By ADITYA TYAGI
Staff Writer
I wish I could say I was one of the first to have my foot in the door at Homecoming, but I wasn’t. It took 42 minutes before I even saw the doors. Fortunately, I can certainly say it was well worth the wait, with music, lights, and… video games? 
Homecoming came at a high price as usual, costing up to $75 during the last week of available purchase, which really made me question whether or not it is truly worth it.
This year’s Homecoming was again at AV Irvine, an event venue built to be packed. The long line outside was already quite the event, with a chorus of “Happy birthday to you…” (Unfortunately, I was unable to hear whose birthday it was. Regardless, happy birthday!) Curiously enough, I didn’t see too many bored faces. I could feel the excitement in the air as I shifted, inch by inch, towards the doors.
Upon entry, I was greeted with a wondrous sight: UHS students, bustling about with drinks in their hands, dancing, or just chatting. Ultimately, what I was viewing was fun. This wasn’t an event where I ended up sitting in the corner on my phone, wondering if I should leave soon. Everyone seemed to want to be constantly involved, which anyone could tell since nobody seemed to stay in one place for long. 
The features of Homecoming, which included dancing, music, food, and gaming, were all fairly well-executed. When I stepped into the dance room, my ears were nearly shattered by how loud the music was, and that’s certainly no complaint! With every song came cheers, and with every bass drop came jumps. At one point, I was dragged into the center of the crowd, and I realized how many people who had only been there for a minute were already sweating. Some might say it was because of the heating, but I think it was the dancing for sure.
Food was interesting, with cool doughnuts they made in front of you and small cones of probably the fanciest fries I’ve ever had. But the most interesting aspect of Homecoming to me was the games – or at least, the thought. I was quite surprised to find four Xboxes in front of me when I first went upstairs, but then I was immediately disappointed by a sparse variety of games. Much to my dismay, the games were all online, but no account was available. It felt like these were essentially to fit some sort of theme. While I noticed that the Homecoming logo had the Pacman map behind it, I can’t say with confidence that the event was truly “video-game themed”. I initially felt like that entire section should have either been expanded further, or not done at all, but then I realized something: Homecoming isn’t for video games. The consoles really were just for show.

However, I wasn’t content with just seeing how people felt. I decided to ask around and see what people really thought of the event. In the end, I ended up with eight respondents who told me what they thought about Homecoming. I think the most interesting statistic that can be gained from my questions was that all but one of them informed me that they found this year’s Homecoming even better than last year’s. Unfortunately, the replies to whether or not the ticket price was worth it were more lukewarm, with sighs accompanying every single answer to that very question. 
“The ticket price was not so great, but the event is definitely very expensive-looking,” said sophomore Elijah Tabachni. “I could see why they charged that much.” 
Elijah makes a good point, seeing as AV Irvine seemed to be no cheap venue. But if students still felt over-charged in terms of costs, what could ASB do? There already was a price reduction this year and with another one could come a massive deficit cost. Perhaps the pricing difference from week to week should be adjusted more towards extremes, or less so. Without considering cost, I believe that Homecoming was a worthy experience, managing to pack quite a few activities and fun within just a few hours.