Planning a huge event like a Formal requires lots of time and good organisational skills. You shouldn't let the planning of your formal take time away from important and critical study time.
Getting started early is a great way to go because the best dates, venues and options are far more available early in the year. If you delay the booking of your formal until any time after about April, in many cases, you will already have missed the best opportunities.
Our job at Prom Night Events is to guide you through the planning process and take all the hard work, and the time-consuming, complicated effort out of the experience for you.
To get you started, we've designed an 8-Step plan that you can use to make some inroads before you contact us. The link (to the left) will take you there.
This page is dedicated to some of the most commonly encountered problems in getting your f Formal plans under way.
WHO SHOULD BE ON THE COMMITTEE:
One of the biggest mistakes people make is volunteering to be on the Formal committee for the wrong reasons. It can be hard work and you need to be motivated by the right things. Don't join the committee if any of the following describes you...
- I expect this to make me popular
- I'm the thriftiest shopper and always get the bargains
- I prefer to be in control most of the time
- I know what's best for everyone else
- I plan parties all the time so I'm the most qualified
Believe it or not, these are the most powerful reasons why you SHOULD NOT be on the Formal committee.
If you think this will make you popular, guess again! The Formal will only take place after lots of very tough decisions are made. No decision is going to keep everyone happy all of the time so no matter which way things go, someone will probably hate you for it. You can't let that be your motivation. Remember, it's not about your feelings, it's about the whole year having the best possible night they can.
Being thrifty is OK but if you base your most important decisions on price alone, you're going to have the cheapest, nastiest, most unglamorous Formal on offer. The difference between a Budget Formal and a Prestige Formal can be less than the cost of an I-Tunes album download.
WHEN TO HAVE YOUR FORMAL:
Your formal date should also fit with your own State's timetable for exams. Check the School timetables for years 10, 11 and 12 exams to see where your plans should fit in.
Most formal committees will want to have the formal straight after the end of year exams are over in November. This is OK although you should also consider having the formal before the exams. If you have your Formal in say September or early October, availability of things like venues, limousines and beauty professionals will be better and most often less expensive. Lots of schools now have their Formals earlier in the season and they work out great!
WHAT ABOUT SCHOOLIES???
One of the main concerns faced by year 12 students is how the formal will fit in the timetables for H.S.C. and the ever-popular "Schoolies" week.
Firstly, schoolies has evolved into more of a "month" rather than just a week so the schoolies experience is certainly going for a long enough time to get there and have fun without rushing. Of course it starts right after exams but traditionally most of the best events that take place there don't often start until the second week of December.
Those people thinking that they simply MUST be at schoolies immediately after exams won't be missing anything by delaying their departure until after the formal season, which goes from the end of exams until week 2 of December.
DECISION MAKING & FEUDING COMMITTEES:
This is one of the most frustrating aspects of planning a formal. The issue of in-fighting within committees and how to make those critical decisions when decision-makers can't agree.
We'll cover here some of the most common pitfalls and offer workable solutions.
Committees are made up of volunteers, who are by nature, strong-minded and often opinionated people. That's a good thing because they're generally hard workers and people who get things done. The problem is that they don't always agree on the right course of action and things can get heated. This becomes counter-productive very quickly.
The right thing to do is make up a committee that consists of 3 main features. 1/ No more people than you can count on one hand because this will limit opinions and conflicts, 2/ An odd number of people so you can vote on all decisions and an outcome will be reached every time, and 3/ An adult liaison such as a year advisor, teacher or parent. This can be either a member of the committee with 1 vote, or someone advising but without voting.
The next mistake committees make, and probably the biggest, is opening up all decisions to the whole year. That is to say, asking the whole year what they want and getting them to vote on it as a group without any menu or guidance. The problem here is that if you ask 100 people for their opinion, you'll probably get 100 different opinions. This undermines the purpose of a committee. What you should do instead is research the best options and present only the critical ones to the year for voting. For instance, don't ask them all what venue they want, (that's too vague). Instead, research and come up with 3 viable choices, then let the year vote on which one they want. Don't give them all a colour palette and ask them to submit their ideas for a colour scheme (decorations or chair covers etc.) but instead work out 3 viable colour schemes amongst the committee and offer the year a vote on which one they want. Basically, take most of the decision-making process in hand with the committee and present a very limited range of options (all of which would work well) to the year for the final choice.
In all decision-making processes, make certain that you collect ALL the facts so you can compare things fairly. Research all the costs, hidden and obvious, all the features of each package, product or service before you make any decisions. This is the only way to be sure you're offering your year a decision between choices that are really fair.
At the end of the day, common sense should prevail. Remember that this process is hard work but should also be fun.
