After leadership’s months of preparation, prom is finally here.
Leadership’s prom committee is responsible for planning the entirety of prom, which will take place on Friday, April 22. From booking a venue to ticket sales, leadership students worked hard to ensure everything runs smoothly.
There are a lot of steps that Emma Hauge, prom committee lead and senior class president, took over the past months in order to make prom a reality.
“[The prom committee] talked with the event coordinator at the [California] Academy of Sciences on what type of uplights we wanted, and then our food selections,” Hauge described. “I’ll give you a little sneak peek: We’re doing tacos.. [and] a chocolate fountain… Then from there it was more just promoting our tickets … [and] making sure we promoted everything and got the word out.”
Funding prom was not an easy feat. The dance cost almost $50,000. A large portion of prom’s funding came from the junior and senior classes.
“There was a collective boba fundraiser for prom that we did after school,” junior class president and prom committee member Lorenzo Pepe said. “We also allocated [$2,500] from our [junior class] account to reduce the ticket prices, so it’s more affordable for students.”
On top of the money from the junior and the $3,000 from the senior class The success from ticket sales is making certain the prom will break even. Over 600 tickets have already been sold.
“Ticket sales so far have gone really well,” Hauge said. “Hopefully we [will] have around 700 people in attendance.”
Board of Student Affairs (BOSA) Secretary Adin Helfand was charged with the task of overseeing the progress of the committee.
“I am the BOSA lead for the committee,” Helfand said. “So [for] any decisions that we make, I’m someone that [members of the prom committee] can … compare ideas with … and then I’m also kind of the liaison to Mrs. With if they ever have any questions.”
Hauge feels that the venue is one of the most awe-inspiring aspects of this year’s prom.
“I think a big thing is the availability to go to the aquarium during prom and then also just the venue itself,” Hauge said. “We’re going to use the whole plaza … as our dance floor.”
This year’s prom is introducing a new structure to choosing prom royalty. Instead of electing a prom queen, king, princess, and prince, one senior will be crowned prom royalty, and one junior will be crowned prom nobility.
“We have decided to retire the gendered prom Court structure just because we feel that’s not representative of Woodside’s values and the inclusion that we like to promote on our campus,” Helfand explained. “We felt that this was a better way to ensure that all students had a more equitable opportunity to be recognized by their peers for this position.”
Often forgotten details such as the design of tickets are also incredibly important. Sophomore class secretary Emma Hite decided to forgo using templates from sites like Anderson’s, which is costly and not as unique, and instead made them from scratch.
“I made the … tickets for homecoming and then I made them for formal … [So] I volunteered myself [to make the prom tickets],” Hite described. “I remember when planning homecoming how the designs on Anderson’s are … just not very cute. And I knew that I could make something better and I could do it for free”
Hite worked on more than just tickets.
“I made a flyer that got displayed everywhere,” Emma Hite. “I’ve made the prom screen, which is a screen that’s being displayed in the lobby of the Academy of Sciences where you walk in.”
There have been a number of setbacks in the planning process.
“Figuring out the food, that [was] a problem because it got really expensive really quickly,” Pepe said. “Keeping it cheap but also having food and beverages that … people [will] … be interested in, that was definitely a challenge.”
COVID-19 posed an added challenge through planning.
“We had to be aware of COVID and make sure … not to go over a certain number of people,” Hauge explained. “Then [we] also… had to be careful with vaccinations and testing, and making sure either everyone was vaccinated or that they had a negative PCR test 48 hours events of the event.”
Even though their hard planning, Helfand is proud to see how well the process is going.
“In past years, we’ve had a few more obstacles, but this year, it’s been really smooth,” Helfand expressed. “All of the leadership classes are working like a well-oiled machine.”
For seniors, prom is a fun celebration to close off their last year of high school.
“I’m really excited to be able to share a fun evening with my friends because this is kind of going to be our last hurrah as seniors,” Helfand said. “So just hopefully making a few more memories that I can look back on and cherish”
With all their hard work, the prom committee is proud of the end product.
“It’s just been hard work but I think our hard work will end up paying off” Hauge expressed. “I hope this is gonna be a good prom coming back from COVID.”
