A Prom for All Ages

By Alex Chambers

Published February 13, 2025 at 5:15 PM EST

Buffy Prom organizers Lou Barnhart, Em Beck, and Dev Montanez

Did you have a good time at your prom? Is Valentine’s Day one of your favorite holidays? “No” to both questions? Then this all-ages anti-Valentine’s Day “prom” might be for you. (If the answer was yes, you’re welcome too.)

For the third year in a row, Bloomington’s Buffy Prom brings newly formed groups covering bands from the 1990s and 2000s to the stage for a party that’s also a fundraiser for All-Options Pregnancy Resource Center. I talked with the organizers, Dev Montanez, Em Beck, and Lou Barnhart, about how they got started, how they’re strengthening their involvement with All-Options, and, of course, why Buffy. You can find more information on Instagram @buffyprombloomington.

Alex Chambers

Alex Chambers runs WFIU’s arts desk, and produces and hosts WFIU’s Inner States, a weekly podcast and radio show about arts, culture, and ideas from southern Indiana and beyond. He’s the co-creator of How to Survive the Future, a podcast about the present, produced in partnership with Indiana Humanities. He has a PhD in American Studies, with a dissertation called Climate Violence and the Poetics of Refuge, and a book of poems called Bindings: A Preparation, about domestic life and empire. In his spare time, he teaches audio storytelling at the IU Media School. When he’s not in the woods gathering sound, you might see him out for a run on the streets of Bloomington.

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