The Great Gatsby Formal and Poker Night featured a live jazz band, mashed potato bar and a larger than expected turnout.

According to John Britton, associate dean of student development, the demand for the event far exceeded weekend programming’s expectations.

“I thought we would get maybe 250-300 people and when we hit 400 it was like holy cow,” said Britton.

Student body president David Kuenzi was also pleased with the turnout and how the event came together.

“The night is going really, really well. I think that everybody is having an amazing time and I think that this has been a huge success,” Kuenzi said at the event.

Student senate provided the funds for the event which was co-hosted by weekend programming and residence life.

According to Kuenzi, this collaboration was due to student senate distancing themselves from hosting their own events.

“Student senate funded this event,” Kuenzi said. “Because we are trying to move away from programming in general, we haven’t hosted any events this year, but we thought this would be a really good way to show our support for student entertainment and student involvement in general.”

Weekend programming did most of the prep work with help from student senate and residence life.

“We did a lot of prep work beforehand like making all the table decorations and prepping the layout,” said Nicole Wilson, a member of the weekend programming staff. “We started out with an already perfect venue so we could only go up from there.”

Following the success of the night, weekend programming says they hope to repeat the event in the same venue next year.

“This turned out to be a venue that people got excited about so I think half of it was the venue, that people were excited about dressing up and going to this,” said Britton.

According to Britton, however, future formals will most likely not be centered around “The Great Gatsby.”

“I think we are always looking to expand and do something new and fresh, so I think we would look for a new theme,” Briton said.

Weekend programming will look to not only repeat, but expand the event to accommodate the high demand.

“Our hope is to try and find, within the same facility, a room that can have about 1,000 people and try to get 1,000 students to come,” Britton said.