Global Gate-Crashing: the New Trend in Travel? by Devanshi Mody
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The last category comprises the significant number of guests who are, um, uninvited, but who systematically and compulsively insinuate themselves everywhere, from Andy Wong’s London parties to Sharon Stone’s Cannes parties to Abramovich’s high-security Monte Carlo yacht parties.
Professional gate-crashing is a rampant, fascinating and clearly international phenomenon. And professional gate-crashers are equally rampant, fascinating and international. Indeed, they are a new breed of traveller who gallivant around the globe with the sole aim of crashing celebrity parties.
Several different groups of gate-crashers operate in varied and wonderful ways. Motives can be equally varied and wonderful. To some it’s a sport, to most it’s a compulsion and to others an economic convenience. Crashers often boast, “There are champagne suppers everywhere. I never pay to eat.” Why sing for your supper when you can party-crash for it?
But all crashers take their gate-crashing very seriously, and have even perfected it to an art. Indeed, the intriguing and excessive measures they employ ever move one to fresh dimensions of surprise and delight. One observes security extracting crashers from ventilation windows via which they attempt to infiltrate.
Better still, two years ago super-sophisticated precautions at Cannes’ Da Vinci Code party pushed crashers to risk life and limb: some managed to bore tunnels under the sand on the beach to gain access, whilst the less fortunate were chased by patrolling police dogs.
Perhaps nowhere is gate-crashing pursued with as much passion, pertinacity and awe-inspiring intrepidity as during the fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival. Everyone knows that this Festival is a non-stop party - that’s what lures people, and gate-crashers. Observing gate-crashers in action is infinitely more thrilling than watching films, which explains this extensively researched, thoroughly investigated list of the Top Tactics to Crash Top Parties. When I mentioned I wanted to write about the subject a journalist with OK New York protested, “Must you blow it for all of us?”
I was first introduced to the gate-crashing phenomenon three years ago. On my very first evening in Cannes some super-sophisticated Italians at the Carlton impressed with the suaveness of their manner, the elegance of their attire and the carats of their diamonds. Ah, I thought, these people must go to Cannes’ very best parties. I soon discovered that indeed they did.
One of them introduced himself to me as Joseph, observed he had never seen me in Cannes before, stated that he has been a regular for twenty years and swiftly enquired, “Which parties are you going to?” If I got him into my parties, he’d take me to others. This was impossible on strictly personal invites, I protested. “Little girl, you have much to learn,” Joseph declared enigmatically, asking me to meet him at the Carlton the next day. Rapidly, other randoms accosted me, duly informing that they have been Cannes regulars for twenty years, were going to the best parties, enquired which parties I was going to and asked me to meet them at the Carlton the next day.
Cannes’ compulsive crashers invariably sniff out “the day’s best celebrity party.” Generally not important enough to be officially invited, nor deigning to go to anything less than the very best soirees, they target uninitiated victims like myself who have invites for such parties.
Another tactic is devoting one’s day to hotel lobbies. By word of mouth, one learns the venue of the hottest parties. Otherwise, crashers ask anyone glamorously attired, “How are you getting to the party?” “Which one?” “Thought we were going to the same party - which one are you going to?” If lucky, one extracts information, but usually, people know what game you’re playing at (having played it themselves in their twenty years of Cannes festivities?) and nothing is forthcoming. Sometimes Joseph is on a wild goose chase. But generally, he and all his sidekicks manage to be at the right place at the right time.
Slipping subtly in behind invited guests is the easiest tactic. Provided one is well-dressed, one is rarely noticed. If stopped, you say confidently you popped out for a cigarette and are going back in.
Annually, hundreds try crashing Cannes’s D&G party. Those inside steal invites, which you’re relieved of when entering, then come out pretending to “talk” to friends. Somehow, from under the bouncer’s nose, a stolen invite passes from inside to outside the party.
At a much-hyped Valentino party, Joseph and his Milanese friends, the most notorious crashers, floated in flaunting press badges. Through one of the band, a journalist, they forged press badges with names of invited press. Dummy cameras complemented the guise. Joseph explained proudly that they used the same equipment to crash Elton John’s summer party in London as press. He even dared enquire if I would put him up next time he was crashing celebrity parties in London.
