 All right, we are at the top of the hour, 4 p.m. Our last session of the day, big talk from libraries 2023, and I would say appropriately enough for the end of the day, close evening, we're going to prom. Zombie prom, absolutely. And depending on your point of view, no zombies were harmed in the making of this teen event. So with us for our last session today is our other Nebraska presenters for today's conference. Nice to wrap up with one of our locals. Amanda Winkler and Chelsea Faust both from our Morton James Public Library in Nebraska City, Nebraska. And their pop served is 7,900. Is that where you all are at still? Yes, the Morton James Public Library is in Northeastern Nebraska. Our actual population is about 7,200. But then we also service other rural areas around in our county. Sure. Great. All right, so I will hand it over to both of you to tell us about your awesome zombie prom that you had last year. Well, thank you so much, Krista. Really excited. So who we are, my name is Amanda. I'm the Youth Services Manager here at the Morton James Public Library and I've been in this position for about four years now. And I'm Chelsea and I'm the Assistant Director here at Morton James and I've been here for a little over a year. And the Morton James Public Library, like we said, is in southeastern Nebraska. It was established in 1897. So we just last year celebrated our 125th years of service. And we're still in our original building from 1897. So that's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Another staff member will be referencing is Chloe. She's our Gen Z staff member that helped us put this program together. So we will be referencing Chloe quite a bit. So she's here in spirit, but my name is Amanda. And I'm Chelsea. Okay. So first of all, why did we want to present? Well, team programming is hard and we wanted to present to give you some hope for team programming. It's probably one of our biggest blocks in programming is trying to get teens in our building and doing something that they enjoy. So when we first started planning zombie prom, we planned for 50. And that was pretty generous. And we ended up with 120, which blew our minds. We thought with the 120, we thought, okay, we're going to start with 120. Okay. We thought we would have more adults or high school kids, but instead we just had more middle schoolers. However, the reason we had more middle schoolers is because our building shares a parking lot with the middle school. And we get a fairly rowdy after school crowd that comes in. And we started chatting with them. Chloe was instrumental in that and asking what they wanted. What they thought would be fun. And they were very talkative. And then word of mouth was huge. They would tell their friends. Their friends would come in. We would talk to them. Then they would tell their friends. And it just completely exploded, which is amazing. So if you feel like you're at a standstill, you have hope because this program went really well. Yeah. And we really had no teen events. We had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun. And this program went really well. Yeah. And we really had no teen events for two years with COVID. And before that, our teen programming was not very well attended. And we would very often, we would have to include tweens like in that 10, 10 to 12 area because just so few actual teens were coming. So, so there is hope. Yes. So that kind of gets us into the idea. So I found a picture of another library zombie prom. And I thought that that sounded really amazing. I had sort of just taken on these services. And so I was just putting as many ideas as I could into my folder. So the zombie prom got put into my ideas folder. And I was so excited for 2020. I was like, it's going to be the roaring 20s. We're going to bring really cool fun stuff to the library. And then COVID had other ideas. So zombie prom pretty much got shelled for two years. But it was great timing because after that, Chloe came on to our staff and she's a Gen Z staff member. And I'm not hip to the young people. So I thought a zombie prom sounded like fun. But when I was doing the idea for the program, it was going to be more like weird zombie food. Like let's make a brain out of Jell-O or like, there's recipes that look like rotting body parts. And I thought that would be kind of fun. So I had kind of all these off the wall ideas. But Chloe said, you know, what's tried and true? Pizza. We like pizza. And she had been talking to the kids and they wanted to do a dance. So like the zombie prom dance idea was also something that we wanted to do. And Halloween is a pretty big attendance for our youth programming. So we thought, okay, let's put it all together. Pizza, a dance and Halloween. And with the teams right next door. So we decided on having some other activities that went along with the dance. So we had zombie makeup. We had a costume contest. We also had karaoke. So part of the time was just a dance with music playing. And then we had a sign up for karaoke. We did book drawings. We had a button making station. And then we gave away go sticks, pizza, sprite, and a lot of candy. A lot. A lot. Candy was probably the best. The best thing. But the biggest lesson here was that is what tried and true works. And it's better to keep things simple and do it well. If it's your first time doing something. Like zombie prom. Yeah. And wait for that feedback and then change is needed. So planning. Our first thought was budget. Do we have the money for this? Where can we get the money for this? So we have many generous donors who give specifically for youth programming. So our budget was done all through donations. Things that we purchased. We did purchase a karaoke Bluetooth speaker with microphones. Makeup, fake blood sponges for the makeup. We bought pizza. Soda themed cups like with the, you can see in the picture with the handprints and the tablecloth and the plates. We purchased gift cards for the costume contest. For the winners. We bought a crown for that. Just a cheap plastic fancy crown. And then we also bought flameless candles, which you can see in the picture there. We did have some things already on hand. Like our button maker. We got from the Nebraska library