They say graduation is the biggest event in a high school student's life. Well, we have proof now to suggest that maybe it's the second biggest night in a student's career. What's number one? Well, for many it would have to be prom night. Prom night is now longer just about finding a date, a pretty dress, or a tux. It is about bigger, better, and who is best, best dressed, that is. There were two major proms in the city on Friday night: St. Catherine's Academy at the Princess and Wesley College's Prom at the Radisson. Our 7NEWS Team was all over Prom Night 2004 and Keith Swift has the story from the red carpet.
Keith Swift Reporting,
On Friday dozens crowded out and inside of the Princess Hotel lobby for the Saint Catherine’s Academy prom. But that crowd was nothing compared to the mob across town at the Radisson. This aerial view shows the pandemonium in the streets as hundreds swarmed outside the hotel’s villa wing for Wesley’s show. The high school class of 2004 pulled out all the stops: fancy clothes, horses and carriages, Hummers, motorbikes, dancers, red carpet, white carpet, and a violin player all alongside the lights and cameras And all this was for a brief moment when they would be flossing front and center as stars of this spectacle.
[Video Montage of Students Arriving Synced to Jay Z’s Change Clothes]
And indeed what would prom night be without that one magical kiss? Not a kiss like that, one like this, a la Madonna and Britney that will have people talking for days.
[Two female friends arriving at the prom together and kissing at the request of the crowd gave each other a slight kiss.]
True enough, a night on unrepressed exhibitionism had only just begun over at the Radisson but meanwhile back at the Princess the action was ratcheted down many notches.
[Video Montage of subdued crowd and arrival at Princess hotel synced to Outkast’s Roses]
While things simmered down at the princess, the party for the Wesley class of 2004 was just getting started and the best was yet to come. After the preliminaries the show was beginning.
[Video Montage of more Extravagant Arrivals at Wesley’s Prom synced to Cam’ron’s Hey Ma]
And while the crowd erupted for those flashy entrances, that was nothing compared to this masked woman mix-up
[Guy taking girl wrapped in garb out of limousine]
Realizing he had the wrong girl, he put her back in the car, his support crew flicked the switch on a fog machine, and then took out his real date.
[Taking his correct date out of Limo]
And if that surreal, smoking entrance looked like something only Hollywood could create, the next scene had to be pulled from a dream. How about a carnival size float, a violin player, and complimentary wine cooler for 60 of your closest friends.
[Wesley’s Ashlee Smith and Trenton Marin Arriving: Ashlee blooming from a flower and then greeted by Trenton along with a violin player.]
For teachers, parents, and students the money, time, and effort invested into one night or even that one minute in front of the spotlight was worth it.
Brenda Armstrong, Wesley Principal
“It is a special night because you get well dressed up and you are escorted to the function so it is formal event and I think that makes it special for them.”
Natalie Tillet, Wesley Vice-Principal
“Some of them plan from very early. Once they get into fourth form they start planning what their entrance is going to be. I have discovered that quite a number of them have their wider family circle that will assist them. And it is not just one person planning the entrance but it becomes a whole family and friend affair. It is a big thing for them and once they participate they all want to go all out. Some of them have used cheap or minimal expense when it comes to an entrance. But the creativity is there.”
So if high school is a point of departure for young adults into the full adult world, then these teenagers who came of age in the cable TV era and were weaned on BET and MTV have with this show gone on public record to let us know that the power of celebrity, however fleeting, is real currency in our society. And they put the rest of us on notice that you might not know it now, but they are stars. The only question is: are they too big for this little Belize universe?
The award for best entrance at the Wesley Prom went to Ashlee Smith and Trenton Marin. And here is a telling statistic as to the effect of this new hype surrounding proms, the schools tell us the participation in prom is in most cases less than 50% of the graduating class.
7NEWS produced for broadcast by News Director Jules Vasquez
Edited for the internet by Keith Swift