Saturday’s inaugural Democratic Party Summit went a lot like Election Day: There was confusion. The elderly were in the majority. Activists swarmed at the entrance with campaign literature, and – as always – people said they would attend, then didn’t show up.
Out of the 900 tickets printed for the free event on the Boca campus, organizers estimate only 310 were used. The unused tickets were only a waste of $30 in printing fees, however. Parking was much more expensive for the College Democrats, the group that organized the event: FAU charged $1,350 in parking fees according to event cost estimates. Almost 600 of those paid-for parking spaces didn’t get used.
Even the people who did come didn’t stay for the whole event, which was scheduled for four hours and ran five.
At 7:40 p.m., during the end of the closing ceremony, only about 35 people were left. One of these was a screaming child who was running wild around the west side of the Grand Palm Room of the Student Union, while the soft-spoken College Democrats President Sapna Talati attempted to make closing remarks over the disruption.
Kevin Cho Tipton, the main organizer for the student-sponsored event, wasn’t wearing his usual smile at the end of the night.
“If I could be drinking, I would right now,” he said. Tipton shook his head when asked if he wanted to do another event like this one.
“We are done,” he said with a tired and frustrated laugh.
Though there were many factors in the low attendance rate, one of the most visible was the fickle nature of students.
On Sunday night, Tipton sent out a message to the 99 students who had confirmed their intention to attend the event on Facebook. He had used the social networking Web site in part to gauge and predict attendance for the event, as well as promote it.
“Thank you all that attended. For those who didn’t attend, but confirmed that they were going to go … please go join this group,” Tipton said in the brief message.
The group he referred them to was called “The Official Petition To STOP People RSVP’s To Events They Aren’t Going To.”
Featuring a five-paragraph, self-described “rant” riddled with typos, the group’s description has lines like, “But when 10 people show up to something 150 RSVP’d for that is just retarded.”
Tipton did not start the group – his friend and fellow FAU student Christian Matthew Holes created it – but the first message posted to the group Web page is from Tipton and reads: “YYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS.” Apparently, he agrees.
