Classy All-White Dinner Party Again An Impressive Event
Fine champagne and caviar.
A classy band and entertainers on stilts.
An outdoor setting in a grass courtyard surrounding a large fountain.
This is what greeted me at Diner en Blanc Los Angeles in 2018, and it hit all the marks of excellence. Again.
I can’t say enough about this high-quality event, which is the international all-white pop-up dinner held in a public place at a mystery location brought to Los Angeles. This year’s event had 2,700 people and if you think that’s a lot, there were 15,000 on the waiting list.
This event is so spectacular I can’t describe all of it. That’s because even when I’m there, I can’t see all of it. There’s so much happening all at the same time, I need a fleet of PubClub.com reporters to be with me. I and fellow PubClubber Angie do our best but there is so much to take in – and we’re having so much fun taking it in – that we can’t get to everything.
This year’s mystery location tuned out to be the Rose Garden by the historic Los Angeles Coliseum. I’ve been to it several times and even walked through it for USC games, but had never considered it as a location for a huge dinner party.
Angie described is as “a white among a bed of red roses” and that’s a good visual description of it.
This year, we were invited to be “imbedded” with a group by going to one of the many meeting places. Those pre-event gathering spots were led by dozens of volunteer group leaders (all event organizers are volunteers, by the way) and it was quite a scene seeing dozens of people converge at the same time all dressed in white.
The clever event organizers then threw a curve; instead of arranging for chartered buses as they had always done in the past, they passed out TAP cards and everyone arrived via LA Metro.
Let me just say that it was quite the scene to see hundreds and hundreds of people all dressed in white – pulling carts with their tables, chairs, table settings, food and other things they needed for the nigh t– getting onto the train.
When we arrived at the destination, it was another scene with thousands of people arriving in all directions.
When we walked toward the venue, we all did the same thing: we stopped in awe for a few moments. A crooner was singing, entertainers were walking around on stilts and the fountain made for an excellent centerpiece.
From there, people set up their tables on the grass in every direction, chatted and drank wine with their neighbors (many of whom they just met) while Angie and I drank the excellent Taittinger champagne and caviar from Tsar Nicoulai, both event sponsors, in the media area.
Fellow blogger Layla of LATravelGirl.com was there, too, and we had a blast hanging with her and her group. It was so much fun, I decided to take a break from running around tying to capture everything and instead paused to soak in the moments. After all, reporting on an event is all about capturing the mood of it, and it’s far easier to do that if you’re actually a part of it.
And then, just when we were immersed in the atmosphere of a high-class dinner party, another party broke out, for the crooner was replaced by a DJ and suddenly there was a shoulder-to-shoulder dance floor by the fountain. People waived their artificial sparklers as the club music pumped into the cool night air.
That’s what really makes Diner en Blanc such a memorable event. It’s both a 5-star elegant and classy dinner and an an all-out party.
Cheers!
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