Cindy Crushes Programming: Hosting a Riverdale Fan Party

Today as part of Cindy Crushes Programming, Cindy is continuing her series of Riverdale themed programs that she recently hosted with her teens. Since beginning this series, actor Luke Perry suddenly passed away and we want to offer our heartfelt sympathies to the cast and his friends and family.

My library had a month of teen programming based on the popular television show Riverdale. I had an escape room, which I outline here, and a fan art night. On fan art night I made fan collages and gave my teens coloring sheets. Teens are very into coloring.

There are a few Riverdale DIY craft ideas and coloring sheets on this Pinterest board

I had one more Riverdale event: a Riverdale fan party.

I was a little nervous wondering if I had used up all my Riverdale ideas already. What could I do to make it more interesting? Honestly, I was freaking out a bit.

I knew I was going to do Riverdale trivia because my teens love trivia. I used the same Jeopardy style PowerPoint many have used in the past. My categories were Actors, Episodes, Characters, Music and Serpents.  This was one of my most competitive trivia events I have ever held. Everyone was prepared and this shows how much the teens truly love the show.

Some Riverdale Trivia Sources: https://www.sporcle.com/games/tags/riverdale ; https://www.popbuzz.com/tv-film/quizzes/riverdale-trivia-quiz/ ; https://quizizz.com/admin/quiz/5bafa75eba102200190795f2/riverdale-trivia

My next competition was making a city crest for Riverdale. I explained how towns and families often have crests I even pulled up the Shutts family crest to show them an example of one. I talked about how the British crest has a unicorn which is the national animal of Scotland. The teens were very interested. They were very competitive about making their crests and asked often for more time because they were taking it so seriously. I loved the wining one so much. It had a serpent, a bottle of maple syrup, and the high school symbol on it. They used various elements of the show to tell the story of Riverdale.

DIY Coat of Arms

The last contest was a fan fiction challenge. I gave then all a prompt and told them to write a story from where the prompt left off. The prompt I used was, “Jughead walks into Riverdale High one Sunday morning and finds the principal dead.” I did have to explain what fan fiction was to teens who did not know. I explained that they were writing a story inside the Riverdale universe using the characters and the places in the show.  They all worked really hard and it was nice for them to get to use their creative writing skills. It was an enjoyable night

P.S. I had already taken my Riverdale display down when I heard about the tragic death of Luke Perry. I had watched the first two seasons and really enjoyed seeing him play Fred Andrews. He was an amazing television dad. I am sending love to all of his friends and family.

Cindy Shutts, MLIS

Cindy is passionate about teen services. She loves dogs, pro-wrestling, Fairy tales, mythology, and of course reading. Her favorite books are The Hate U Give, Catching FIre, The Royals, and everything by Cindy Pon. She loves spending times with her dog Harry Winston and her niece and nephew. Cindy Shutts is the Teen Services Librarian at the White Oak Library District in IL and she’ll be joining us to talk about teen programming. You can follow her on Twitter at @cindysku.

Filed under: Teen Programming, Teen Programming in a Box