This post was submitted by Claire Williams (10, J&C).

Open Community Arts Center hosted a collection of local bands for their Holiday Prom event for all ages on December 21 at 6 p.m.

The event had around fifty people in attendance. Admission to the event was $5 a person and there were five bands performing that night. Many attendees took the opportunity to ask their love interest on a date.

“I called my girlfriend as soon as I saw the flyers and asked her to go with me. It felt very sweet because we didn’t get to go to prom together last year. The show was like prom but cooler. We didn’t have to dress up and it was more fun,” Mateo Sollano, a senior in YPAS Musical Theater, said.

The one-room art gallery showcases and sells local artists’ work. So, though they attract young adults to the gallery for live entertainment, they also attract prospective buyers.

Between band sets, the teens went outside to hang out with their friends. Seniors sat on the hoods of their cars and smoked Camel Blues in the parking lot. A group of girls climbed up the side of the building to sit on the roof, and dropped gravel on the heads of those who passed by. A few Atherton students did cartwheels and sang along to the Death Grips song “Get Got”.

Inside, a boy sporting spiked hair and no shirt played “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on electric guitar while his friend screamed the lyrics and banged his head. Some freshmen made a game out of seeing how many carrots they could put in the holes of a girl’s fishnets without her noticing.

They squealed and laughed as a boy with a shaved head attempted to eat one of the vegetables directly off the girl’s leg when she turned her attention to the artwork on the walls. She noticed and began to laugh, taking a carrot out of the holes in her tights and biting into it with a grin.

Teens come to enjoy the atmosphere. “Open has this really relaxed feel and it’s great for moshing. I go and sit in the parking lot with my friends mostly. I really love it,” Jackson Guarino-Sanders, a junior at Saint Francis School, said.