I got volunteered to help plan our 20-year high school class reunion.
Currently, the other organizers are planning a multi-day event that begins with a bonfire social and culminates in part of a day at this crazy party center that includes go-karts, sprint cards, climbing wall, laser tag, arcade, minigolf, etc. and a banquet hall-style dinner.
This last component alone would total $50 per person (I guess that would be $100 if the alum brought their significant other). This is in addition to the golf outing planned beforehand and touring the old school(?).
As much as I admire their ambition for making this “The Best Reunion Evar!” it seems a little ambitious to me and prohibitively expensive. Mainly though, I feel like the sheer amount of activities might get in the way of reconnecting with people.
For what it’s worth, this graduating class of 77 people from a small midwestern town, many of which still live in the area. A lot of the people who live in the area were also the people who didn’t show up at the last one.
What do you think of the plans? Do you have positive/negative experiences about class reunions you’ve been to? What would you want out of a class reunion?
I graduated from a similar midwestern school (my class had about 80 people). I’ve never attended a class reunion and have no plans to attend any future reunions. The events planned were never the reason, although I have to say $50/person is fairly expensive IMO. The few people that I actually enjoy seeing from my class are people I can see regularly as we still live in the same town. The rest - well, I don’t want to pay to see them when I can avoid them for free. I don’t have happy high school memories to revisit, so why should I attend?
That said, in general the multi-day reunions I have seen planned involved families one day and adults the next. You don’t mention if kids are welcome at either event and I suppose that could be a deciding factor for some classmates, whether they want to bring their kids or want the reunion to be adults-only.
The location of the bonfire could be an issue also; my class tends to hold reunions at the same location, which is the home of a guy who wasn’t in the class but is a good friend of the ‘in group’ of old days. I wouldn’t be invited to his home under any other circumstance (nor would I want to be, he’s still a jerk) and I’m not comfortable going there under this sort of ‘happy old days’ pretense.
That’s just me. If you’re involved in organizing at all, I’m sure your opinions do vary.
I graduated in a class of about 600. IIRC, my husband and I spent about $300 total, including hotel room. We went to the homecoming game, the social afterward, and the dance, but skipped the picnic. The drinks at the dance were extra…I think the cost included the venue, the DJ, and the dinner.
It was fine, but I won’t do it again. I’ve not had contact with these people in 20 years and haven’t kept in contact with them since.
Mine is $70pp for the weekend but this includes accommodations and meals (it’s a boarding school) and $30 for the banquet. $50pp for a banquet sounds a little bit high but not totally out there. I do think activities are a good idea, though. Its fun to be around old classmates, but if you haven’t actually been in touch with these people then conversation doesn’t come naturally for hours on end.
60+ in my graduating class. Our reunions are 3-day events, including a banquet and a golf outing. The last one was $20 a person for the banquet, and people paid their own golf fees. I think that might have been because we still have money in the account, even after 45 years. A couple of the reunions have included fund-raising.
I ended up on my reunion committee solely because I didn’t want the reunion to end up as one of those stuffy, formal hotel ballroom thingies. It was a blast in the end: we planned an informal Friday get-together in a local Irish pub, for which everyone just paid the cost of their own drinks. Saturday night was the big blowout party, held in a restaurant owned by several classmates: we hired a DJ and had an all-night buffet, drinks not included. Cost per person was $65, which was actually a chunk less than other classes paid for their formal banquet-type reunions (which have been in the $125/person range).
Our graduating class was 700+, and I think we got about 350 for the reunion. (We probably would have had more people, but the guy who started the organizing job flaked until about a month before the reunion - long story.) Everyone I talked to said they had a blast. Of course, this is a major metro area, so things are probably more expensive than they would be in a small town.
I decided not to go this year (35) because some of the people I really would like to see won’t be there, and most of the ones I really don’t want to see are on the committee. They seem to be stuck in quite a rut. This one will be the same old place (country club 20 miles away), with basically the same old dinner-dancing plan. The only difference is that the last one I went to (15) was buffet, and this one is plated dinner. I think this one is cash bar, too, whereas that one was open.
$55.00 per person, $100.00/couple, I think. I don’t have the letter handy. I did fill out the questionnaire and order the booklet. So we’ll see how many other people show up and what everybody is up to.
Eh, my last reunion was held in some random hotel hall, and the tickets were at least $100 per person. I guess that went towards open bar and some door prizes besides the hall rental. I didn’t want to spend that much, and my classmate Danielle was pregnant so could not take advantage of the open bar, so we “crashed” it - sat at the hotel bar chatting with each other and saying hi to people as they arrived or went outside to smoke. Afterwards we hit a diner with a few of our old friends who were inside. Apparenty we pissed off one of the planners (who was the first girl I kissed in elementary school!) but I couldn’t care less as the reunion was not to my liking.
My ideal reunion (and until this it hadn’t even occurred to me that there was any other kind) is basically a school dance with an open or cash bar, for $25 or maybe $50. I couldn’t imagine why you would have it any other place than the high school! Think Gross Pointe Blank.
Some of your stuff sounds fun but a bit pricey. I would make that stuff opt in. Let people choose whether they want the whole package or just the reunion party itself.
At the 20 year reunion, people should be established. $100+/couple doesn’t sound unreasonable at all.
We usually just host dinners with a deejay. We’ve found that live bands are a waste of money because people want to catch up and loud music isn’t conducive to talking.
BTW we also organized a few other free events during the reunion weekend, not all of which I attended. One alum on the committee works for the school, and organized a school tour on Saturday morning. Also on Saturday morning, there was a get-together at a local playground for people to take their kids. Most reunions of my HS have also included a big picnic in a local forest preserve on Sunday, which is also free; people just bring their own food, etc.
(We didn’t have enough lead time to do everything we wanted to, because of the aforementioned flaky organizer - we simply ran out of steam just trying to track down alums with the aid of Google and a very outdated contact list from the school, an Evite which I designed, so that people could forward a link, and word-of mouth. It’s haaaaard to track down 700+ people on less than a months’ notice!)
Sounds like an excuse for a party, rather than a real reunion. If most of the people still live in the area, they don’t need a reunion as a chance to catch up with old friends and classmates that they haven’t seen in years. I suspect people will go to such a thing if, and only if, they’re interested in doing those sorts of activities and can afford to spend that kind of money.