commission maker space. We printed pronoun buttons, which was a specific request from the kiddos. They wanted to have their pronouns on buttons. And then we chose since it was Halloween time and zombie themed nightmare before Christmas characters. We also had glow sticks. And we had some books that we could give away. We did have some decorations since this was around Halloween. We had our regular Halloween decorations. We did purchase some, but we had a lot. And then for the makeup, you definitely need q-tips and paper towels. It's something we didn't think about, but luckily we had it. With that, we did purchase some extra like lights, plug-in lights, and vines for like decor. But we used those in a future team program that we had had. So we reused a lot of the stuff that we purchased. And the Bluetooth speaker. We've used so many times. Yes. And we do plan on doing just a karaoke night in the future. So it was a good purchase. We had six staff members or we had, yes, had six staff members working at the time, but only three of us planned out and actually did the program. And we did have a volunteer as well. And I will recommend more volunteers is always better. Layout for our zombie prom. We are, we limited the rooms that we wanted to have available. So we had our gallery space, which is 50 by 20 feet. And then our lobby area where you first come in the doors. And then we mapped out different stations within those two rooms. Marketing was big. We put posters up in the middle school posters in the library. We did Facebook, Instagram, our newsletter. We made pamphlets, our website. We were really like, we haven't had chains in. We felt like we had to just like shout it from the top. We did have a display table in our lobby that we set up with like a swamp zombie theme with a little ball that you could touch. Yeah, like the electricity. Yeah. Yeah, it was really cool. So it draw, it would draw your attention when you first walked in and then we had like our come to our zombie prom and then our Halloween party as well. So that was big. If you have a space in your library, you can set up just like a little display table with pamphlets or whatever it is that you have. Do so. Cause we had more people talking about it because of that table than probably anything. So that was really big. And when the kids come in after school, right in the thing, like it kind of became like a ritual after school. I got to touch the ball. Yeah. And then. And then, oh, so are we still having zombie prom? When is that? Yeah. It worked out really well. And then one thing with our marketing is we made sure to emphasize that everything was 13, ages 13 and older because we didn't want to do too much of the tween. We wanted the older kids. And then we also emphasized dress code appropriate because that was something that we didn't want to have issues with what the kids were wearing. So in our marketing, we made sure and word of mouth, we told everybody make sure that, you know, it's school dress code appropriate. And they knew what that meant. So like they would ask like some of, I think we're joking, but they're like, Oh, can I wear this or can I wear that? And I would just say it has to be school dress code appropriate. And we didn't have any problems at all with that. So it worked out really well. And then we had the younger kids are like, well, I'm 12, I'll be 13. And they were really excited about it. So they still talk about, well, I'm almost that old. So it worked out really well. Making sure that we had that on all of our marketing. And that actually, yeah, that did go well. Like it kind of didn't turn into a thing. Like, oh, like we're sorry, like 13 and older. Like it actually kind of worked out. Yeah. They're like, well, I'll be 13 in two years and then you're going to do it. Right. Yeah. You can do it on this. So yeah. The annual thing. You're stuck. You're stuck with it. They're going to expect it. All right. So execution prepping definitely made the event go much more smoothly. Fortunately, it was around Halloween time. So when we started like hanging up bats and spider webs, people weren't too freaked out. So we kind of decorated ahead of time. But we also use that space for the youth Halloween party the next day. So our youth Halloween party is always like a really big attendance every year. So we always like prepare for the Halloween party. So doing the zombie prom the day before we could put out kind of more of the brains and the eyeballs and stuff. And then we just took those down for that youth party the next day, but we still had like a lot of the bats and spider webs and stuff. So we did make it pretty non structured for the most parts. Like we had the music playing and they could go to the button maker when they wanted to, they could line up for the makeup when they wanted to. But we did have signups for a few things. So we had signups for the karaoke and we also had signups for the costume contest. So the signups for the karaoke was really so that Chloe could go through and find clean versions of the songs. And also just songs and for the karaoke aspect of it ahead of time. And then for the best costume, we actually had to take their picture, post it on Instagram and then we did the likes, the hearts on the Instagram is how they voted for it. So it was easier to have a sign up so that when it was time to take pictures, we could do that a little more easily. And it was easier to be like, oh so and so you need to come to your picture taken so that we can get you on Instagram at this time. Signups for that really helped. And then we had enough time that people could like so that they could vote for it. Our staff, like we said, we had three staff people and we had one volunteer. Next year we will definitely have more. I mean granted we were only preparing for 50, but next year we will want more. And we had our volunteer doing the button maker. And then Chelsea was doing zombie makeup. Chloe was running the music and then I was doing the food. And then also the food in the area was where the dance was happening as well. So that then we had two staff members in there to kind of keep an eye on everything because the lights were out. You can kind of see in that photo. So we did want to