SpaceX Holiday Party — Paladin Creative

spacex holiday party | 2018

The world we built

With the successful launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket, Elon Musk wanted to do something extra special for the employees at SpaceX.

With over 5,000 employees (not to mention spouses and partners), thematics took a backseat for a while until we could find a venue big enough to hold the crowd. Ultimately, it was the sheer scale of Paramount Studios that won us, Best Events, and the clients at SpaceX, over in the end.

Inspired by Elon’s ‘Burning Man’ experiences, we originally focused our pitch around the art, vibe, and spectacle that is Black Rock City. However, it became very clear very quickly that Burning Man was not just something you could re-create.

As we went around the table trying to think of a party theme as big and bold as Burning Man, themes like “New Year’s Eve” and “Oktoberfest” kept coming up. Ultimatley, the thought process became, “why not just do all of them?”

Concept and ideation

Once the initial concept was pitched, “The Party to End All Parties”, became an immedaite hit with SpaceX.

Obviously, the next big question to tackle for us was…what defines ‘the party to end all parties’? How many massive celebrations worldwide have a global impact wide enough that almost anybody, anywhere can recognize what they are?

We started with the celebrations that are popular in America - New Years’ Eve, Superbowl, Burning Man, Mardi Gras - but quickly realized we needed to seek out the celebrations of other cultures if we were going to pull this theme off correctly.

We ended up adding in Thailand’s “Full Moon Party”, Chinese New Year, Cinco de Mayo in Mexico, Oktoberfest in Germany, and San Gennaro Festival in Italy.

Once the various worlds were defined, we used the natural layout of Paramount Studios to find the locations. There is literally a “New Orleans Ave” in the backlot where we placed Mardi Gras, and we filled the B-Tank with water to recreate Thailand’s Full Moon Party.

Fabrication and scenic

Nearly everything we brought in needed to be custom built for this event.

During the build and rendering phase, we tried to stay as true as possible to the original design of any culturally-sensitive celebrations. We spoke with event producers who have experience in Thailand and China to ensure anything we built was accurate.

To utilize as much of Paramount Studios as possible, we spent a alot of our time and budget on activating areas above the audience. With over 5,000 guests attending, no matter what we put on the ground, there will always be people blocking the scenic elements.

Instead, we used over 2,000 linear feet of fabric, balloons, and various other materials to create an uninterrupted aesthetic above the party, unique to each area.

For our Burning Man area, we made sure to hire artists and fabricators we have real-world experience in Black Rock City. If you’re going to have a 20’ metal trapezoid that spits fire…it better be made by somebody who has experience with large crowds!

end result

In total, “The Party to End All Parties” had a total guest attendance of 8,000 people.

The final buildout stretched from Melrose Gate to Hollywood Forever Cemetery, covering almost 250,000 square feet of land.

Guests were literally transported to the event by train in order to keep the massive foot traffic to a minimum, and we even partnered with Zero Waste to ensure no F&B went to waste post-event.

The SpaceX team was ecstatic with the success of the event, and the employees returned home with a nigh of unforgettable memories.