Jan Powell, chairing the Indiana Inaugural Ball, said she had had no trouble selling corporate sponsorships for $18,000-per-person tickets to the formal four-course dinner dance. "Even in rough economic times, people are perhaps looking for something to celebrate," she said.
Jenifer Sarver of the Texas State Society said the group had sold 10,000 tickets to its Black Tie & Boots Inaugural Ball, which would have seven stages with entertainers.
"We're trying to be respectful of the economic times by not doing anything too over the top," she said, but added: "Texans certainly do love to have a good time."
There is precedent, of course, for reins on the pomp of the day. Jimmy Carter gave up a limo ride to take his surprise stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue, and he set $25 as the maximum price for admission to official balls.
During the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt skipped the 1933 inaugural ball and canceled the 1937 ball. But Tim Blessing, a history and political science professor at Alvernia University in Pennsylvania, said it was questionable whether that was because of tough times "or simply because FDR disliked the balls."
"He wanted hot chicken a la king for the inaugural lunch" at his first swearing-in, said Elizabeth B. Goldsmith, a professor and Fulbright scholar at Florida State University. "The housekeeper said no, too expensive. And they had chicken salad, rolls, unfrosted pound cake and coffee."
Still, FDR's first inauguration was far from sedate.
Warner Bros. sent a train load of Hollywood stars, including Busby Berkeley chorus girls who rode a float in the inaugural parade, led by cowboy star Tom Mix doing rope tricks on his horse, said Stephen Talbot, whose father, actor Lyle Talbot, made the trip.
"The very next day," he said, "the actors all hustled over to a big movie palace in Washington -- the Earle Theatre -- to perform a live stage show before the screening of the big new Warner Bros. musical '42nd Street,' whose theme was that even in the depths of the Depression, the show must go on!"
Blessing expected the Obama team to exercise some restraint. "It should be noted that the Obama camp had fireworks planned for his election evening victory," he said, "but that he canceled them as not setting the right tone."
Still others say the president-elect deserves an unfettered celebration.
