Prom has been a rite of passage for kids for decades. Getting ready, buying dresses, getting a nice dinner, and being asked out are all aspects that kids look forward to every year. However, many people don’t get to experience Prom despite their willingness to go. Tickets are pricey, dresses are expensive, and if you go on a date, you might have to pay for dinner or flowers for them, too.
Prom tickets for our school ranged from $100-140 this year. That price seems unattainable for many kids; in comparison to the cost of living, it’s not as bad as it looks. To go to a great venue requires a lot of money, and prom tickets have to cover that.
Head of the VAPA department, Randall Shorts, says, “The challenge, I think, is always the venue. Kids always wanna go to a really cool place, but it increases everything. Back then, you could buy a pickup truck for $15,000, and now you buy it for $110,000, and everything, not just gas, has gone up exponentially. 120 dollars is a lot of money, but, for me, that is less than the amount for a tank of gas, especially right now.”
Although prom tickets aren’t much in comparison to the prices of gas, they still aren’t attainable for many families. The cost of the dress, dinner, corsage, ticket, and transportation all add up. Throughout the 2010’s, an average family was estimated to spend $1,100 total on everything it took for their kid to go to prom. Shorts has some ideas for how prom could be more accessible for students.
“Maybe kids could help out at an ASB function or tear down a rally and maybe make 20$ towards their prom tickets, maybe they could be a teacher’s assistant during Saturday school for a teacher who needs extra help. It might be a cool thing to find something creative to create a scholarship system to help alleviate some of the financial costs. Especially now, with gas over 6 dollars a gallon, it’s extra important.”
Of course, kids could have more resources to help out with costs, but our school already does a lot. Shorts continues, “The Cinderella dreams are awesome for kids who wanna go, and their family is struggling, and they don’t have to make their own dress. It’s amazing. For those kids to go and feel like they fit in and feel like they’re wearing something cool and beautiful, I think, is a really good thing.”
Despite the difficulties in pricing and accessibility, prom students have had positive experiences going to the dance. Senior Ivana Darmawan says, “What made prom special for me was the whole getting-ready process with my friends. It’s such a fun time to bond and dress up with each other while talking about the silliest things or dropping lore. Just doing everything with your friends is, in my opinion, what makes the whole prom experience like getting ready, taking pictures, dancing, etc.
It’s like playing dress up and getting to find gorgeous dresses that make you feel amazing and confident. The only downside to shopping for prom for me is the prices, since dresses and suits are so expensive.”
Shorts had a great prom experience too, despite the pricing. He was Prom king his senior year and got to dance with a close friend, he says, “Being Prom king was cool, it was also in a beautiful place, it was at the queen mary, the queen was a friend that I had had since freshmen year, i was a big nerd and she was super athletic and super smart and we had a dance just the two of us and we were at the bottom level, three levels of kids looked down on us dancing and I didn’t even know how to dance. I can’t dance. I can still remember how nervous it was; it was really nuts. That was really fun, and we had a really good time.”
Although prom has its issues, it’s fun with it in the end. From Mr. Shorts’ year as prom king to now, students should be able to enjoy themselves by dancing and spending time with friends.