper animals to decorate the walls in Adams House for this weekend’s ‘Enchanted Forest’ formal. By Aridenne A. Dews

“Adams has a long and proud history of in-house formals,” Adams House HoCo co-chair Cecilia Laguarda ’17 wrote in an email. “We maintain that throwing a formal in the House is the most inclusive way to do it. This keeps venue costs down, meaning ticket costs are down.”

Laguarda also wrote that having the event in the House meant students did not have to travel off campus, making the event “safer and more manageable for many students.”

—Staff writer Graham W. Bishai can be reached at graham.bishai@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @GrahamBishai

This article has been updated to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: December 2, 2016

A previous version of this story misstated the class year of Trevor A. Mullin ’17.