Every year, SIS’s prom committee works tirelessly to organize a prom for graduating seniors to have one of their last gatherings with the rest of their classmates. Many bring along their significant other and indulge in a plethora of dinner courses, photo shoots, and game events. Yet, despite thorough preparation from the prom committee, senior attendees have expressed their dissatisfaction with the expensive prom entrance fees, questioning why a night meant for their entertainment and celebration comes at such a high cost.
“I’ve had two sisters who have gone to SIS, and from what I heard, it was much cheaper at that time,” Yates Park (12), a senior attending prom, said. “I bought it when it was around ₩250,000, but I heard that currently, it is close to ₩400,000 for a late fee. Considering it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience, it is a pretty nice deal. But the fact that you do have to compensate for the prom committee’s lack of funding with the costs is quite unreasonable in my opinion.”
Beyond its hefty entrance price, the cost of suits and dresses that many students purchase for this specific event further increases the financial burden for those attending, with some students spending over hundreds of thousands of won on a single attire. Additional costs, such as transportation fees and after-party events, may further contribute to this high expense. While the inflated fee for late registration may stem from logistical challenges for the committee, there are certainly more reasonable solutions that could be explored.
“I think the venue that we do our prom in, Raum, is really nice and I really enjoy going there,” Celine Yang (12), a senior attending prom, said. “However, late tickets [cost] a bit too much. I think the school should fund it in some way because especially for a prom committee, they need to raise the money themselves. Dresses can also be pricey and sometimes even more expensive than the tickets. That kind of shows how expensive this one night can be, as dresses range [from] ₩100,000 to even ₩2,000,000.”
However, the reality of planning an event poses its own challenges, and deciding on the ticket price involves more complexity than one realizes. With expenses on photographers, catering, decorations, and venue (The Raum Social Venue), organizing such a high-quality prom may incur significant costs for the student-led prom committee. The key factor contributing to the high price is that the committee currently does not receive funding from the high school administration, making it harder to reduce costs.
“Obviously the price of tickets comes from the price of facilities,” Woosung Choi (11), head of the prom committee, said. “The price of the venue more than doubled compared to just 3 years ago, and it’s going to [further] increase. It would be almost impossible to fundraise that through school fundraisers, and similarly, this is why the school pulled funding from prom because it got too expensive.”
The prom committee has reported that they are fully aware that entrance fees may be costly for many. Thus, to alleviate expenses, the committee implemented the “prom-posal” challenge, an opportunity to get a partial refund for the entrance fee. Students who propose to their partner in front of the school would be granted a ₩100,000 discount on their tickets. No students have currently completed the challenge, but it remains open for all seniors.
Given the venue costs, the lack of external funding, and the prom committee’s efforts to give opportunities for discounts, seniors, please understand the reasons behind the high cost. Perhaps what we viewed as a seemingly exorbitant entrance fee for an end-of-the-year party is actually quite reasonable. After all, you are not simply paying for a ticket to dinner, but an unforgettable core memory that will be revisited for years to come.
