On November 2, Borden Memorial Gym was livened with students filing in to celebrate Andover’s annual Halloween Dance. The space was transformed with festive decorations, music, and countless creative costumes. However, this year, the dance seems not to have reached its full potential, with many students disappointed at the lack of turnout.
As the term nears the penultimate week, many students said they found themselves tired and overworked with minor and major assignments. Despite the pressure, some found a perfect escape in the Halloween Dance, using it as an opportunity to unwind and embrace the festive spirit. Emiliano Bobadilla ’26 shared used the opportunity to let loose. He described the dance as a bonding environment where he celebrated the holiday in high spirits.
“I had a very stressful week so I think the dance was a good way to just dress up and have fun instead of just staying in my dorm and doing homework. I feel like as a kid, I was able to celebrate Halloween fully, but at Andover, it’s hard to enjoy it when I always have so much to do. My favorite part of the dance was getting to talk to and hang out with my friends. It was cool seeing a bunch of people I know, and even people that I am not super close with because I was still able to socialize with them and get to know them better,” said Bobadilla.
Despite the dance offering a social space to interact, many students were still disappointed in the student turnout. Cate Cummings ’26, a student in Pine Knoll Cluster which co-hosted the dance with Flagstaff, felt as though the dance lacked sufficient advertisement on campus, disincentivizing students from going.
“My initial expectations of the dance was that there would be more people there, especially earlier on. I went to the dance at nine and I was told that it started at eight so I thought that there would be a lot of people there but even approaching ten, not a lot of people showed up… I would say that’s biggest difference from this year and previous years was the lack of participation,” said Cummings
Another disappointment for students was the lack of interactive stations in the dance, with only music being provided. Nisa Khairunnisa ’25, who arrived without high expectations due to last year’s dance, was particularly disappointed by the absence of the photo booth, a student favorite.
“I didn’t have very high expectations… I was expecting there to be a photo booth because there was one last year. Unfortunately, they did not have a photo booth this year and that was quite upsetting because it was my main reason for going to the dance,” said Khairunnisa.
Although the lack of activities such as the photo booth and student turnout created much room for improvement, students are not entirely discouraged looking towards the future. Cummings believes that revamping the dance is necessary to ensure that Andover students are not bored and can continue to celebrate Halloween with enjoyment.
“This dance has been an Andover tradition for a while and I hope that we can even bring some newer elements into it and also be able to make the dance more iconic than before because I feel like some traditions have been repeated so many times that students and especially newer students don’t feel like they really need to go and I think that probably could be changed,” said Cummings.
The planning committees have already begun revamping the dance compared to last year, and are looking to continuously improve the event. This year, a special performance was featured by Andover’s flow arts club, Photon. Allegra Lee ’27, a member of the club, believes that this opened up a unique element to the event, and should be incorporated in coming years.
“I really liked being able to bring Photon to the dance, I think it was a great way to incorporate something that maybe people weren’t expecting and because obviously I think part of the reason may be that people look down on dances like the Halloween dances is because it’s all just things they’ve expected, experienced before, and they’re expecting, so it could be cool to incorporate more fun activities… Photon could go to the dance again and teach more people to spin or thinking another performing arts club, maybe a dance club could do a little performance. Something [like] that would bring the energy even higher,” said Lee.
As the Andover community looks ahead, students and organizers alike are hopeful that with new ideas, better advertisement, and more dynamic elements, future Halloween dances can evolve into a more exciting and inclusive tradition. While this year’s turnout may have fallen short of expectations, there is a clear desire to keep improving and ensuring that the dance remains a vibrant and essential part of student life at Andover.
