Our overnight party takes place after graduation here also, at the Y. I chaperoned it S2’s junior year ( junior parents traditionally chaperone.) The activities and food choices were endless and the kids all had a great time. S1 even won a comforter set for his dorm room at the silent auction.
DS will be attending another HS’s prom soon. There in a 2.5 hour gap between prom and their all school after prom party. What are these planners thinking??? His date says there will be numerous students turned away from after prom because they will fail the no substances test required for admission. DS and his date are not interested in the partying so I am not concerned but I thought the point if an after prom gathering was to provide a continuation of the fun not a place to go after wherever you went immediately after the prom. A lot can happen in 2.5 hours and the two events are only 30 minutes apart. X_X
D1 had her prom in the States. It was tradition for families to host pre and post prom parties. The pre-prom parties were easier because they only last few hours, parents were invited, a lot of pictures, wine for adults. The post prom parties tend to be co-ed sleep over with alcohol allowed. Parents would take car keys from kids and invitation only, no party crashers. I spoke with D1’s date before they left for the prom. I told him the only thing I asked of him is not to drink until they got to the post prom party.
D2’s prom (out of the States) was a family affair where parents and siblings were invited until midnight. The kids then continued to party at the hotel until 2 or 3. Then they went to someone’s house for a private party. The drinking age was 18, so there were a lot of alcohol. I wasn’t really worried because all of those kids had a personal driver, and those drivers waited outside of the venue, so no one could get in or out without them knowing. I was kept informed of where D2 was at all time.
After reading this thread I feel lucky I never had to decide what I would allow. My D went out with a couple of friends to grab some fast food after the prom and then came home. My S came straight home. I don’t know if post-prom parties just weren’t a thing at their school, or just not a thing with the crowd they hung out with. They both did got out to dinner with a big group of friends before hand so maybe that was enough for them.
As for the “over night” party. Our school has a huge over night event for the kids but that is for seniors only and is after graduation, not prom. Both my kids attended that.
An after-prom party that starts 2.5 hours after prom is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard of.
Last year my D slept over at a friends. Family we’ve known for years. Only girls slept over. Not sure what her plans are this year. I would suspect something similar will happen.
one of my fondest HS memories. even then, it wasnt as debauched as it sounded to adults. and that was at a time when the drinking age was lower, so massive quantites could be had legally. for the most part, everyone kept it in check, no one drove under the influence and basically we thought we were mini-adults and hung at the pool, beach and board. it was a really good time.
kids here dont really do it anymore-the schools organize all night afterparties which i’m sure are also fun, but it is decidedly a different flavor then when i was that age.
i did want to alleviate some of your shore fears though. times have changed. i cant speak for all the sleazy destinations (i dont really let my kid go to the one on tv, even on a tuesday, so i get it). some of the further sleazy shore points have much tighter controls on the prom crowd and really dont put up with too much these days. we are involved in a civic group that just happens to convention on prom weekends so i can tell you first hand that the motel owners really try to balance out their clientele…in our case, we old people take up two floors, and the top floor is prom kids. it helps the owners put extra adult eyes on the situation–we are all parents and just plain humans so we side-eye for major issues. for the most part, the kids are absolutely great. i can also tell you we dont see kids unloading kegs, but we do see them carrying in the costco 3pk of ketchup/mustard/relish and a couple of cases of hot dogs…(i still find this hilarious-back in the day nobody grocery shopped for food, but we sure had a full assortment of drinks).
in either century, i consider it a rite of passage. i guess like anything, if you know and trust your kid its fine–if a kid is determined to do bad things, well, trust me, they can do it just as easily at home as they can down the shore!
@maya54 - Maybe your kids and D are friends? D and her friends went to a lake house with the hired party bus. There were parents there. They did not check on the kids, but did not allow anyone to leave until after breakfast. D attended prom with a guy who had been her friend for years - there was no romance, just a real friendship. This made it very easy for us to say yes. S attended with a group of friends, went back to his date’s house for a few hours, then all the girls stayed there and the boys came to our house for an overnight. All the kids AND all the parents were invited to his date’s house for brunch the following day. Fun!
