This year’s Winter Carnival budget will run between $40,000-$45,000, which is in line with previous years, Carnival committee co-chair Mandy Bowers ’14 said. Programming Board provides approximately $20,000 of the council’s budget, and the remainder comes from T-shirt and poster sales from the previous year.
The student activities fee that students pay each term goes to the undergraduate finance committee, which contributes to Programming Board’s budget.
Winter Carnival is one of Programming Board’s largest expenditures of the year, and the organization allots more funds to Carnival than the College’s other big weekends, Collis Center for Student Involvement director Eric Ramsey said in a previous interview. The Undergraduate Finance Committee and the Class Councils are mainly responsible for funding Homecoming weekend, while Green Key has no central budget, he said.
In 2012, Programming Board contributed $16,000 of Carnival’s overall budget, along with $18,000 in 2011. The budget was slightly higher in 2011 to celebrate the weekend’s 100-year anniversary.
The Carnival committee must be especially careful to stay strictly within budget this year, since Programming Board funded an American Authors concert scheduled for Feb. 7, Bowers said.
One of the most significant changes to this year’s budget is the additional cost of a new ice sculpture competition. The contest was originally proposed for last year but was cancelled due to weather issues, Bowers said.
The contest, she said, will run upwards of $5,000. Bowers said that last year the committee had planned to take trash cans filled with water and to leave them outside overnight to make the blocks of ice, but despite repeated attempts, they did not freeze. Instead, the council has hired professional ice sculptor Murray Long, who will provide tools and ice for the contest.
“We’ve solidified it so we don’t have to rely on the weather anymore,” Bowers said.
Michael Perlstein ’14, the other Carnival co-chair, said the committee received additional support to fund the project from the Class of 1977, which donated money to purchase the ice and for cash prizes.
Another change to the total cost of Carnival this year will be the elimination of the Carnival Ball.
“It was very expensive and very hard to put together,” Bowers said.
The event, which was held in the Hopkins Center in the past, was moved to Sarner Underground last year and featured a dance and a capella performances.
Perlstein said the other significant change made to Carnival planning and operations was the use of a snow blower for the main snow sculpture on the Green.
The committee had already trucked in snow from around Hanover, in part due to lack of snow. Then the snow blower took snow from the ground, broke it up and shot it into the wooden mold at night.
Snow sculpture committee chair Ben Geithner ’16 said the addition of the snow machine allowed the work crew to build a two tiered structure for the sculpture. The total cost of the sculpture is about $1,400, he said.
Three years working on the Carnival committee has taught Bowers that the weather poses the biggest challenge to staying on budget, she said.
Snow from the Dartmouth Skiway, which was purchased to make the sculpture in 2012, cost the committee $4,000. The council used snow from campus’ outlying fields last year.
The remainder of this year’s budget will be spent on various activities, including subsidizing 99-cent ski day at the Skiway. Other expenses include Carnival-themed decorations, caterers, security and preparation for the Polar Bear Swim and maintaining emergency response teams at each event, Bowers said in a previous interview with The Dartmouth.
Staff reporter Zac Hardwick contributed reporting.
