Beverly students experienced a night full of candy, sugar, and fun at 2024 homecoming. The dance was held on Saturday, Sept. 28 after a lot of preparation, thought, time and effort put into planning it.

“We started planning for the homecoming dance in May of 2024,” ASB Director Mr. Nick Henggeler said. “We picked our Candyland theme, and then over the summer, we booked the venue. When we came back in the fall for the new semester, we created our dances committee, who oversaw choosing all of the details that we saw at the dance. My job is just to support the students, make sure that their vision comes to life, and to make sure that it all runs smoothly on the day.”

Many students attended homecoming this year. Whether it was due to moving the event off campus or the excitement of homecoming season, the dance attracted a lot of students.

“I’m honestly so excited to be here,” senior Jacob Treiman said. “The place is packed.”

Usually, the homecoming dance is held on the tennis courts at Beverly. This year, however, it was held at Candela La Brea, which was something new and interesting that made the whole occasion that much better. 

“I thought that this year, what was really exciting is that we moved it off campus,” Mr. Henggeler said. “I think that that is something that we had been wanting to do, and just to have it at an outside venue made it feel really special.”

The decision to move homecoming off the tennis courts and to a cool new venue was highly appreciated. Senior Evan Egerman said, “I love how it’s off campus. It’s a lot more festive this year.”

“I think that it’s really unique how it’s a different location, and that we’re off campus,” senior Barbara Cotliar said.

Sweet treats went along with the sweet theme. The dessert selections were top tier. A donut and ice cream bar had many flavor options, from cinnamon, maple, or powdered sugars, chocolate, caramel, or strawberry syrups, and sprinkles for toppings. Fitting the theme perfectly, the candy bar, with treats ranging from Twix to Sour Patch Kids to Reese’s Pieces, was a big hit. Junior Willa Cross said, “I like that they have a lot of sugar.”

ASB continued to execute the theme with sugary drinks like Blue Lagoons and Shirley Temples offered at the bar as well. 

“I like the theme, there’s a lot of colors and I think that’s really cool,” Cotliar said.

Though dinner was missing from the event, it was made up for with these desserts and drink selections.

“If we were moving it off campus, we were going to have to get rid of some big expense, because holding it at a venue costs a lot of money,” Mr. Henggeler said. “So, one thing that we all agreed upon was we would sacrifice doing a full dinner, like we have at previous homecomings, and use that money to pay for a venue. So the decision was to just do dessert. It fit with our theme, Candyland: lots of sugar, we had donuts, we had a bunch of candy, we had fun drinks.”

For seniors, this was their last year to attend a homecoming dance in high school. Seniors had mixed feelings about how they felt about this being their last homecoming.

“It’s kind of bittersweet, but it’s really nice that I get to spend it with all my friends,” Cotliar said.

“It’s upsetting,” Egerman said. “I’m glad this is the last one, though— this is definitely the best out of all of the ones they’ve done before.”

The dance floor was booming with students dancing to classic school dance hits, sparkler imitations of fireworks going off beside the DJ.

“I think that my favorite thing that we added — and we did add it at the last minute — were the cold sparklers,” Mr. Henggeler said. “I thought that those were really cool, and I really loved that the venue had a projection system so that the walls could be lit up with whatever projection we wanted. I felt like the event space itself was the perfect size for our group count, and I really enjoyed all of the little decor pieces we had throughout.”

The homecoming court dance to a slow song to celebrate their royalty status was the cherry on top of a perfect evening. 

Homecoming King and senior Caio Azevado said he used “candy, Instagram, Snapchat, siblings, cousins, everything” to promote himself and Diya Tuli to win the ballot for King and Queen. 

“I feel amazing,” Homecoming Queen and senior Diya Tuli said at the dance. “It was surreal. I love the theme. I wouldn’t have thought of it. It’s really unique and I love it.”

Overall, students had a super sweet night at the first dance of the school year.

“I thought that the sparklers, the light up letters, the donuts, I thought everything was really nice,” Mr. Henggeler said. “Ultimately, we were really happy with how it turned out.”