Holiday Bazaar Controversy

This year’s Holiday Bazaar, hosted by the PTA, was held on the Ersha campus just like previous years. This year, the PTA offered a 1000 RMB prize for the single “best decorated” student-led booth. The “best decorated” booth was selected through overall appearance and holiday mood of the booths, prizes and more. This encouraged student officers and coordinators to really focus on creating a Christmas-themed booth. Congratulations to Pulse for earning this prize!

A problem that occurred in previous years was that the PTA was always concerned about how student-led booths always lacked in holiday or Christmas spirit, which is why this “prize” was offered. The existence of the prize made the overall environment more festive. However, many students AND supervisors were not satisfied with this year’s holiday bazaar.

All student-led booths were set-up in the MPR (Multi-Purpose Room) of the Ersha campus, while organizations and companies not related to our school, that paid PTA for a spot were set-up outside, where most of the kids and customers tended to be. Many student-led booths, due to this factor, lost money or did not earn as much profit as they did in previous years. I interviewed students for an in-depth perspective of this event.

Sophia L. attended this Holiday Bazaar and went back home satisfied and with joy. She stated: “I actually liked this year’s holiday bazaar more than the previous ones, simply because it felt peppier and Christmas-y [as a result] of the Christmas and holiday-themed booths.” In previous years, most booths did not put a lot of focus on decorations simply because it took time and was considered a waste of money. The PTA’s offer motivated most booths to spend time and money this year on decorations, which really did make this event different from Family Fun Day.

Andy H, a grade 10 StuCo member, commented on how although this year’s Holiday Bazaar did seem more holiday-like appearance wise, many booths were disappointed. He said “many booths, including ours, either lost or did not earn a lot of money. We were disappointed when we realized that many of our customers or people in general stayed outside, whereas student-led booths were set inside the MPR. PTA did, in a way, force student-led booths to spend time and money [on] decorations. We did not have a problem at all in the beginning, but when we faced a situation where organizations that paid the PTA got way better spots than us student-led booths.” As an executive member of a community service group and a fellow StuCo member, I felt the same way. It felt as if all our effort and money was wasted, as not many kids were even around our booths. Although the unfair placement of student-led booths may have been a factor that led to unsatisfactory results, we do need to take into consideration that there was a touch rugby tournament going on for middle school students and many high school students were participating in the swim meet or Tri-Cities basketball tournament on the same day as the Holiday Bazaar.

There were positive and negative opinions on this year’s Holiday Bazaar. From a visitor or customer’s perspective, the Holiday Bazaar for 2018 was much better than the previous years, but from a booth organizer’s perspective, this year’s Holiday Bazaar not only made lots of booths lose money but also took a lot of meeting time and effort. What are your opinions on this year’s Holiday Bazaar? Please comment below!