Someone once crashed Naomi Campbell’s birthday by sneaking into the hotel kitchen, claiming he got horribly lost en route to the toilet and getting waiters escort him to the party. Some English crashers revealed another tactic: one person had an invite to Hugh Hefner’s 80th birthday bash. He turned up with buddies galore, claimed they were his body guards and walked straight in.
Another time an American crasher mysteriously procured multiple invites to a Vanity Fair party. Confident that he could crash this ultra exclusive do, he tried selling his passes for €200 each to hopeless socialites. But these socialites have as little money as self-respect, so Joseph settled for €100 each for the actual invite and €50 for the envelope - flashing the envelope at the bouncer works as nobody really checks that it doesn’t contain the invite.
At a formal Paris Fashion Week gala hosted at Versailes, the dreadful band turned up anyway. No, not the Milanese - this is a band of German bankers and their bimbos. They are famed for their Riviera crashing and I watched them at work again: someone in their group pretends to look for their invites, others distract the bouncer whilst yet another peeks into the guest list surreptitiously, with the deftness of a pickpocket. Then they discover that they’ve forgotten their invites, but no matter, their names are on the guest list: confidently they announce uncrossed names.
Outside a Paris Hilton party I spotted an aristocrat with a Belgravia mansion, country house, obscure title but no invite to the party detained by the bouncer. Well -connected, he usually manages to procure names of people on the guest list and arrives before the actual invitees. Not this time. Seeing me, he insists he knows me and is with me. Mercifully, the bouncer says that even if he knows everyone at the party, his name is not on the guest list. He cannot enter. Of course, a busty blond without an invite is allowed in because she claims that someone inside has her invite but isn’t picking up his phone. When I left the party, our aristocrat was still there arguing. One hears at 2.00 am he wearied the bouncer enough to be let in.
At the Royal Enclosure at Ascot I noticed some Russian socialites who had been crashing their way through the Riviera. They didn’t have Royal Enclosure badges, of course. They told security personnel that they simply HAD to leave their coats in the cloakroom attached to the Royal Enclosure. They promised to come right out after handing their coats in, but never did…
When I saw an uninvited Russian prince at Sheikh Mohammed’s hush-hush Dubai World Cup desert Arabian Nights extravaganza, I didn’t even bother to ask him how. Thought I’d save it for when I’d see him again at Prince William’s wedding.
If gate-crashing tactics inspire, the gate crashers themselves astound. A certain high profile French royal couple, generally splashed all across HELLO!, were spotted at Laxmi Mittal’s private yacht party in Monte-Carlo this Grand Prix. In a most intimate gathering, it didn’t go unnoticed that the host didn’t seem to recognise the royal socialites. Mr Mittal being the gentleman he is said nothing, but guests raised eyebrows with the observation, “The titled permit themselves anything…”
The untitled also permit themselves everything. Last year, not only did a Milanese couple crash the impossible-to-crash de Grisogono Gala in Cap d’Antibes, but unabashedly got onto the stage where Kelly Rowland was performing and danced with her. The same couple also got themselves photographed with Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele at her Chopard bash.
But getting in doesn’t always mean staying in. A notorious London crasher made friends with security and entered the Cannes Chopard party two years ago. But shenanigans ensued when Elton John recognised the woman who’d crashed his London engagement party. She was unceremoniously but not ungenerously expelled, being allowed a Chopard goodie bag, which she insisted on(!)
Top 10 Tactics
1. Network: Find out who, when, where and crucially, who is invited. Then turn up before the actual invitees on the guest list (it might be problematic should ID be required as is increasingly the case these days).
2. If that fails, subtly slip in when the crowd builds up and the bouncer can’t keep track of entering guests - almost always works.
3. Claim you were inside and just went for a cigarette (unless they stamp your hand on entry).
4. Claim your friends inside have your invite but you can’t get through to them.
5. Arrive in a pack some of whom distract the bouncer whilst others pick out uncrossed names on the guest list.
6. Get friendly with bouncers and security personnel.
7. Steal invites - either other people’s or those handed in at the entrance by guests who have already entered.
8. Walk in flashing the envelope of someone else’s invite, even if it doesn’t contain the invite.
9. Hang around outside parties asking guests for spare invites. There are almost inevitably many floating around.
10. Hassle the bouncer enough until he/she lets you in utter exasperation.