have like two people in the dance area. And the party was from six to eight. We started to ask kids to wrap up about 15 minutes to eight. But we'll kind of get there later that the kids were still hanging around far after eight o'clock. So one thing I will add for that is when we used Instagram for the likes or the hearts, however you want to say that, our Wi-Fi stat logins went through the roof and we took a couple months before we realized why is this number so high? And we had zombie prom with every teenager with a phone. And then we had the Halloween party the next night, which also every parent had a phone to take pictures. So it really helps like with login stats. Yeah, if you need your Wi-Fi. Yeah. It was awesome. I actually have a question about the costume contest there. Since you're mentioning that now, I'll do that now. So the costume contest and when they voted Instagram, that was just during the actual event, not like any time afterwards. Correct. I think it was during the actual prom. Uploaded photos to Instagram while the prom was going on. And then we let kids vote until seven, like 15, I think it was. Actually, I think it was 7.30. So we would just tell them to award it right at the event and everything. Perfect. Yeah. And then we went on Instagram and saw who had the most hearts. And then we presented them with a crown and their gift cards. Yeah. Yeah. And the prizes were scooters, gift cards. We have a scooters coffee here in Nebraska City. So first place was $15. Second place was $10. And third place was $5. Yep. And the crown, which they loved. Yeah. Everybody wanted the crown. Yeah. Maybe we could have saved money on coffee cards. We could have just bought a crown. So we'll go through some photos here. So this is a makeup table. This is zombie makeup. This is what I did. It was actually very popular. The kids were super excited about how real it looked. And behind on the first picture, you can see all the vines hanging in the door and the lights. That's where we took all the photos for Instagram. And then we did like, it was a selfie station. So as I was sitting there doing makeup, anyone can go behind and take pictures. And then all the way to the right is our winner. That was our costume contest winner. You can see the crown, obviously. And she's wearing one of the buttons that she made. And then that's the bag that we gave out for first place. The kiddo in the top picture, he was very funny. He came back twice for makeup because he thought he needed more blood. So that was really fun. Some of the kids did come back and he was like, can you do another wound? I will say we had a light that we found on our storage area in the library. And that was really helpful. It's not something you would think about. But once it got dark outside, that light was essential in trying to see what you were doing. So it was a good setup. And the good thing about where we were sitting, you'll see another picture where you'll see the button maker. The kids were able to just hang out around and get ready to do their makeup. So they could watch their friends get zombified. So that worked really well. And I think it was cool, too, because some of the kids didn't wear costumes. So then the makeup option, they could, but then a lot of the kids that did wear costumes or even already had done their makeup, still wanted their makeup. It worked out really well. And more so than I assumed it first, because I was like, nobody wants to get really well. There's another view. That's our volunteer, Stephanie. And she ended up getting zombified. She really enjoyed it. And then you'll see in the first picture, there's a table behind her. And that is where the button making was. So, and then just behind that is where you come into the door or into the library. So yeah, our setup actually worked out pretty good. And those window clings are the hands. Yeah. Those were really popular, especially since we put them up a few days in advance. And then people would be like, what are these about? Well, we're having a zombie from. So word of mouth. Yeah. And the decorations really were, when we were kind of slowly putting everything up, people would see new things had showed up and been like, what is that? So it's another good way to generate interest. So in our Kimmel gallery space where we had the dance, we had, we needed more lights. Like we had the candles and we had like Christmas lights, but we needed even more light. So we projected the nightmare before Christmas onto our, onto our screen, but we didn't have the sound. So the music that was playing was like popular music that the kids like that Chloe knew to play, which got good feedback. So yeah, Chloe. But then I'm surprised because the night remember for Christmas came out when I was a kid. So I'm really surprised that the kids are all about Tim Burton and the night remember Christmas, but it was a good ambiance to just add to have that like visual and the light. Like while they're dancing, it was actually pretty cool. And we do have the rights to show it in the library as the film. So that wasn't a problem either. But, but yeah, there was no sound on the movie, just the movie being projected at the front, which was one of those eternal movies that will always just be popular. New people keep watching it and never, will never go away. Yeah, I agree with that. And then those are our gift bags that we had for the winners of the costume contest. So this is kind of the room split in half. So this was on one side of the room and then on the other. So we had the food on one side. And then I will talk about the book give away is a little bit later, but we also had that table there that had the book drawings and the book giveaways. And then the other table behind had little things that we gave away like bubbles and stickers and like little zombie men. So like, you know, the army men. But they were super cool. But they didn't all get taken because the lights were out. And so I don't think they saw that they were all there. So maybe next time we can be a little bit clearer about that. So this is just kind of more pictures of when the problem is going on on the left side is the. Or I guess I don't know left, right on what you're seeing, but the kids doing