International Night planning at Hayfield this year had not gone exactly as planned. There had been multiple changes to dates and locations, which confused students and sponsors who took part in I-Night this school year.
The event was initially set for March 28. It was later changed to April 25. I-Night had gotten pushed back again to May 2 due to scheduling conflicts. However, this date had overlapped with the school production, Cinderella; this caused the new and confirmed date to be May 30. On top of all of the three date changes, the location had also kept switching between the auditorium and the gym. As of now, the confirmed date and location for I-Night is on May 30 in the auditorium.
For students who have been helping to organize and perform, it wasn’t just a small bump in the road, it actually had a major effect on how they prepared their dances and their sets.
“I’ve been mixed up about it,” junior Reva Navalkar said. Navalkar had explained that the constant changes made it stressful to keep everyone updated, especially since not everyone even knew when the date had changed.
Some of the groups had to completely adjust their practice schedules. Others had just stopped practicing for a while because they didn’t know when the event was actually going to happen.
“We went from having two practices a week in, what, February, maybe, to get ready for March and then just stopped all of March because then they moved it to May,” junior Sydney Jackson said. “Then, they moved it back to April and then we picked them. Again, they moved back to May. And after a while, we just kind of gave up.”
There was also frustration about how everything was handled. Junior Ruth Ayalew said it felt like I-Night wasn’t being treated as a priority compared to the other events happening at the school.
At one point, I-Night was even going to be held in the gym, which didn’t make sense to many students. Performances usually involve costume changes and staging, and that is harder to manage in that space. Along with the bleachers coming down, which also limits the space.
Eventually, students engaged with administration, and things started to get sorted out. The event was then moved back to the auditorium, which is where I-Night is normally held.
Even though the situation was frustrating, students still deeply care about I-Night. It’s one of the main events where the diversity and different cultures of Hayfield are represented, so students still want it to be a successful event.
Looking back, a lot of students believe that this could have been avoided if the date had just been decided earlier in the year. That way, the groups would have had more time to plan and have fewer last-minute changes to deal with.
