“I plan on doing the quests,” junior Kanon Banno recently told The Classic.

She’s not on a quest to slay a dragon or find a magical object. Instead, she’s on a quest to get a coveted ticket to this year’s “Witching Hour” read-a-thon, an annual all-night event hosted by the Townsend Harris Reading Initiative.

Kanon was one of over 600 students who sought a ticket to the event, but according to English teacher Brian Sweeney, who organizes the Witching Hour, it took just three minutes for this year’s 300 tickets to sell out.

“We’ve run out of space before but never this quickly,” Mr. Sweeney said. Though the event sold out, Mr. Sweeney said that a number of ticket holders often back out in the weeks leading up to the event, so he turns to a waiting list to replace those who drop out.  With hundreds of students on this year’s waiting list for a ticket, Mr. Sweeney sent students a guide for how to earn a spot (rather than offering spots in the order students signed up). And how do students earn a spot? By proving they’ve been reading through completing various reading tasks or “quests” to get in.

“I plan on doing the quests worth the highest points to hopefully guarantee a spot,” Kanon said. She said she has attended the Witching Hour for the past two years and is optimistic about her chances of getting off the waitlist.

“I’d hate to break the Witching Hour streak I have,” she said.

The Witching Hour is a Halloween-themed challenge for students to see if they can read throughout the night and stay awake by sunrise. The event is split between blocks of reading, and free time when students can watch spooky movies, partake in Halloween arts and crafts activities, play Halloween trivia games, or just enjoy time hanging out with friends.

Due to the massive demand but limited seats, numerous students have been completing the quests to get a ticket. Each quest earns students a set amount of points that increase students’ chances of getting in. The quests range from signing in at the library during lunch periods to do some independent reading, filming video recitations of text excerpts, annotating a Halloween short story by hand, to memorizing excerpts from “The Raven” or Macbeth, and more. These points also go towards the overall annual Reading Initiative challenge, which can earn students and their grade various prizes.

Mr. Sweeney said the purpose of these assignments is to not only provide a chance for students on the waitlist to get a ticket but to inspire more authentic reading in the form of fun activities. “If we can get students to read more just to get into an event focused on reading that will be worth it. Our goal is to motivate students to read as often as possible and to come up with social events like this that students enjoy to incentivize reading,” said Mr. Sweeney.

He said that since the pandemic the school has had concerns about how engaged students are in independent reading and has been working to motivate students to read as often as possible.

According to Mr. Sweeney, 54 students have already gotten off the waitlist by completing various quests. He said many students have done some of the hardest challenges, like submitting videos of themselves reciting over two minutes of poetry from memory — while blindfolded to prove they aren’t reading it off a screen.

Some students share their work in social media posts to publicize the quest process, earning them extra Reading Initiative points in the process.

Sophomore Connor Chen is one of the 54 students who earned a spot off the waitlist by completing the quests.

“I got into the Witching Hour off the waitlist by only doing quests that didn’t require social media,” Connor said. “I don’t like getting posted online too much. It’s just my personal preference, so I did annotations for ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ and I did some independent reading.”

Junior Hannah Fang was able to get into the Witching Hour after creating a book review.

“My process in making my book review for the Reading Initiative quest took a lot of trial and error,” Hannah said, “but it was also fun to talk about a book to the camera when I normally would just finish a book without reflecting on it afterward.”

The Witching Hour begins tomorrow night at 7 p.m. Every student who is still awake and reading by 7 a.m. will earn 500 points towards the yearly reading challenge, increasing their chances to win one of this year’s grand prizes, which will be announced at Founders Day in November.

This story was originally published on The Classic on October 23, 2025.