the karaoke with that screen. So once the dance part was over, we use that screen also to project the lyrics for the for the songs. And then you can see the kids have some glow sticks and stuff there. And the one thing we will point out. We did buy flameless candles specifically for this event and we ended up using them for others. However, we just went to the Christmas light bucket that we have and behind all the kids in the second picture, you can see the lights spread out. That was very helpful. Something we kind of did on a whim, but since the lights were out and once it got dark, we needed that extra light. So little things that you don't think about when you're setting up for something, but that really helped a lot. And then of course the glow sticks are fun and they can carry them around and throw them around and have fun. So this is a fuzzy picture, but it kind of gives a better idea. I mean this was before all the sun had gone down. But that's a little bit better of a picture, but it got even darker than before. Yeah. This was right before the party really got underway. So I was kind of snapping pictures as I could, but it got a lot darker. So and the kids were using their cell phones too. So I think they were kind of rooting their friend on who was singing here, I think. These are all karaoke pictures. And it was cool. Once they got their makeup done and then they went in the room where it was dark and shined the cell phone light on, it was more gruesome. Look at theirs. It was really cool. All right. So for next year, what worked? Our button maker blew us away with how much the kids wanted to do the buttons. And we ran out of supplies. We of course planned for 50. And we had choices. So like we had so many choices because we wanted people to be able to choose. But then that was the only reason we really were able to provide so many. We had planned for 50, but then we had extra supplies. And then we had way more than we needed for button, like the inserts. And then we ran out of everything. And they're like, where's more buttons? And we're like, let's do makeup. So the button maker is a big one. And it's a very fairly inexpensive tool to have in your library. So and we're going to use it for the next. Any next programming that we do, which worked out well. I will say for the button maker, we did, I told you we had pronoun buttons and Tim Burton, but we also did heart stopper buttons, which is a book series by Alice Oseman. And that was super popular. If you don't have the heart stopper books in your library, think about getting them there. They go out all the time. So pizza, food, soda. Obviously popular kids want the food. We ran out of supplies. We ran out of supplies. We ran out of pizza fairly early. But it wasn't like, we're out of pizza. We need pizza. It was just like, oh, there's candy. So we didn't know, but they were okay. Because someone did actually ask that question. What happened when you ran? Did you have to quick order? Yeah. It's like they didn't even notice that the pizza was gone. They were like, oh, are we out of pizza? What they did ask for though was candy. We ran out of candy. I had kids like, well, can you go look in the other part of the library for more candy? You must be hiding it somewhere. Right. Because that's what we do is we hide stuff from the kiddos. I did. I broke into my candy stash because I have a candy stash for kids that come in or whatever. And so I was trying to accommodate them with the candy, but they were actually more upset about the candy running out on the pizza. Although I will say they did ask for more soda too. And that's something that we plan in the future. We will buy more soda than what we think, which we did. But again, we had planned for 50 being generous and put over that. So yeah, the pizza, for whatever reason, it was awesome. They were like, oh, okay, the pizza is gone. And that kind of surprised me. I guess I thought they'd be hungrier than what they were. Because even when I had the pizza out, it's not like they ascended on the pizza like piranhas. They were just kind of like... But the candy, they were like... Yes, the candy was like reach and grab more. So yeah, keep that in mind. Obviously have the food, but don't stress too much because they just want candy. We... Makeup was very popular. Again, I was surprised because I just assumed nobody would want to sit and have their makeup done. Especially if they were already dressed up. But that was not the case. They came not dressed up and then wanted their makeup done. The karaoke was also very popular and we are... Like I said earlier, we're planning just a karaoke night in the future. And then I will add for the makeup, I didn't have a mirror to show them what it looks like when it was done. After I got done with the first kid, I was like, oh, so I grabbed my phone, took a picture and turned it around, which they loved. Because who doesn't love getting their picture taken when they've got zombie makeup on? So it was a good like instant, here, here's what you look like. So a mirror would be another thing to get for the future. While you're talking about the makeup, how did you learn how to do that? You totally said this was going to come up too. I mean, I was a cosmetologist before I started working in a library. So I went to school for your skin and makeup. And you've seen some gnarly stuff. Yeah. And when I worked in a salon, we did a zombie 5K one year and we totally went all out with the makeup. So I had known about the toilet paper and the liquid latex. You mix it together and you can make like 3D skin kind of and it's a super cheap way to do it. You don't have to use like the fake, whatever that stuff is that they use for skin. