Tailgate Prices Reduced
As you know, The Game is less than three weeks away! After our atypical arrangement at Fenway in 2018 and the canceled Game in 2020, we at YaleBoston were eager to return to our traditional tailgate tent at Harvard for the first time in six years.
However, circumstances around The Game have changed since 2016. The price of the tent and Harvard's catering options have become orders of magnitude more expensive. One thing that has not changed is that YaleBoston does not make money on the tailgate: we consider it a privilege to host alumni from across the country for one of Yale's most celebrated traditions.
Unfortunately, it quickly became clear this year that we would need to charge more than $100 per person in order to cover our costs, for even the least expensive package we could assemble. We opted to produce what we believed would be a better event, more in line with what our community has come to expect, at a $150 price point; rather than a less compelling event at $100. In doing so, we recognized that the club was risking a financial loss.
Since tickets went on sale, in conversations with alumni from Boston and beyond, it has become clear that the price is prohibitively expensive. It's our fault for not anticipating this. The greatest loss we have risked is not the financial one, but rather the potentially lost opportunity to come together as Yalies for The Game.
In light of this, the club has opted to reduce tailgate ticket prices to $70 for members and $80 for all other attendees. Those who have already purchased tickets will be refunded the difference. In order to manage tent capacity, children under the age of 5 must be registered, but their tickets are free.
I will be candid with you: we have been able to reduce ticket prices to this level in part by reducing the scope of our catering package, but primarily by investing a significant sum of the club's savings to cover the costs. We do not receive financial assistance from Yale to run the tailgate at Harvard; we are a volunteer organization funded primarily by dues and donations, and any money spent on one thing is necessarily not available for others. We are able to underwrite this event because successive boards over the last seven years have been careful about growing and protecting our savings; we will not, however, be able to meet our financial obligations to Harvard's vendors without spending most of what we have saved, and reducing our capacity to pay for other initiatives as a result.
If you, as an individual donor or the representative of a company, would like to discuss sponsorship opportunities associated with this event, please contact me directly at president@yaleboston.org. And if you're not at the level of sponsoring events, but would like to help ensure a successful tailgate in every sense of the word, the best thing to do is to get your tickets at the links below.
General Admission:
www.yale.boston/events/2022-game-tailgate
Members:
www.yale.boston/member-events/2022-game-tailgate
We hope this enables more alumni to come celebrate the Game with us. Let's beat Harvard!
Boola boola,
Alexander Michaud '17
Club President
