Client: Vanity Fair Magazine
Date: February 2015 & 2016
Location: North Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills, CA
Project Type: Architectural, Engineering, Scenic
Jeremy Thom Role: Technical Director & Production Design
For the past two years Vanity Fair has taken over the northern stretch of N. Crescent Drive, as well as the garden of Beverly Hills City Hall and the driveway and interior lobby of the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, and transformed them into an elegant customized venue for their After-Party event.
Both years the exterior had three bespoke Losberger structures containing the Press and Red Carpet, the main party space and an additional dining room for 240 guests, a full kitchen for Thomas Keller, a portrait studio for Mark Seliger, a garden bar with surrounding balconies and walkways, and parking and service for the In-n-Out Burger semi truck. All of this was built on top of a technical 'underworld' situated on street level below the main deck, and containing everything and everyone needed to run this flawless event. Surrounding the main event structures in 2016 were rows of 'Chinese Lantern' like scaffolding towers, all internally illuminated, to define arrival and departure areas. All guest and car service parking was in an underground parking lot immediately beneath the site with an entrance at one end of the street and an exit which threaded past the other end of the structure, requiring a pedestrian bridge for guest exits in 2016.
I worked as part of the six person Vanity Fair production team to design, oversee and install both the exterior structures and the exquisite interior scenic elements, created by Basil Walter, in an insanely busy 10-day period.
The event was, as always, an enormous and magnificent success!
(Photo credits, where applicable, and drone fly-by video by Justin Weiner of BWArchitects)