By Elliot Kleiner
An Industry is Born
An Industry is Born
the night, it is now estimated to be an industry with a total revenue potential of over $195 Million per annum in Sydney alone, and that equates to $3.4 Billion on a national scale. That’s well beyond the annual revenue generated by many whole Aussie industries. It is difficult to fathom where that amount of money is being spent, but when you consider that the Formal, in many instances, includes more features than the average wedding, and a guest list that is up to 4 times as large, where everyone has to dress up in custom creations and arrive by limousine, not just the bridal party, it places a perspective on the event that makes economic sense as to what this can all be worth.
With the spawning of an entire industry from a shift in socio-economics, like the metamorphosis of the School Formal, there evolves a structure vacuum and hence the need for companies to provide specific and expert advice and services to facilitate what’s needed for that industry. For School Formals the requirement was simply a method or product that would provide all of the
inclusions, both overt and covert, that are necessary to hold a successful Formal. The trick is doing so while walking the tightrope between what is legal, safe and economically viable while at the same time remaining fun, elegant and conducive to enjoyment by teenagers. This seems, at face value, to be a relatively simple task but ask anyone that has tried to achieve this even just once, and you’ll likely be retorted with anecdotes of stress, grief or plain failure.
The success of teen products will be largely based the relevance to, and aa rapport with, that market. One of the keys to that relationship will be to “pop up” in the places the
market looks most
often for answers.
As the parade of fashion and youthful exuberance reaches the grand ballroom of their chosen establishment, the entry ticket is validated by the quick laser scan of a bar code as the soft
candlelight
dances just above
the banquet table adorned with fine crystal and silverware. A popular tune from the stage sees a horde of excited teens dart towards the dance floor. The brightly coloured light from above accentuates the chrome-braced smiles that signify a coming of age. This is their first opportunity to be seen as adults and they’ll relish it their whole lives.
One might ask, “Have we become too Americanised in our culture?” In terms of the “Prom”, we’ve overtaken them and are now blazing the trail.
Savvy teenagers have discovered that they possess a collective buying power that commands respect in the events industry. Nowadays the average School Formal boasts an average guest list comprising some two hundred guests, and some reach staggering attendances of eight
hundred to a thousand. For those smaller schools that have few members in a graduating year, the thought of accessing prestige venues and luxury inclusions has induced them to become more innovative. Now it is fairly commonplace to have a formal where the guest list may be made up of students from years 11 and 12 combined but in some cases you can
see two and even three different
schools combining their events in order to not only access products and services that would otherwise be unnavailable, but further, to achieve bulk-buying discounts that eventuate in either lower ticket
prices, or more inclusions in their
packages.
Of course equally savvy Event Managers have developed products that facilitate these things more easily but you should be careful to check the bona-fides of any company seeking to provide such things to be sure that you're placing this trust in worthy people.
While Aussie School students are holding their Formals in 5-Star International Hotels, enjoying fine cuisine prepared by world-class Chefs and dancing to music played by top-end club DJ's, our counterparts in the UK and USA are still decorating their gymnasiums with crepe paper and eating buffet food from paper plates, unaware that better is available if they'd just set aside what they've traditionally done and think outside the box.
In most cases, they could
learn a thing
or two from
us and
there
aren't too many areas of teen culture where we can boast that.
Inasmuch as an industry being born, perhaps it's more a case of one having evolved while we weren't watching.
Page 6 PROM Magazine August 2013
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