Winterfest, a beloved annual tradition at Concord Academy, took place on Saturday, January 28 in the Stu-Fac and PAC. Winterfest consisted of merchandise, fresh-made food, fun games, raffles, and a schoolwide talent show; there was certainly plenty for everyone to enjoy and participate in.
Much of the preparation behind the scenes for Winterfest relied on student leaders. Vice Head of School Katie Tran ’23 stated, “[Head of School] Jay and I [planned] several traditional Winterfest activities such as data match, the talent show, the raffle, and senior pieing!”
Katie also spoke about an improvement made from last year’s Winterfest—making it so that each individual could only win one raffle prize, allowing for more people to win prizes.
Katie and Jay also ensured that the proceeds made from Winterfest were all given to charity. This year, the Student Council voted to donate to Plan International. The organization describes themselves as an independent organization that works to advance children’s rights and equality for girls, creating a just world and working with young people.
Other student leaders were hard at work as well, including the ninth grade representatives, who were, per tradition, assigned the task of designing the Winterfest merchandise. This was particularly special to the representatives as their t-shirts would be the only merchandise sold at Winterfest. All clubs were required to create games and food if they sold anything at Club Expo in the fall. The ninth grade representatives decided to loosely follow a winter-esque theme for the shirt’s logo design, looking at past design examples for inspiration. The representatives organized a design competition to collaborate with the entire class to create the best Winterfest merch for the school. Class Representative Ryan Zhao ’26 explained, “[We were looking for] a blue and white [color scheme] for the shirt to signify the frostiness of winter.” Class Representative Xander Grossman ’26 discussed the process of collecting designs to create the perfect long-sleeve Winterfest tee: “The designs [were] created and the specs settled upon by the class of 2026 through a few brief google forms.” Many CA students worked hard to arrange a Winterfest for all to enjoy.
Talent show participants worked incredibly hard on their performances before showcasing them to the community. CA’s K-pop dance club, Sensational, brought passion and power to the stage with their group dance to the song “Easy” by Stray Kids. The main choreography was also accompanied by a few short solo and small-group segments by the members. One of the performers, Joy Xu ’26, spoke about her preparation in advance of the show saying, “I spent months learning the group choreography and we [Sensational] had many rehearsals and practiced together.” Joy added that she spent much of her Christmas break and free blocks learning the dances. “It was fun to put together my outfit, too,” she concluded.
As a result of the collective endeavors by the CA community, Winterfest 2023 turned out to be a pleasant treat for many—a night full of surprises with lots of good food and a fun get-together to kick off the start to the second semester.