Grad Nite at the Disney Parks is a pastime.
For decades students about to graduate from school have taken to the parks to celebrate.
It’s created many memories for a countless number of kids and it was unfortunately all born out of
a tragedy.
It’s 1960 in Temple City.
Situated in the western portion of San Gabriel Valley, California with a population of 32
thousand, It’s little over ten miles from downtown Los Angeles.
The summer is just beginning, and like it is for many teenagers across the country,
it’s marked by their graduation from high school.
As is expected, there are parties to commemorate the occasion.
Grad Nite, as a concept, was nothing new.
Parties that last the whole night through.
Sometimes at schools and sometimes at other venues.
Local papers at the time would actually publish the different plans each high school in the
area had in mind for their school’s specific Grad Nite.
Of course there would be chaperones, of course there would be rules, and of course the teenagers
would do whatever they could to circumvent the two.
Drinking was common, and unfortunately when you combine that with the fact that most teens
were of driving age, you have a recipe for tragedy.
That year a number of students had died in a resulting car accident and so the following
year one person would try to avoid it from happening again.
The initial idea came from a student named Joe Sebelia, during a student council meeting.
Host Grad Nite at Disneyland.
Grad Nite Parents Committee Representative Betty L Meek thought that trying to move the
entire event over to the park wasn’t practical, but after thinking over the idea she was compelled
to pitch it to PTA committees from two other schools in the area.
Between the three schools, they had 800 graduates.
The key to the plan was that students would not be allowed to get themselves over to the
theme park for the party themselves.
By making sure all 800 students took busses from their respective schools to the park,
there would be a far smaller likelihood of any drunk driving.
The fact that they were going to Disneyland, which was a dry park, only made that likelihood
even smaller.
When the parents turned to Disney with the idea, they were quite receptive, under certain
conditions.
For one, they needed to get more people involved.
Disney knew that having only 800 students run around the parks would make the place
look deserted.
According to them, at least six to seven thousand guests were needed for the place to feel alive
and justify operating the park.
On top of that rules were established to keep the event from getting unruly.
A dress code was instituted in which men had to wear coats and ties and women had to wear dresses.
No school colors or identifiers were allowed out of fear that school rivalries might lead
to fights in the park.
Purses and coats were checked at the gates to make sure there was no alcohol was being
snuck in, and there had to be one chaperone for every twenty students.
Lastly, in order to account for all of the students at the event, none of them were allowed
to leave the park until it was all over, which happened to be at 5am.
So the PTA drummed up more schools.
28 to be exact, and between students and chaperones they were able to bump up the head count to
over 10,000 guests.
Disney themselves started to ask around for opinions on hosting the event and most people
told them to avoid it.
The LA and Orange County police departments both told them that the event was a bad idea.
Putting that many teenagers into one place all night while they partied was not going
to go over well.
Local school superintendents also warned against it, but ever the optimists, Disney hosted
the Grad Nite anyway.
So on June 15th, 1961, at $6 a ticket, Disney would host its first of many Grad Nites at
Disneyland and to the surprise of many, the event went pretty smoothly.
Of course there were cases of students sneaking alcohol into the park, sleeping on rides when
it got late, and overall trying to do some things that were definitely against Disney’s
rules, but ultimately the event was a success.
They even had Benny Goodman there, who performed for the students.
At 5am the kids were rounded up into their busses and brought back to their schools for
a $1 all you can eat breakfast.
Like many ideas from those early years at the park, Disney had established a new way
to entertain guests and a new tradition that has lasted over half a century.
Today the Grad Nite tradition continues at not just Disneyland but Walt Disney World as well.
It isn’t just one night per year either, but as many as 15-18 nights over the months
of May and June, and it all started at that Temple City High School council meeting all
those years ago.