Prom night has been a tradition in high schools all across America since as early as the
late 19th century. A night in which girls dreams of being a princess in their pretty long dresses comes true while being escorted by their date. A night where guys can let loose and have fun dressed in tuxedos making it a night to remember. Through the stress and immense amount of work that high school delivers, this one night is one to look forward to. Proper preparation is key to help you plan a successful and memorable prom night for all students. 1. Pre prom fundraising: An average prom will cost anywhere between $12000-16000. If the prom cannot be paid for, the prom will not happen. Which is why class officers and their advisors have to start planning fundraisers at least nine to twelve months before the date the event is scheduled to happen. Fundraisers that bring in sufficient amounts of money combined could be a car wash with volunteers from the class and reaching out to restaurants that are willing to make deals. A car wash should take place in the summer before the prom because of the good weather. If the car wash gets pushed later than summer, the weather will be cold and rainy resulting in not many volunteers or cars wanting to stop by. Restaurant fundraising can take place in chain restaurants such a Chipotle or Chick Fil A. To do so, you can go on the chosen restaurants website and see if there are any fundraising request form to fill out and email. It is also necessary to start these fundraisers early because it takes at least two-three weeks for the restaurant to get back to the class advisor with a date and time. The money earned from fundraising helps lower the final cost for other aspects that go into planning a prom. 2. Pick Venue and date: Most people forget this is a step because it just seems like common sense. However, this is one of the most important steps for prom. Similar to fundraising, picking a date and venue for the prom has to happen about nine to twelve months in advance. You need to remember that other schools are also looking for prom venues and dates, so it is important to start early in order to find a venue that everyone will be happy with and that will occupy the amount of people expected to go. Look at a couple of different venues before choosing the perfect one for your class. Reach out to the chosen venue by either calling, emailing, or going there in person. However, keep in mind that if they do not email or call you back, try to get in touch with them again for a follow up. Once you have found the venue, it is time to consider dates for the event. First check in with your schools principal and discuss possible dates; preferably on a night where there are no school events planned or AP tests the day of that could lower prom attendance. Once you and your principal have come up with a couple of different dates, touch base with the venue to see which date works for them. Then put down a deposit on the venue (from some money fund raised) in order to confirm and save the venue and date for the prom. 3. Create invitations and decorations + food + Music + Chaperones and police: This step is also overlooked a lot of the times. It is mostly organizing and planning. First, talk to your advisors and officers to solidify a theme for the prom. Once the theme is chosen, go shopping to find decorations of materials for decorations. Most venues will provide table cloths, but you need to consider buying/making centerpieces, balloons, twinkly lights, basically anything that can be taken from a prom in a movie scene. Once you and your team have decide on a theme, create an invitation to advertise your prom! Make sure information such as the date, the address, the time and the theme is located on the invitations. Next, get back in touch with the venue to see if they have meal plans. Again, most venues do offer dinner services for their events so it is suggested to look over the options and decide which plan sounds the most appetizing and affordable. Teenagers want to dance the night away at prom, it is necessary to have a good DJ. Reach out to local DJ’s in your area that are willing to put on a good show, while playing modern music. Lastly, this step requires finding chaperones and security. Venue and school ran proms are obligated to have police at the event for any possible situation. Police need to be paid for to cover the prom, therefore, get into communication with the local police to see the cost. Chaperones do not need to be paid for. It is as simple as getting around twenty teachers from your school to come to the event and make sure everything goes as planned. If there are no chaperones, the prom might not even happen, if it does happen, teenagers could get away with doing a lot of wrong activities. 4. Ticket Pricing and Selling: No matter how much fundraising is done in the first step, ticket prices always help pay for the total cost of the prom and profit for the class funds. Now this step usually gets led on by the treasurer of the class because they are the person elected to be in charge of the money, however, if you do not have a treasurer, it is not a problem just follow the given steps. Calculate the costs of the previous steps, a.k.a., the cost of the venue, decorations, food, music, chaperones, and police. One you have a number for what was/still needs to be spent, subtract the amount of money you earned from the fundraisers from that total. The remaining amount of money is the cost that needs to be covered by the student tickets. Divide that number by the amount of students expected to attend the prom to get a ticket cost per student. In order to get a profit, add $5-10 to the student ticket. You need to be careful when adding the profit to the student tickets because if you add too little, your class barely gets any money, however, if you add too much, the tickets might be too expensive for some students lowering the attendance and possibly losing money. Start selling tickets about a month before the prom to give students time to get money and take the day off of work if needed. Tickets can be sold at lunch during school hours, this way, everyone has a chance to buy them. 5. 2 weeks before and day of preparations: You made it this far but it is not over yet. About two weeks before the event is when most venues ask for the final payments, same with the DJ. Follow up with all of the aspects that needed to be scheduled (venue, DJ, police, and chaperones) to make sure they are still planning to make it. Two weeks is not a lot of time but if one of the scheduled aspects were unable to make it (for example the DJ), it would at least give you fourteen days to find a replacement. On the day of, have at least one person who has helped plan get to the venue about twenty minutes early to make sure everything is under control and the decorations are as imagined. Planning a prom demands for a lot of hard work and organization. Nonetheless, following the five steps and proper preparation is key to help you plan a successful and memorable prom night for all students. The last unofficial step, take your planning prom hat off and put on a beautiful dress or tux then hit the dance floor! Enjoy the night that took such preparation for. By: Jennifer Maciel -- contributing writer Comments are closed.
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AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
June 2019
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