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of had it in. So I kind of knew what I was doing. But YouTube has tons of videos and you can always get lots of different tips and tricks from professionals on YouTube. And it's really easy to, you could even use Elmer's glue if you don't want to get liquid latex. It doesn't dry as fast, but it'll still work. And then just pour some fake blood on it and it looks awesome. Yeah. So what did you purchase to do the makeup? Well, that's a good question. We ordered a bruise kit. So it's like a little compact looking thing that has like the different colors of like blue and white and red and brown, I think. And then just using sponges, you just kind of... When you put the liquid latex on and the toilet paper, kind of shape it a little bit so it looks like a scratch or something. Then you use a sponge to put the bruise stuff around it and then just use fake blood with a q-tip and kind of dab it on because don't pour that will go everywhere. Yeah. I've learned the hard way. So it's nice that there's a kit that people who don't know don't have the skill can... Yes, absolutely. And like I said, there's tricks and tips and stuff online and even with the bruise kit it tells you like what to mix and how to put it on there. And you just kind of think of what a bruise looks like and go from there. It's not super easy but it's... you can learn. And someone else says it's just that Pinterest has a lot of zombie makeup ideas and how-tos as well. Yes, Pinterest, the Google is your friend. Yeah, the internet. The sponges for each kid? Yes, that was something I'll say. I only know from being a cosmetologist you don't want to reuse sponges or q-tips or paper towels or the toilet paper. Make sure you purchase enough for each child. And luckily we didn't have all 120 kids wanting makeup so we had enough sponges even though we had planned for 50. And obviously q-tips come in like 300 packs so we had enough for each one per kid. You want to make sure you're using a clean one for each kid. You want to be sanitary? And side note, latex, liquid latex I asked everyone before I started, are you allergic to latex? Oh yeah, yeah. If they were allergic to latex, you use Elmer's glue and it doesn't dry as fast but it works the same way. Oh, nice tip. Little tips. Also, what worked was the music. Chloe was very diligent about finding clean versions and coming to us too and saying, does this work? Will this work? Can I do this? And they enjoyed it. Yeah, I thought they were going to complain because the words were bleeped out or something but they were fine. Yeah, good. So I get what didn't work. So break my heart the book drawings but that was an error on my part because I put it in the room with the dancing and once the lights went off and nobody could see them. Nobody could see them. Half of them didn't know where they were at and there were only like three names in the boxes. Those kids had already left and I think two of the books just never got picked up because I tried to contact them after and then I had kids coming to me after. Did you do the book drawings? Because there was an Alasosman book that people wanted. There was also a makeup book that people wanted. So next time I will put the book drawings in a more prominent place, a more well-lit place because they would have been popular and we did have a menu sort of thing a handout that said what each of the stations were and the book drawings were on it but then nobody found them. So a better signage and putting things in a more prominent place next time. The theme, tablecloths and plates and cups I thought would be a big hit but guess what they do once they're done with it? They throw it away and they didn't even seem to notice that they were themed. We were all like this is awesome and they're just like... So I would have saved money and not done the themed like napkins and stuff. So anyway also the bathrooms so we had a lot of kids that were just congregating in the bathroom like they wanted to hang out in the bathroom and not dance and not do anything but when you get so many kids in the bathroom that aren't circulating and people coming and saying oh so-and-so is mad at so-and-so and they're in a fight and I'm like we'll get out of the bathroom and go do something else then. So next time I'm going to have a chapter on specifically for that bathroom lobby area because with all of us at our different stations I was popping in but not as often as I could have been. Team Mama is a serious issue that needs to be wrangled, yes. And I didn't want it to get out of hand and stuff because it's hard enough to do that when the teens are all in one area with their phones anyway but then you put them in the bathroom and then after it got out people were like running around the parking lot and they didn't have rides and I stayed out there with them but they were also kind of like they're tweens well they're teens they're 13 and up teens so like some of them were like going over there's a fast food restaurant that's within walking distance so a bunch of them went over there and then somebody is like hey we're so-and-so I'm here to pick them up they were in that group that left and then they were coming back and so there was a lot of that so next time we're going to make it so that the party gets over at 7.30 even though making sure everybody gets where they need to be there's not a lot of roaming and also the people can get their rides and so yeah more chaperones will definitely be for next time because if you say something gets out at 8.00 well their ride might not come until 8.30 or early yeah things to think of that we didn't really think of to begin with and that's because I didn't think that 120 kids would show up right it's easier to chaperone and see and keep track of 30-40 kids but when you have 120 running around in the dark chaotic okay so the evolution of zombie prom what we've decided just for next prom that we do smaller snacks the pizza was a great addition but like we said the kids weren't super disappointed when it went away so we would do like pretzels or chips or something smaller still candy though obviously candy for sure we would assign staff to Instagram it worked out well with me doing makeup and then stopping to take a picture and you know like the kids were very patient when they were getting their makeup done but I did have a line to do makeup so stopping and taking a picture and then trying to get it uploaded and then making sure everyone votes we would assign someone to do just that and then it would be much more smooth with the whole evening posters at high school I mentioned this at the very beginning we had more middle schoolers than we did high schoolers which is fine but we do we did want high schoolers