With the announcement of the Winter Carnival a few weeks prior, the event filled with games, dancing, and a Battle of the Bands has turned into a Sadie Hawkins themed festival. On January 19th, the United Student Body (USB) class announced that the upcoming Winter Carnival set to take place on Friday, February 3rd, will be changed to the ‘girls ask the boys’ casual carnival setting as opposed to the previous winter theme. 

“I’m excited for it, but I’ve heard there wasn’t much that changed besides the fact that they renamed it to Sadie’s a dance,” sophomore Caitlyn Chen said.

To maintain the festival atmosphere, dress code for the changed event will remain casual. This is mainly due in part to it seeming the most feasible way to transition the concept of a carnival to a dance-like festival. However, students are able to wear clothes matching their date as a way to bring about spirit and engagement. 

“I think the students will enjoy the Sadie’s [dance] a lot more because people have been begging for a winter formal for a really long time. And this is a lot closer to that so I think people would be more excited to have this,” Executive Board UCC Representative Isabella Le said. 

With the return of a Sadie Hawkins dance, it has sparked the interest of students at Ayala, as there has not been a ‘girls ask the boys’ event in years. With many students having requested it, more people feel inclined to attend to see what the experience is like.

“I was planning on going to begin with, but now that it is considered a dance, I’m more willing to go and see how it goes,” said Chen. 

Following the announcement of Chino Hills High School’s disco themed Sadie Hawkins dance, many students have also speculated that Ayala has suddenly changed their theme to follow suit and compete for which event will be more successful. When asked, Le stated that Chino Hills High School might have actually received this idea from Ayala with the reveal of an upcoming winter event.

“What actually happened was, I was told that our advisor went to this meeting with all the high schools in the district and then we said that we were doing a Winter Carnival festival. Chino Hills saw that, and they were like, ‘oh, okay’ we’ll do a Sadie’s then. So even though it looks like we copied them, they may have gotten inspiration from us,” said Le.

Despite this, students are interested in seeing how this Sadie’s Festival will hold up in comparison to the events the USB had held last semester. With the outrage following last semester’s homecoming ticket prices, events going forward are only looking up as the leadership class hopes to plan more engaging events to unite the student body. 

“I’m very excited to go now,” sophomore Evan Chang said. “I think that it’s a good re-branding.”