One year, my son told us he was worried that there was going to be drinking at the after-prom parties he knew about. So we told him he could host one at our house, alcohol-free, of course. We gave him $200 to spend on food and drinks, then he spent a good bit of his own money. He talked it up a lot and invited a bunch of kids. We have a great spot for parties - a huge bonus room over our garage. Our son is very social and has lots of friends.
Well, the prom went badly, because his date treated him horribly (she’d been stringing him along for awhile, so I wasn’t surprised). He showed up at our house with one of his male friends. That was the ONLY person who came to his party!!! He said the rest of his friends opted for the parties with alcohol. 
It was heartbreaking. I will never forget that night.
@hrh19. My daughter was with her boyfriend of several years and I wasn’t concerned because1) she was18 and it was time for me to be out of her romantic business and 2) actual conversation DD “Mom, do you know what ‘yes means yes’ is. Me: yeah why? DD: Well it’s good in general but given as long as we’ve been together I told him I’d let him know if I didn’t want to do something …otherwise it’s just kinda annoying.”
My HS’s prom went on until well after midnight and classmates were spread out far and wide over the 5 boroughs of NYC and didn’t have much money so most of us just went home via public transit*. Atmosphere wasn’t much different from some formal corporate dinners/parties I attended after college with the exception of the types of conversation(i.e. college plans) and lots of lively music/dancing.
The few who did have money rented rooms at the hotel(NY Plaza) where our prom was held and had their equivalent of after-parties there.
- Am still shocked that not only parents would provide extra spending money on top of prom tickets and clothing/preparation costs, but that one individual much older than me would have the temerity to ask me and others for a loan to give his son such spending money when most HS classmates and I would have never thought to ask for such.
@MaineLonghorn how awful!
I admit that both of my kids attended coed sleepovers after prom. In D’s case I new the parents well and the boys and girls slept on separate floors of the house. It was a much more controlled situation than the kids going to hotel rooms. S’s group of friends did a similar at a friend’s house and the parents were there. I was comfortable with this, but I do get that some parents might not feel the same.
Our seventeen year old junior daughter is going bowling with her senior bf after prom, and I’m dropping her off and picking her up from there. It was what they decided they wanted to do after prom.
We have a standing rule about her and her 15 yo sister not being allowed in boy’s cars, ever. Typically they’ll drive themselves everywhere and just meet up with the BF’s, but for prom I didn’t want her out on the road with all the drunken hillbillies that night with her level of driving skills.
We did decide it was ok for BF to drive her to the restaurant and the prom venue which are both about 10 minutes from the house and each other. I’m grumbling mightily about that one, but it makes sense for picture taking, and it’s still light out, and it’s local. I’m still grumbling about it.
She’s been to science competitions and stayed at hotels with the BF (not in the same room) and the team while competing, so while I would not pay for them to go to a hotel with their friends afterwards, I have no issues with other people doing it to keep their kids off the road. If we went that route, we’d have a hotel room on the same floor and the rooms would be sorted by gender, and we’d do our best to keep alcohol out of the picture. If we had an after-prom party here it’d be girls only. Dudes can go home, lol.
Our school also had a after-prom all-night extravaganza that is better attended than the prom itself. Underclassmen (dates of seniors) cost 25% more per ticket (to discourage date-swapping upon arrival as a way of sneaking underclassmen in). Sr Prom is also held the same weekend as major local events so there are no hotel rooms free. Coed sleepovers have yet to be socially acceptable here; I know parents who have been cast out of their clique for hosting one WITHOUT the other parents’ consent.
We are negociating the details of prom and after-prom right now! Right now, it’s looking like a girls only sleepover at one house, and using Uber to get everyone from here to there safely.