to come and we had more kids asking can high schoolers be here and we're like yes of course absolutely but since we didn't actually specifically go to the high school and tell them about it it's like they didn't know so we would evolve that into inviting the high schoolers as well as the middle schoolers keeping them inside Amanda mentioned the parking lot and once it got dark outside we would leave and go to a restaurant and then come back we would have no re-entry you would get a hand stamp you have to stay inside which would keep the chaos to a more minimum amount which would be good and then Amanda had mentioned we would set the timing so that the parents could come and get the kids before the party was technically over so that we would have that extra time to clean up we were blown away by the candy wrappers again something we should have known but it was so much to clean up and then changing the cleaning the bathrooms taking the trash out the pizza boxes just things that we didn't really we thought of but it was more like oh there's only gonna be 50 kids and then it was more than double that so clean up is something obviously planned for but we would have planned better in the future um yeah so our next big team to do is gonna be spring playing so one of the things that we were really happy to have was feedback the kids came to us and said when are you doing another dance like almost the next day like what's next and we're like zombie prom so spring playing is actually gonna be the march and instead of dressing up like zombies we're gonna have them dress up in like fairy tale cottage core spring gnomes elves yeah mushrooms kids like mushrooms for some reason and instead of doing the zombie makeup we're going to do face painting with like flowers or leaves and they can choose to do face painting or like on their arm because we now have somebody on staff who actually does face painting like the carnival type face painting we'll do the button maker again because that was huge we are going to open more of the library so we will have like the teen room and our bookstore room and our north room open and we're gonna have a station where they can make their own flower crowns so we're going to package all of those materials um individually but then they can make their own crown and it's uh there's a few glue dots in there but most of it's like has wires in it so they can just twist it and make it how they want and then also the dance part um when we split the dance and the karaoke some kids only wanted to do the dance and some kids only wanted to do the karaoke and some kids were really popular and a lot of kids would come see them do karaoke but then some kids it would just be one kid and like two of their friends watching them do the karaoke so we decided to not do karaoke this time it's just going to be the dance plus all of those other activities um we have signed up way more volunteers so that we can cover all of the areas where kids are hanging out I'm going to be the main one at the door stamping the hand and not letting them go out um and so yeah so and we are still going to do a costume contest because that was very popular they all said they really enjoyed that and the instagram everybody wanted their phones and to vote they were actually texting friends that weren't here saying hey vote for me or hey vote for my friend and so that was really cool and so yeah so and and hopefully I mean and we are going to go to the high school um so I got in with them that was kind of another thing too um just like kind of getting into all the schools is kind of difficult because people are frazzled and they've got a lot and so um it's just kind of yeah it's building that relationship I think too with the schools um and that is kind of a piece of it but you know hopefully I think we're going to have a good turnout for spring fling and then we'll kind of if that works out we'll do another sort of dance in the summer so hopefully we can kind of have like a kind of a quarterly dance sort of thing but I think it is important to offer those other activities like the button maker and stuff it's not just the dance um the costume aspect of it the makeup aspect of it um so yeah fortunately zombie prom turned into like a really good template for us to go forward and for the kids to give us ideas and to tell us what they what they liked which was candy buttons and costumes makeup yeah so this is the last picture we have for you and that's Chloe we've been talking about her but now you get to see her and myself and Amanda on the night of zombie prom and if you have questions we would love to take them now obviously but you're more than welcome to email us and then our slides will also be up for availability and yeah and our website yeah on our website and you can see all of our programming so are there any questions yeah we do have a few here great um thank you so much Amanda and Chelsea this is this was so much fun great program some as someone said um really cool idea um yeah if anybody has excuse me have any questions go ahead and get them typed in um to the questions section and we'll get them um answered uh since we are the last session of the day we don't um have anyone coming in after you we can get to all the questions we have hopefully um so uh so was this a question was this done during a time when the library was open or was this when the like the library's closed and this is like an after after library hours thing great question um we decided to do it uh we close at five o'clock on Fridays and we chose to start the zombie problem at six o'clock on a Friday so it was while we were closed and I would recommend that because if we were to do it while we were open we would also have people trying to check out books and that would be just so much chaos pandemonium pandemonium yes so I recommend doing it while you're closed or at least during a time where you don't have to worry about just random people coming in and out and the music was very loud yes so I mean for having just the kids and us old people that are dressed up like zombies hanging out with the kids um that's not disruptive because but like if we had that that loud of music happening with anybody else was in the building they'd