Cancel the Prom,
Cancel the Limo
By Peter Hildebrandt
hen two Long Island high schools recently decided to cancel their annual proms, the news sent some limousine businesses scrambling to find another way to cover this sudden loss of business. But for others the news is no surprise. They see this as just one more part of a story featuring the gradual drop-off in the use of traditional limos for proms.
Jim Powers, owner of Allstar Limousines in Farmingdale, New York, finds that a great deal has changed over the years in the scheduling of Long Island high school proms. Powers, who started his business 21 years ago, currently has a fleet of 69 vehicles, including some SUVs.
For approximately 10 years, he had a good run on business in prom service. But now he’s found that it is almost as if all the schools have gotten together and agreed to have all the proms at one time during the year. “Years ago you had proms on Thursdays, Fridays, and even Wednesdays in the months of May and June,” says Powers. “The business was well diversified over the months. The vehicles ordered were also in various sizes. But now it comes down to one weekend: that of the 22nd of June. For us, the 22nd is booked solid with every one of my SUVs taken, the 23rd of June is half booked, and for the rest of the month there are hardly any proms at all. From my point of view it seems like all the schools on the Island have proms down to just two days of the year.”
Another trend Powers has seen is the traditional prom vehicles — six-, eight-, or ten-passenger vehicles — have started to become obsolete over the past 8 years as prom-goers increasingly request other vehicles. “Everyone these days wants either an SUV or a bus,” says Powers. “These vehicles run from 18 to 22 passengers in size. It’s as if the whole prom class wants to go in one vehicle. Much of it has to do with trends and [celebrities] using SUVs and everyone wanting to follow that trend ….”
owers sees the prom limo itself as a dying breed. Corporate accounts and weddings are what his business is all about. “If we had to count on proms, we’d be out of business,” says Powers.
In his talks with area high school principals, Powers has found that various trips, such as the old ski trips, are no longer scheduled due to the liability risk for the schools. “I don’t see the changes with the proms as something with a huge impact,” says Powers. “Rather, I see it as part of a bigger issue with fears about liability and the whole shift to everything being that last week in June and everyone on the Island wanting to have their proms then.”
Matthew Silver, owner of Ultimate Class Limousine on Long Island, hopes that the prom cancellations will not cause a chain reaction in public schools. As the director on the board for the Nassau Suffolk Limousine Association (NSLA), Silver notes that the Long Island Principal’s Association has been contacted to hear the NSLA’s concerns about the prom cancellations. “We have reminded them of our livelihood,” says Silver. “Also, we have asked them to spread the prom dates out. Unfortunately, having all the proms on the Thursday night right before graduation weekend has meant there are not enough limousines to go around and people have had to book limos from out of the area, taking away from our revenue base. Due to supply and demand issues, we’re then forced to raise our prices. This is not a good thing either.
“Of course I am concerned as an operator; the prom business, though a relatively small share of revenue, is still valuable. These days you can’t really afford to lose any shares of the business.”
Ultimate Class Limousine is doing more Long Island winery tours, (Long Island now has over 20 wineries in Suffolk County), which does help make up some of the difference in lost business. Silver feels that perhaps the extra expenses involved with SUV limos may have had something to do with the cancellations too.
“But if something like this is going to happen, it really is inevitable,” says Silver. “I see a future where more and more schools may just move away from a school-sanctioned prom to some other form of celebration. Schools are going to be more and more worried about liability issues as well as how the school looks if some of the students do get intoxicated, whether there is a limousine or not. From my own experience, I hate to see the prom experience taken away from a graduating senior. I have nothing but good memories from my own prom when I graduated from high school on Long Island.”
Craig Mehlsack, owner of Top of the World Limo in Suffolk County, says that in the limousine business you have to take into account all the different segments of your sales. “You need to always be aware of how much you are making from a particular segment of the business and be looking for ways to increase that segment of your business. Information about what businesses are paying your bills and which ones are not can really help you to figure out where to spend your advertising budget.
