Vice: The Party - The New Friday Night Party

Posted Jan21 2008 1:11PM by Ken Spalasso, SBPHQ Staff

UPDATE: READ THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH VICE:THE PARTY'S DAN PARENTE

Dan Parente, founder of Bookem Danno Productions, was the not the guy behind the guy, but the actual guy, who put together six years of Maxim magazine's celeb-studded parties. He brings his party genius abilities to VICE - The Party, this year in Scottsdale on Friday night.

Last year, VICE - The Party left many wowed in Miami, with a perfomance by hip-hop A-lister Pharrell. Also in attendance: Roy Williams, John Salley, Will I Am, Common, Jermaine Dupri, Stacey Keibler, and many more. The party had a cool vibe, and included casino tables, as well.

This year's party has been a year in the making. "We start planning immediately after last year. It takes that long to find the best venue, find the partners, get the sponsors on board, and really come up with a creative idea that’s going to drive this year’s event," Parente told us.

Parente, together with event specialists, TOAST, have pulled out all the stops, and gave us a preview of a party that will keep guests busy throughout the night. Parente worked with TOAST since his early days at Maxim, including on the first Maxim super bowl party. “That party would  have never happened without TOAST’s amazing production! There’s nobody else that can do it better,” Parente states.

"We’ll have video game immersion rooms inclduing a Guitar Hero 3 area, where you can play Guitar Hero 3 on stage. We’ll have first person, western shooter games, a tattoo parlor, hookah pipe smoking den, fortune tellers, and dancing girls. We’re going to be unveiling a custom illusion within the party. We will feature an entire room we have created for our title sponsor, Coors Light, called The Cooler, which we will actually chill down to frosty level. We also worked with some of David Blaine’s collaborators to design this illusion or rather “impossibility,” which we will unveil within the party. We have some great DJ’s.  And, last week, we locked in a headliner, hip-hop legend, LL Cool J.," There will be plenty for people to see and experience at VICE,” Parente said.

The theme of VICE - The Party will tie into the location for Super Bowl XLII: Arizona. "This year’s approach has southwestern, desert feel. We took a lot of inspiration from all sorts of things including HBO’s Deadwood and Carnivale, to classic movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, to Clint Eastwood films, to pop culture western films like Westworld with Yul Brenner or even Han Solo, the gunslinger from Star Wars. We tried to pull it from all different worlds, but all under a western umbrella.” “However,” Parente cautions, “this is not going to be a campy, cowboy themed party. We give these elements unique spins to make it a little tongue in cheek where it needs to be and sexy where it needs that too,” the seasoned party planner explained.

VICE - The Party has one type of ticket that gets access to the main party, open bar and the musical performances. There will be an upstairs VIP viewing lounge for sponsors and VIP guests.

The party goes from 9 p.m. – 2 a.m.. Take Parente's advice on this one. "At 9 p.m. people are at the door lined up ready to go. You want to get in early to these parties. The longer you wait the more line situations you may have to deal with. I always said the party starts at nine, so get there as early as you can."

Tickets available to the public are extremely limited. At the time of this article, they had about 100 left, at $600 each. However, before you can buy them, you need to reach out to the guys behind this party first. Check out, http://www.vicetheparty.com/ and send them an email requesting ticket info.

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