Our formal was on Nov 15th, run by PROM night events. While the overall experience itself was terrific, the formal itself was fairly average.
The venue was pretty nice (Harbourside Events Center, beaut location right at Darling Harbour), however the seating and sound setup was unsatisfactory as those at the back were unable to see OR hear what was happening with speeches and announcements and such.
The food wasn't bad, however the quantities were poor (1 small entre and 1 small main), with no dessert. Drinks situation was annoying, with wristbands allowing only 1 drink per hour and only a small selection available (no spirits guh). However, at least they didn't bother ID checking and gave wristbands to everyone, and a few of us were able to sneak glass flasks (you know the 200ml spirit bottles) in because it was basically just a metal detector test and breathalyser (sigh). I have a feeling they were running behind time and sort of were rushing us into the venue a bit.
We payed $105 each and it was fairly clear that a lot of the money had gone into the security and venue, with a lot of other things a bit neglected, and I imagine the PROM company would have made a decent profit off of us. For all their promotional crap about safe and enjoyable formal experience, a pissup would have been much more enjoyable for most of us I think, as it was people were barely dancing or anything and were more milling around talking, then most ppl left between about 10-11 (supposed to run until 12).
After the formal was by far the best part, most of us were staying at Star City or the Mercure, different groups of people did different shit, but the basic idea was a few big room parties, the cross, the casino, the city or all of the above.
I was drinking and partying all over the place till about 6am, excellent night overall.
