On Oct. 18, 2024, the twilight faded and the full moon rose over Foothill Technology High School (Foothill Tech), and as the autumn spirit spread, the annual Halloween Dance commenced with this year’s “Thriller” theme. Hosted in the quad and put on by the Associated Student Body (ASB) from 7 to 9:30 p.m., students in all manner of costumes met for this year’s first official dance, and the sendoff of the first quarter of the 2024-2025 school year. 

Earlier in the day, Foothill Tech had its first Renaissance Rally (Ren Rally), also hosted by ASB, for which decorations for both events were put up including tombstones, spiderwebs, balloons and more spooky ornamentation. In preparation for the ren rally and the dance, ASB looked at what worked and didn’t work from last year. 

Jack Merritt ‘25, the ASB senior class vice president, explained, “Every year we do pluses and minuses of every event, and we always make sure to change.” For example, Merritt added that this year ,“we made sure to take in more people’s opinion by doing polling and … doing song requests.” With this in mind, when the hour struck seven and students began to file in, everything was prepared for the night.

Upon entry, dragons were met with music afforded by DJ Boogieman, ping pong, foosball, air hockey and a photo station. The majority of the attendees were dressed in costume, though the crowd was not as big as it had been in the past. 

ASB member Parks Riley ‘27 expressed this reality when saying, “We didn’t sell a lot of tickets, but it’s going fine, last year we sold 600 tickets this year … we sold like 300.”

Despite this, the energy began to grow soon after the event began, as the staple mosh pit, now with new, student-influenced music choices, began to form. Scout Finch ‘26 seemingly expressed the opinions of many when, saying, “I’m feeling amazing. This is one of my favorite years … [the] mosh pit’s absolutely so fun.”  Showing his agreement, Jacob Hatler ‘27 included, “I’ve been in the mosh pit, thrown around, it’s been a really great night.”

The music and mosh pit eventually formed the heartbeat of the dance as people surged in and out during key moments and tracks. Certain points in time like during Travis Scott’s “Fe!n” or later with Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” were two such moments. For Gavin Ingold ‘27, “[The dance] was hella fun” but “Fe!n” was his highlight song of the night. 

Despite a negative opinion of the music choice in previous years, ASB’s changes seemed to have been successful in some students’ minds. Ethan Miller ‘25, though not fully happy with the selection, acknowledged, “This [dance] is more special. The crowd is more involved, everyone is wearing costumes … It’s improved … and the music is on point.”

Despite the energy, there were inevitably places where improvements could be made. Finch and Suyrik Bodle ‘27 both had issues. Finch stated, “I feel like more drinks would be nice,” and Bodle commented that, “the DJ kinda sucks [because] the transitions are kind of mid, it’s kind of chaotic and I think there should be more photo booths in general.”

Unlike during the 2023 dance where snack options were available for purchase, this year’s absence of such treats put a bad taste in some people’s mouths. Dylan Peterson ‘28 conveyed this when saying, “Honestly I expected there to be food.”

ASB is taking this and other commentary into consideration when planning the upcoming dances, mainly Winter Formal. “Now it gives us a ground for what to expect for Winter Formal and the next coming dances because we now know what we need to work on going into those,” Riley said, also adding that you should plan to see, “posters up by Monday … were going to try and get the ball rolling for advertising for Winter Formal.”

Eventually, the dance wrapped up and DJ Boogieman gave his final sendoff, with sparklers going off beside the stage.  The Dragons began to filter out of the first dance of the school year with ringing ears, worn costumes and smiles of positive memories. ASB is already well in the works for planning the future dances, but it can be said they put on a good show. For many, this dance was a substantial improvement on last year’s and is a solid finale before the cooldown until fall break, and hopefully a spectacular Halloween.