“This will put a $5,000-10,000 dent in my business. We will make it up some way because I’ve looked at the numbers, and we’re already looking at what else we can do and what changes we can make to recoup those losses.
“For many of the proms today, the kids go as friends, not necessarily as boyfriends or girlfriends. We’ve also done proms where it was all girls or all boys in the cars and they didn’t even have dates. The whole point is to go to an end-of-the-year function that everyone remembers. For our prom customers, the customers, the organizer, and the students’ parents sign a contract. Each child and their parents then sign an amendment form that there will be absolutely no smoking, drinking, or drugs. They are told they will be treated like young adults if they act like young adults. Last year I only had one problem. Those customers were taken home within five minutes. Everything is in our contract.”
ehlsack describes one prom last year on Long Island that was held right at the high school, run entirely by the students. The prom’s theme was Mardi Gras. “I’ve never seen anything like it. There were guys in costumes 20 feet high with stilts underneath, lights all over with music blaring, incredible decorations inside, and even a crowd of 1000 outside the school as the limos pulled up, with announcements of the couples as they got out of their cars,” says Mehlsack. “It was fantastic. The kids really had fun. How many times in their life will they get to do something like that? I don’t remember much of anything about my life growing up, but I do remember my prom. It’s the same for kids today. I don’t know what it would be like if my wife and I did not have those memories.” Mehlsack doesn’t see this as a trend growing throughout the United States, but a religious decision for the two schools since they are private. “Because public schools are more competitive, I don’t think there will be that much of a long-term effect.”
Ken Caldwell, owner of Designer Limousines for 26 years, with five locations in the New York metropolitan area, hasn’t been affected too much by the prom cancellation decisions. His company handles mostly weddings and other high-end business. “I feel that if the kids are out of control on prom night, they are just going to be out of control on another night if the prom is cancelled. It will now happen on a day they’re not prepared, for and I think this might even make things worse for the parents and all those involved. The kids have to learn their limits.”
Peter Giordano, president of the Nassau Suffolk Limousine Association, received word that Garden City High School will also prohibit limousine service at their spring prom because the students were drinking at the Winter Wonderland prom in December. “At the two private religious schools involved, the schools did not want to deal with the same drinking problems of the past anymore,” says Giordano. “We’ve tried to tell the members of our association who primarily handle proms and weddings that it’s a good idea to diversify and perhaps look into doing corporate business as well. The comment that the $50,000 they earn during prom season pays their insurance for the year is passé.”
Another thing Giordano is trying to do is bring back the idea of spreading out the prom dates so that proms don’t all happen on one weekend of the year. “We’re hoping to meet with the principals within the next few weeks to encourage this,” says Giordano. “This will spread the costs out and decrease those costs because things won’t be on just one night. To be honest, the prom for me isn’t that profitable. It’s not going to put me out of business, and I pretty much have to beg my drivers to work. It’s 10 hours and takes them out of play for the whole next day, plus there is a lot of liability for the driver if liquor does turn up in the vehicles.”
Giordano says those in the industry working on a full-time basis have diversified enough to have other assets coming in to overcome the loss of weddings or proms. For many of those only doing weddings and proms, they need to adapt a bit more. “If we as an association say to these schools that they need to keep having the proms to keep us in business, they’ll just say: ‘go ahead and go out of business, find another way to make a living’. There are ways to make it.
“Years ago proms and weddings paid my bills. I looked forward to that season. But now, as times have changed and more people are using town cars more than taxis, our business has moved forward to corporate people calling the limousine company instead of the cab service. The kids always want the trendy and exotic.
“I think history repeats itself. Things will eventually go back to the old way of having the prom in the school gym. One school on Long Island actually has a raffle for a new car at 3:00 a.m. That way everyone is back to the school gym at that time. Then after the raffle there is really no place else to go and everyone just goes home to bed. In any case, I don’t feel that there is an epidemic of prom cancellations out there. In all the cases so far, it has just been a response to a situation that the school was dealing with — simply an action in response to decisions some of that school’s students made.” LD
