Josephine Scannell
Closing in on prom season, seniors and juniors wait in anticipation for the announcement of the theme and venue. As the Associative Student Body (ASB) announced, prom will take place at the Coyote Hills Golf Course on April 28, the theme being Les Nymphéas: Through the Gardens of Monet. “Les Nymphéas,” or Water Lilies, are a collection of 8 paintings by Monet. The dominant colors are blue, purple, and green, which spark a reminder of the Skirball rather than Coyote Hills.
For context, the Coyote Hills Golf Course is a country club that hosts weddings and other large formal events. In previous years, Gabrielino has hosted prom at space stations and zoos. While the country club has a beautiful landscape, there is nothing particularly striking or eye-catching about it.
The venue is the central part of the prom experience, even though the theme gets somewhat tossed to the side, acting almost as a backdrop to the venue itself.
“I feel like the venue is super important since it sets the scene for the mood,” stated senior Olivia Simpson-Castaneda. “If the venue is cute, it makes you want to go out with your friends.”
However, although there should be more student voices when it comes to the venue for an event as big as prom, deciding where to have the venue isn’t as simple as it being cute or memorable. There are many factors that must be taken into account, including price, distance, and stability.
“The process of picking a venue for prom happens the summer before the school year starts,” explained Junior Class President Krystal Ngeam. “We’re given a tour of the venue, and by the end of the day, we decide which venue is the best and which one we want for prom.”
Picking a suitable venue takes time and various considerations. Ngeam has to consider size, safety, and more when it comes to selecting the venue, considerably narrowing down options for venues. However, the golf course is also all the way out to Fullerton, which is a 40-minute drive from Gabrielino, with no traffic. This begs the question: was distance a factor that was considered? If it was that a faraway venue was more affordable, why were the prom tickets noticeably more expensive than in previous years, especially in comparison to other high schools in the area, such as Arroyo High School, whose tickets are only $110 or otherwise considerably cheaper?
“I think for our prom, the ticket is relatively overpriced,” Simpson-Castaneda pointed out. “It’s not just the ticket you’re buying, but your dress, your hair, your nails, your suit, your shoes.”
Prom is expensive without factoring in ticket prices, so if it is the venue that is causing the spike in ticket prices, a closer or more affordable venue would have been a better choice.
Simpson-Castaneda also mentioned not feeling as if her voice was heard throughout the prom planning process. Simpson-Castaneda and other students only get input when it comes to song choice. Due to the limited involvement, Simpson-Castaneda and other students have wanted more of a voice in the planning process.
“Both Emma (ASB Junior Class Vice-President) and I agreed not to tell anyone the prom location and theme because we wanted our work to be a surprise to everyone,” Ngeam explained. “When we ran into some trouble deciding some things, we would ask our peers using metaphors and hypothetical questions that wouldn’t give away anything about prom.”
Ngeam described trying to manage the surprise of prom while also getting input from other students. However, while the surprise of the venue is part of the experience, getting feedback from students might be more important.
While the drive to the venue might be long and the price may be steep, the 2025 Gabrielino High School junior and senior classes will still have their prom experience and make memories nonetheless. However, it is imperative that ASB makes more of an effort to incorporate student input and create a prom experience that better reflects the desires and needs of the student body.