Homecoming at Monte Vista has always been held inside the gym, so what’s going to happen now that the large gym is under construction?

This was the question running through most MV students’ minds as October 17th quickly approached. Many had heard about leadership’s’ plans for the dance being held outside in the commons this year.

For the first time ever, MV’s homecoming was a half indoor and half outdoor dance. Mrs. Andrea Greco, the leadership teacher, explained why.

“We had no guarantee on the completion date for the gym,” Mrs. Greco said.

Most students only knew that homecoming was going to be an outdoor event this year, but they hadn’t heard about all the new aspects that leadership planned to make the dance unforgettable.

“Outside will be your basic DJ, and then we’ll also have food trucks,” Mrs. Greco said. “Right now we have a cantina truck, so a taco truck, an italian truck, and a dessert truck.”

According to Mrs. Greco, the leadership class was hoping for one more truck, but those three would be there unquestionably which was definitely a change from last year’s dance that didn’t have any food.

Mitchell Lung, the sophomore class treasurer, also had some interesting input on the dance.

“Also we’re gonna have two different DJs, because it’s such a large area,” Lung said.

On top of all of these new and exciting additions to homecoming, leadership planned on getting fun games for the evening such as dance-dance revolution and foosball.

In previous years, people dripped with sweat after dancing because the gym was so hot, but since the dance was partly outside this year, that wasn’t a problem. However, in the days leading up to the dance, some students thought that it might get too cold.

“I think it’s going to be really cold and it may be hard because it’s outside,” sophomore Amrita Vepa said.

The leadership class seemed super excited about the dance being outside this year because it fit with the whole “outside lands theme” of homecoming week. Some Monte Vista students such as junior Sae Oh shared the leaderships class’s optimism.

“I don’t know if it will be such a bad thing where people aren’t going to go because it’s still homecoming,” Oh said. “The experience will probably just be a special one because it will be the first one outside for most people. I think it could be a good thing.”

Sae Oh was right when he said people are still probably going to go because according to Mrs. Greco, homecoming is Monte Vista’s biggest dance of the year and 1,200 to 1,300 students attend every year. In addition, this year’s’ homecoming tickets sold out so fast that parents complained leading to the school selling an additional 100 tickets.

Another reason why the dance was held outside this year was because the leadership class had been wanting to have an outdoor dance for quite sometime, which is why the back-to-school neon dance was going to be held outdoors, until it got cancelled. The next dance after the back-to-school dance is homecoming, so leadership thought it would be a fun idea to try holding homecoming outside.

The only price of having homecoming outside was the unpredictable weather. Although California is in a drought, rain on October 17th isn’t impossible.

“If it rains we’re gonna have to like last-minute move it inside,” Lung said.

Homecoming is a dance that a lot of students look forward to and take very seriously, so deciding to hold the dance outdoors was a risky but potentially amazing decision on leadership’s behalf.