Lights flashing. People dancing. Music blasting. Building shaking. This is what it was like at the Ironwood Ridge Winter Formal. This year’s formal took place at the Tucson Convention Center on January 7th and the theme was Las Vegas. At the dance there was a DJ, a dance floor and a photo booth. There were also tables and chairs all around the ballroom, along with water stations. Once all the decorations come down, and the music stops, one couldn’t help but wonder, what does it take to make a dance happen?
The process of making this dance possible goes back six months. July and August are when Ms. McGowan, the StuGo advisor, secures a date for the dance and books the TCC. “The time in the semester that we hold winter formal is pretty consistent, we always hold it in January. And we like to avoid the three day weekend, so we just do whatever weekend is not MLK weekend,” says Ms. McGowan.
There are multiple sides to the planning process. Both Ms. McGowan and StuGo have their own designated jobs. Ms. McGowan has to do a lot of the paperwork. Then she puts the students in StuGo into different committees to each do a part of the planning. To decide the theme for the dance, they research for ideas, and when doing so, Ms. McGowan says, “we don’t like to recycle themes within four years…” because if they did at some point a class might experience the same one twice. The students in StuGo then each make a powerpoint to present ideas for themes and the class votes on the top three to five. These are then put out on a piece of software for all of the students at IRHS to be able to vote on their favorite. “That is usually like two months out, so that would usually be October…” says Ms. McGowan. So then they have enough time to make and get decorations for the dance and the pep assembly, “Which is the other big piece, with all of the dances comes a pep assembly and so it’s also prepping for the pep assembly.” So about two months before the dance, they start making the decorations for both events after finding out which theme won. About six weeks out from the dance, StuGo reaches out to Mr. Howell’s graphic design class to help come up with ideas for tickets. They also design and print the tickets for StuGo. Ticketing and prep for sales happens about five to six weeks out.
On the day of the dance, setup is usually around an hour and a half. “This year we were able to get it done in an hour,” said Ms. McGowan. “What’s nice is that the TCC usually has stuff kind of done in advance, so like the dance floor is out, the stage is set up, the tables with the linens are out, those front check-in tables are out [when everyone gets there for setup]…” So they just have to add their decorations and organize the tables to where they need them, for example to make room for the photo booth along the wall. They then put out the centerpieces. This year the centerpieces were lights in mason jars with Las Vegas themed signs in them. They also blew up balloons and put them around the tables and dance floor, as well as a bunch of big dice that were scattered around the ballroom. “I don’t make kids stay after the dance to clean up, I just do the clean up. That’s why some of the decorations tend to be a little bit simpler…” The DJ then comes and sets up around five to six hours in advance. The photo booth gets there about an hour before the dance. Before the dance starts, Ms. McGowan makes sure everything is how it should be. Everyone then arrives. This year, about 700 people attended the dance, so it was a really great turn out!
