Dances are popular with junior high and high schools, but they often take lots of planning and good organization to make them successful. A 1950’s dance is a very traditional theme, back when good ol’ rock n’ roll was just getting started.

Here are five success tips to make sure your 1950’s dance will rock!

1. Get Everyone Involved

A dance will not be successful unless those you hope to attend are interested in it, no matter what the theme is. Talk with your students and see how interested they are in having this dance with this them. Then make up your planning committee with people who were most vocal.

Be sure the students on your committee are not already overly committed with extra cirricular actifities or are having academic issues, so you know they have the time and ability to work on planning. Committee leaders can make up a list of small volunteer jobs or things that other students can do or things to bring. This way many people can be involved in making the dance successful, even they don’t have a lot of time to help ahead of time.

2. Set a Date

Finding the perfect date for your 1950’s theme dance can be found best by talking with students and teachers. Check your school and local community calendars to make sure there are no conflicts. Don’t plan the dance around holidays or school vacations or it may hurt attendance. Finally find your location. Many school dances are held in the gym or multi purpose school commons.

3. Fun Decorations

The magic of a 1950’s theme dance is found in the decorations and also in how students dress for the dance. You can buy some decorations, but you can also make some as well. Simply decorating with records (remember those?) around the gym will remind people of the 1950’s. Or you can draw records on poster board and write the names of popular 1950’s songs like Blue Suede Shoes by Elvis on them. Balloons can be great to decorate with. Traditional 1950’s party colors tend to be: pink, white, silver and black.

4. Encourage costumes

A 1950’s theme dance just isn’t as much fun if people don’t dress up! Students and supervising teachers should be invited to dress in nostalgic clothing for this dance. Kids may need some help coming up with costumes. On your promotional flyer include with photos or images of traditional “sock hop” 1950’s teenagers. Adding a costume contest with prizes will encourage a lot more people to dress up. Just be sure to advertise that you’ll be having a costume contest and what the prizes are!

5. Music

This is the most important part of your 1950’s dance! Find someone who has a lot of 1950’s music, or survey a number of people to get a wide variety of music. To make your dance even more entertaining, see if you can find little facts about each singer/entertainer for the D.J. to say as each song is played. Maybe you can even have a performance by a band that plays ‘50s rock n roll or an Elvis tribute artist!

When planning a 1950’s theme dance be sure that you have the most important things covered, a great location, great music and a fun atmosphere. Then you are likely to have a fun dance everyone will remember for years to come!