If students like going off campus for formal dances, they should attend this year’s Winter Formal, with the theme of “Ice Ice Baby,” which will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Santa Clara on Dec. 2.

Dance commissions anticipate 500 or more students attending in a venue that can hold up to 800. But head dance commissioner Marissa Leong warned that it may be the last year the event will be held off campus because of the high costs associated with off-campus dances.

Dance commissioner Connor Reyes said the venue was chosen by last year’s dance commission since finding and finalizing a venue is a time-consuming process that takes about a year.

“We have to reach out to a bunch of venues a year before because the venues fill up really quickly,” Reyes said. “When we first reach out to venues, we ask if they can hold 500 to 600 people and a lot of the venues can't hold that many people. After finding a big enough venue, we have to make sure the date and the cost works so the process is definitely a difficult one.”

Last year’s dance commission wanted to choose a venue close to last year’s winter formal location, the San Jose Country Club. According to Reyes, the commission was considering hosting winter formal at the country club again, but the prices went up.

Leong said the commission chose the Hyatt because it is considerably cheaper than the venues from the last two years, and the free space of the empty ballroom will allow plenty of space for dancing, as well as setting up a sundae bar and a photo flipbook booth.

The commission has also hired a professional event decorator in hopes that the decorations are made well to fit the theme.

“Students should definitely go to Formal because Winter Formal is also the only Formal dance for underclassmen and the winter Formal dances are always a huge hit,” Leong said.