Alternative to Prom

To Prom or not to Prom? That is a personal decision that must be made by each individual Christian teenager. At the congregational level, however, providing an alternative activity on the night of Prom—for those teens who choose not to participate in Prom—can be very rewarding.

I have seen two types of Alternative to Prom (ATP) events that have been very successful:

1. A one-evening gala event held in the local area.
2. A weekend get-away adventure with several activities in a destination city within a few hours’ drive.

Here are some ideas for each type of event.

Local Event

• Have participants meet at the church building (or another location) to travel together.
• Set up a photo backdrop at the meeting location. Take pictures of each participant/couple, and provide photo packages for each participant (similar to school picture photo packages). Check with your local drug store photo processing center, or Google “photo packages” to explore web-order vendors.
• Decorate your meeting location in fun or elegant decor.
• Provide hors d’oeuvres at the meeting location for participants to enjoy as they await departure.
• If you use a church van or bus for transportation, decorate it as well.
• Rent a limousine—perhaps even a limo bus or a Hummer limo—to transport the group. For cost savings, you might use the limo to transport just the teen participants, and transport the adult chaperones in a personal vehicle or church vehicle.
• Start with a meal at a nice restaurant. To add extra WOW to the meal, select an eatery with “extra features”: Benihana, Magic Time Machine, restaurants with live music (Google “restaurants with live music” and add the name of your nearest large city), restaurants on local lakes or other natural attractions, etc.
• Select some type of after-dinner entertainment: concert, play, comedy act, magic show, or some other type of show. One of the best ones we ever attended was a show by the Flying Karamazov Brothers!
• You can even combine dinner and entertainment into one package with a Murder Mystery Dinner! Google “murder mystery dinner” and add the name of your nearest large city.
• One year we even did a murder mystery dinner cruise on a paddlewheel riverboat at a local lake! If you live near a significant lake, river, or ocean, check around for dinner cruises. Once again, Google is probably your best friend for quickly finding such local attractions.
• A horse-drawn carriage ride is always a nice wrap-up for the night, if you have such a vendor available near you.

Other ideas:

• Go Putt Putt Golfing all dressed up.
• Hot air balloon rides.
• Helicopter rides.

Weekend Trip

Many of the same types of venues and activities can be planned for a weekend trip as listed above for a local event. You will have a little more flexibility, because participants won’t be dressed up in nice clothes for the entire trip. This will allow for a greater variety of activities.

• Pick a destination city within a four or five hour drive. This will allow you to leave after the teens get out of school on Friday and still arrive at your destination before midnight.
• Call a local church (or several local churches) in your destination city, tell them what you are planning, and see if they have any suggestions for venues and/or activities.
• Call the destination city’s Chamber of Commerce or Convention and Visitors Bureau, tell them what you are planning, and ask if they have a visitor’s guide that they can send you.
• Use Google to search for attractions, restaurants, and hotels in your destination city.
• Plan to worship with a local church on Sunday morning before heading back home.

WOW Factor

As you consider the various components of your ATP event, try to create a significant degree of WOW factor. Look for venues and activities that will create excitement and anticipation among the teens. Put together an event that will leave them thinking, “WOW! I’m GLAD I chose ATP over Prom!”

Capture the Memories

Whether you are planning a local ATP or a road trip, be sure to take lots of pictures and videos of the event. Share these with participants (and with your entire congregation) afterward by posting them to social media and/or the church’s youth website. You might even want to scan any tickets, playbills, concert flyers, or other documentation of the event and share those images along with your other pictures and videos.

Souvenirs

Consider having ATP t-shirts made.

• You might include info and graphics about the various ATP activities/venues.
• One year, I had the ATP participants autograph a piece of paper on the night of the event, and then used those autographs as a graphic for the back of that year’s shirt.
• Be sure to include the name and year of the event (e.g. ATP 2013, or Alternative to Prom 2013) somewhere on the shirt.

Other souvenirs might include:

• Official ATP photos taken with a special backdrop.
• Group photos at each venue/activity.
• Souvenir programs listing the itinerary for the evening or weekend.
• A gift bag for each participant with gift items donated by church members.

Cost

Depending on the type of event and the specific venue(s), transportation, and activities involved, the cost per person for ATP can get pretty steep. There are several ways of making it more affordable so that more teens will be able to participate.

And, just to keep it in perspective, ask around and find out how much teens spend for Prom. When you take into account the dress or tux, the hair-related expenses, the flowers (corsage, boutonniere), the limo, the dinner before the Prom, the ticket for Prom, and the after-Prom festivities, it is not unusual for a teen’s family to shell out hundreds of dollars for that one night.

Here are some ideas for reducing the cost per teen for an ATP event.

• Ask a photographer who is a church member to take the backdrop pictures and provide copies for each participant at cost.
• Ask about group discounts or church discounts at the various venues and activities.
• Budget money in your church’s youth budget to defray costs.
• Ask church members for donations to offset the costs.

The goal is not to make it a cost-free event for the participants. You want them to have some degree of “investment” in the event. But you also want to make it as affordable as possible to encourage more teens to participate.

Miscellaneous

I would suggest making it part of your stated purpose for ATP that it does not have to be “date-driven”. Participation does not require bringing a “date”. By playing down the importance of having a date, you open up the event to more teens. We have had teens invite a best friend, or just a friend, and we have had teens who have attended alone, without bringing a guest.

Since ATP is an alternative to Prom, we have always opened up ATP to the same ages targeted for Prom, typically high school juniors and seniors. Guests have not been required to be juniors or seniors, but must be at least high school freshmen. Discuss this with your youth ministry team, and come up with a set of guidelines that works for your group.

Consider gathering together several options for activities/venues, and then letting the participating teens choose which ones to include. This gives the participants a deeper sense of ownership in the event. This can be accomplished by sending out a letter or e-mail to all potential attendees, listing the date of the event and the options, and giving them a deadline to RSVP and vote for their choices. I have also given our teens the opportunity to suggest adult chaperones, and then invited chaperones from among the suggestions received.

Show Appreciation

Encourage participants to express their appreciation for the opportunity to participate in such a wonderful event.

• If your church leaders approved budgeting money to help pay for ATP, have participants all sign a special Thank You Card that you prepared ahead of time.
• If church members donated money to help pay for ATP, have participants each write a short thank you note expressing why they enjoyed ATP, and publish these in the church bulletin or on the church website, or distribute copies to each donor if you have a list of them.
• Express your own appreciation to the congregation and its leaders for making such an event possible.