Unlike the other large parties held at the 5Cs recently, last Saturday’s Smiley 80s party made it through the night without any noise complaints or crowd control issues.

Problems at some large 5C parties were starting to become a common occurrence, following a string of early shut-downs and rowdy crowds. Smiley 80s last year was shut down early because of a noise complaint, followed by early shutdowns at Harwood Halloween and Scripps’s Eurotrash, which both had problems with rowdy students. Most recently, the Wedding Party at CMC was forced to close due to noise issues.

This year, Pomona’s Committee for Campus Life and Activities (CCLA) worked to avoid these problems at Saturday’s Smiley 80s party by moving the event back to the more sound-proof Edmunds Ballroom in the SCC, working more closely with Campus Safety, and switching to a limited-number ticket system to reduce crowds.

Both ASPC Vice President of Campus Life and Activities Frank Langan PO ‘11 and Assistant Director of Smith Campus Center and CCLA Advisor Ellie Ash agreed that the measures taken helped the party run smoothly until the scheduled end time.

“The party went great,” Langan said. “We didn’t have any noise complaints, we didn’t have any hospital transports, there were no crowd control issues, and the people inside had a ton of fun. I’ve gotten a ton of positive feedback, both from students, administrators, and Campus Safety.”

Ash and Langan both pointed to the new ticket system as playing a major role in the party’s success. Instead of selling wristbands as they had in previous years, CCLA sold tickets, and students wishing to leave and come back had to get a special stamp. CCLA also sold only 1,000 tickets this year, compared to the 1,200 it has sold in years past.

Ash suggested that this system prevented a large crowd from forming outside, as it did at Harwood Halloween and other parties.

“People know there’s a certain amount of tickets per fire code, and so a certain amount of people can get in,” Ash said. “If you don’t have a ticket, you’re not going to come out and push and try to get in.”

According to Langan, CCLA is looking at expanding the ticket system to other events following the success of Smiley 80s.

“We’re looking at what Harwood [Halloween] is going to look like,” Langan said. “Harwood is still going to be free, but we may distribute tickets as placeholders just because it works so well for crowd control.”

While event organizers praised the success of the ticketing system, some students pointed to the negative effects of controlling the attendance of the party so closely.

“I noticed that several Pomona students were unable to attend Smiley 80s because they couldn’t get tickets,” said Benjie Smith PO ‘13. “I think that since many people never expected the tickets to sell out, they didn’t make the effort to buy them until the last minute.”

“I think that one of the other main problems with the ticket system is that it doesn’t afford students any spontaneity,” Smith added. “Often times, it is difficult to plan social events even one week in advance because people’s plans change so much.”

Other schools at the 5Cs have been trying to implement a ticket system similar to the one used at Smiley 80s. CMC’s White Party on Feb. 19 used tickets successfully, according to Associated Students of Claremont McKenna College (ASCMC) Executive Board Member Cara Daley CM ‘11.

However, Daley added that “there is a lot more conscientious planning that is involved to avoid parties getting shut down than just tickets.”

Scripps 5C Event Chair Marta Bean mentioned another downside to the ticket system. “At Scripps events with alcohol, the bartenders are used to checking wristbands and don’t really have enough arms to blacklight everyone’s hands,” Bean wrote in an e-mail to TSL.

“Tickets could be a good idea in the future, but I think a better solution would be elaborate wristbands that are more difficult to counterfeit and less likely to get lost, which I know was a problem for some people at Smiley 80s,” she wrote.

A final issue with the ticket system is that not as many people get to attend the party. CCLA, however, sees this as a necessary trade-off, Ash explained.

“You either have people frustrated because it sells out, which obviously is unfortunate because we wish everyone could go, or you have people being forced to wait in line because the room’s full,” she said. “Not everyone’s going to get in anyway, so we feel it’s better in terms of safety to have it be a ticketed event.”

“If you don’t get a ticket, I apologize,” Langan said. “But at the end of the day, there’s just nowhere that holds everybody. I would hope there would be something else to do that night.”