be like turn it down yeah no studying to be done no computer work can be done it was right right yeah and especially since you had more kids than you expected um and you could be expanding it to other rooms in the library obviously I was thinking definitely in the future you're not going to be able to have that during right yeah we would have to have even more volunteers and even more staff and um like she had mentioned we're going to have uh four actual staff and then as many volunteers as we can get on the next one for spring playing um and if we opened up the whole library then we would have to have even more yeah so because right now we have two levels so the first time for this zombie problem it was like half of the bottom level and for spring playing it'll be the whole bottom level but not the second level yeah right okay um we have a couple questions about the ages of the the kids that you had there um did you have any worry about mixing middle school and high school ages together um someone also also says it's hard I think it's hard to combine tweens and older teens yeah um well we did do that 13 and older specifically um and like we said we didn't have a ton on high schoolers but we did have I don't know if it was younger siblings or friends that were like can my friend come there in high school can my sibling come there in high school I was going to say I think it was a friend group so the high schoolers we got were a friend group um so they but they were hanging out with everybody yeah and there didn't seem to be any segregation at all like even the groups that that normally come to the library I figured they would stay together but they all mingled and everybody chatted and so I there wasn't really an issue with the age thing we did have younger kids saying oh I wish I could come but we have programming for younger kids so it's it's like this is for the older kids yeah and for spring playing I think there might be more interest for the older or there will be more ability for the older kids if they want to hang out in a different part of library or like spend more time doing the crown or something like that um they'll have the ability to do that and you just had the minimum age of 13 um was I mean and this is a teen event is advertised as that and um was there like a maximum age that you would have said oh come on you're an adult this isn't really for you well if they were out of school then yeah I know we wouldn't have let them come probably and we've for a lot of our programming have been doing it by grade so this program is open for eighth through twelfth grade or nine through twelfth grade advertising the grade range perfect yeah and we make sure we put teen zombie prom or teen spring playing so that it's not like 13 and up as including adults right so we tried to make that very specific and then when people ask we would say it's for teens so that we wouldn't have that oh I'm an adult can I come or can my mom come or whatever or one of the big things that we have with the with the teens are like they want to bring their eight-year-old sibling because they're babysitting or something and we know yeah like our like other programs for like for like Valentine's Day which are more like family inclusive activities for younger kids and older kids then that's appropriate you know a teenager can come with the seven-year-old and we have stuff for all of them to do but that wasn't going to be the case this particular event is for who it was for yeah yeah and and I'm surprised we didn't have more of a problem with that because yeah we didn't went really smoothly yeah I was surprised too and we didn't have anyone coming to the door like trying to get in like I'm young I'm going to make this work and we didn't have a problem at all great great um have you thought about doing any other options for voting other than Instagram is there anything that would kids might have mentioned um the kid that would be a good question for the teens and ask them what they would like to see we kicked around doing like a paper ballot like you would normally just put it in a box but you have someone you have to read through and count it um we talked Facebook is a non entity anymore they they're on Instagram or something else um we we did kick around some ideas but it's hard to know exactly how to do that we don't want to do like cheer for your favorite because then what if you hear it correctly I don't know um like one kid gets nobody clapping yeah that's horrible like yeah you don't want to put them on this on yeah like that on display like that and then Instagram for weeks after the zombie problem we still had likes and comments so I think and another thing we talked about was just to have like if you dressed up put your name in and then we would do a drawing so if like at your library you don't want to do like an Instagram or a contest like but you still want to have that inclusion like everybody that put a costume together can enter a drawing specifically for the costume sure and then you're drawn and that person wins but it wouldn't be a contest yeah and I know in the past I guess I don't have to get into this but like with children costume contests I kind of stopped doing that as part of the use services because parents would get like really mad they'd be like well my kids costume is way better and why did that person win and it was just like okay sorry um um and so it's you know the the so from what you know from talking to the teens and tweens in your library they're using Instagram um what is something else that they might be using do we um anyway that would work that even work for this kind of voting I wonder yeah well and you have an Instagram they have a poll option but you can't do that on your phone you would have to do that on a computer um I mean I didn't know what other social media things they are on well I mean and they they're Snapchat but I don't I don't personally know how that works because I don't use it but I think there would be a way to vote on that yeah I don't yeah and yeah again I don't I don't know on that one would we would have and Chloe may maybe have better yeah insight on that but but she was also the one that was really dedicated for Instagram yeah and then