Westford Academy Student Council (STUCO) will be hosting the 2025 Fall Fling, formerly known as the Fall Semi-Formal and Homecoming, on Saturday, Oct. 25 in the WA cafeteria from 7-10 p.m. with an “Enchanted Garden” theme. The dance will be open to every grade level after two years of restricting attendance to solely upperclassmen.
Due to the expected increase in attendance, the dance may expand to other first-floor areas such as the bell lobby and gymnasium according to senior and STUCO President Lauren Flaherty. Tickets can be purchased during all four lunch blocks on every weekday except Monday for $10, or on MySchoolBucks for $11 each.
Although ticket prices are expected to remain at $10 in the lead-up to the dance, Flaherty warned that, depending on ticket sales, students may need to pay a different price for tickets if they are purchasing them at the door.
According to STUCO’s Marketing and Publicity Coordinator, senior Sharon Lin, attendance was opened to both underclassmen and upperclassmen in an attempt to make the dance more inclusive. Additionally, by broadening the invitation, STUCO hopes to provide underclassmen with more opportunities to involve themselves in the WA community.
“This year, we’re really focusing on being inclusive to all grades […], especially because underclassmen might not get the chance [to go to more dances] and it’s their first dance,” Lin said. “As Student Council, we want to incorporate everyone, but there’s definitely still events that upperclassmen can have to themselves and I think that’s important. […] Although there might be more people going, it’s still going to be fun at the end of the day.”
Another significant change to the 2025 fall dance is the name of the event itself. STUCO first changed the name from the traditional “Homecoming” in 2022 to the “Fall Semi-Formal” prior to the 2024 dance. The shift stemmed from a re-examination of the title “Homecoming” and the meaning behind the long-established name.
“We’ve had a lot of talks about it with Dean [Betsy] Murphy and our advisors, [and] the original idea behind Homecoming is usually when alumni come home for the homecoming game, and we don’t have that set up here,” Flaherty said. “There’s no point of calling it [‘homecoming’] when that isn’t what it is, so we changed it last year […] and that worked, but then we wanted to change it again this year to Fall Fling, because we thought it had a better ring to it and it was shorter.”
In addition to the new name and attendance restrictions, STUCO began the planning process for the 2025 Fall Fling earlier than last year’s dance to confirm that the music and decorations were secured in far enough advance.
“Organizing [the Fall Fling] has been going very well,” Flaherty said. “We’ve definitely been more on top of things because last year, we left a lot of things until the last minute, so we’ve definitely prioritized making sure everything is planned in advance [this year].”
The entire planning process for the dance began in mid-September when STUCO members narrowed down the theme of the dance and started reaching out to musical vendors. To decide on a theme, ideas were drawn from the brainstorming session of the previous year’s “A Night in Hollywood.” According to Flaherty, the council members used a Pinterest board organized with the different themes to visualize each idea and determine the most exciting array of decorations.
“Enchanted Garden” was a possible theme for the 2024 Fall Semi-Formal, but it was eventually beaten out by “A Night in Hollywood.” The council brought back the “Enchanted Garden” idea this year along with an idea for a more fall-centric theme to fit with the name change. However, when members revisited and further considered the concept, everyone agreed that “Enchanted Garden” had the most potential.
“’Enchanted Garden’ was our second choice last year [so] I assumed that it was going to be this [year’s theme] just because of how popular it was with the council last year,” Flaherty said. “Everyone pretty much agreed on this […] so we’re very excited. We have a lot of vines, a lot of flowers, fairy lights, [and] a lot of cool stuff.”
To advertise the event, STUCO created a promotional video which is currently being broadcasted on the morning announcements and is posted on their Instagram page (@ghosts.stuco). Their main goal is to spread news of the event through word of mouth and ensure that every student knows about the event.
As the date draws near, STUCO plans to increase awareness by advertising the dance while also recording class points at lunch during Spirit Week.
“Sales were slow at first. I think people didn’t know [about the dance], so hopefully [Spirit Week] will incline people more to also purchase tickets,” Flaherty said.
According to STUCO advisor Loren Doucette, she looks forward to seeing the payoff of the effort the council members have devoted to the event.
“They’ve done great. They’ve put a lot of time and effort into [the dance],” Doucette said.
