By Zalfa Feghali---

After four years of holding the graduation party at the Mechref Country Club, this year's graduation party committee decided for a change and chose a new venue: Waves Aqua Park. "It was a change demanded by the students, and though the Mechref venue has always had good prices and quality, we voted and went along with it," Salah Sadek, faculty advisor to the committee, told Outlook. Loay Sayyah, also a member of the committee, said that after "acknowledging that we needed a change, we explored a few places alternative to Mechref and chose Waves because of the larger space and the new location." Students' reactions varied from complaints about the design of the tickets and posters to comments on the crowded venue and the break with tradition. Still others were heard calling the party, "the search party," since they spent most of the evening either searching for friends or tables. "These problems arose because we hadn't previously worked with Waves; they were problems of organization, that next year we will have dealt with," admitted Sayyah. Plans to improve the organization next year include ushers for parking, and clearly marked and differentiated tables and seating. "Wherever the party is next year, we will have learnt from our mistakes," said Sayyah. However, according to one graduate, "The committee shouldn't have to learn from their mistakes on our expense. This is our night, and we wanted to enjoy it." Demanding the same ticket price, LL40,000, as last year's party, the committee managed to sell 2,800 tickets, and if given the chance, ticket sales could have easily reached 3,000. The committee were also under pressure to make better profits since there were no major sponsors for the party, and therefore there was a lot of cost that had to be covered solely by the ticket sales. In addition, it was important to make positive profits since all proceeds from the graduation party go to hardship cases. The profit made this year was $24,000, nearly twice the amount of previous years. "We didn't want to only rely on sponsorship. In any case, the total amount of money we got from sponsors added up to $1,500, but due to the high attendance this year, we'll have an edge to get sponsors next year," commented Sayyah. Many students had difficulty arriving at the party because of a traffic jam that backed up cars as far as the exit off the main Mansourieh road. Many graduates and friends were forced to park their cars at the beginning of the exit and walk the rest of the way. "We had to walk for nearly two kilometers to reach Waves from where we were forced to park our car," said Mahmoud, a fellow graduate. Those who stayed in their cars waited at least an hour and a half to reach the entrance, only to find that there was no parking and they would have to park elsewhere and walk. "The wait in the car, due to traffic, was very bad, and would have been worse, had we not had the fireworks to entertain us for 15 minutes of the hour-long wait," said an engineering graduate. The majority of students missed the fireworks display at 12:15 am, which, according to sources, could not be postponed until everyone had arrived because of Lebanese regulations. The subsequent dabkeh presentation that took place early into the evening also went generally unnoticed. Few of the revelers even noticed the cutting of the cake by President Waterbury. Too busy dancing or blindly attempting to find their tables, they noticed only the release of the balloons into the air to celebrate the graduates' release from university into the world. The pressing issue all night was the lack of space. However, the crowding was clearly explainable: the layout of Waves did not allow for space. As opposed to Mechref Country Club, Waves only had one passage for people to pass through, thus making the high attendance more noticeable. Nevertheless, dancing carried on until the break of dawn, just as it had done on previous graduation party nights. "We did make a lot of mistakes; we all admit that. The party was a great success as a fundraiser, but a lot of the details were unorganized. At the same time, it is for a good cause, the hardship cases, so in that respect it was very good," declared Sadek. Khaled Adra, chair of the committee, dismissed rumors of internal disagreements about general party organization among members of the graduation party committee. "It was a democratic committee. The committee members cooperated and worked very hard on the night. Had it not been for those who were on duty, the party would not have been the success that it was," said Adra.