that was something we talked about beforehand too we first made our Instagram and then we encouraged kids to follow us on Instagram before the zombie prom and we kind of hinted that you might need it or we would be using it for zombie prom so I think that was something that if there is another option we kind of pushed it towards Instagram so it worked out for us cool yeah um all right and then the last question I have here I just have one more left if anyone has any other questions you want to ask uh get it into your into the question section um so have you seen an overall increase in foot traffic into the library since you've incorporated this programming like the kiddos are exposed to the library and find it's a great place to keep coming back to um did you have so like did you have new teens coming to the library that had not before so for a zombie prom specifically yes we had teens that we had never seen before um and then afterwards that's hard to say yeah I mean we do have it seems like we have more teens every other day that we're like oh they're new or um it's kind of funny because like our core group of people that kind of come in to use the library like as it's meant to be used not to just like throw things around um are actually younger kids that are walking over from the elementary school so like fourth and fifth graders um which was why we had so many kids asking well I can I come in two years like like keep doing it in two years so I can come um but we've also sort of expanded our our other youth programming so we have like a really big attendance for Halloween and for our winter program um so I think there's a lot of synergy maybe happening um but I think with the kids that do come in regularly in middle school it has given us a better repertoire with them because it gives us things to talk with them about yes um and they listen they know that we listen to their suggestions which was huge we put a suggestion box in the library in the teen room and we had very thought out well thought out suggestions and book suggestions and they saw that you know they asked for a heart stopper we gave it to them I mean that has helped more probably than just having the program is that they understand that we will listen to them and we will try our hardest to do what they want and like Chloe makes bookmarks and stuff so like they asked for different characters or different books on the bookmarks and so she can make them and put them out um so yeah I I don't know if I would say that that we have more but I don't know because we feel like we do we do yeah and and I can't say like our so we have a student provisional card and we've had way more of those um made so um like I think it has elevated it I can't tell you if it's specifically because of zombie prom or like kind of everything that we're doing um with programming which is awesome I love it after COVID and everything is um you know and having some of our numbers for program is actually higher than pre-COVID numbers so yeah 2019 that's awesome yeah we we had some good stats this year yeah so I'm just really glad that we have a good template to go on now for doing teen programming um that's effective um so that we can keep that momentum going yeah yeah um oh we have one more question that just popped up which is actually I think you've I don't know if you know if this happened but I know that you've kind of solved the problem for next year potentially or next uh dance um do you know if you had any teens that showed up for a short time left and then showed up just as their rides arrived um like did their guardians or parents or rides assumed they were saved with the library the whole time when actually they just came there briefly left and then came back two hours later for their pickup I can't for sure we didn't have that happen but there was like 120 kids in there like the whole time there was a lot of kids so I mean it may have happened but maybe they came and hung out in the bathroom for two hours and then sounds like and I don't know if that's anything that you would I mean you how would you know keep track of I was the one outside in the parking lot after it got over and everybody that came in and got rides and stuff were all like dressed up and decked out in their Halloween stuff and I'm pretty sure I had seen them all inside so I don't think I saw anybody that like just like came random and was like oh my rides here like they were all people that had been at the prom and had zombie makeup on yeah um so they hadn't attended the program I think it's concerned about you know they're telling their parents their guardians they went to the library and then didn't really stay the whole time honestly I'm not sure what you would do that about that as the library staff anyway that's well two things for that we did actually have a parent come looking for their child and found them at the zombie prom because that's where they told them they were gonna be so we did have that been perfect and then frankly we're gonna stamp their hands right and then if they want to leave that's fine but they can't come back in so we're gonna try and curb the going out coming back in and then if they do want to leave that's fine but and another thing I had a parent looking and uh their kid wasn't there for pickup so he got on his phone he was like oh she went home with her friends so the friends went to go home and the kid got in the car with them and left so uh there was some of that too where the friend groups were all traveling together and people were had not planned to come to zombie prom but like walked over and then wrote home with their friends and that's things like that happen yes yeah all right I think that is it for our questions that I see here um all right this is great um yeah this was I think a fun event like awesome thing uh need to do an adult zombie prom maybe I think that would be actually quite popular I do or any kind of like an adult dance of some star because when do we ever get that as an adult to get to dress up yeah yeah to be able to to relive our childhoods as adults yes presentation do for us next time we'll work on that thank you so much Amanda and Chelsea this is great um for the conference today um all right thank you