What does it take? Who are the gatekeepers? How does the system work and, most importantly, when do the invitations to glamour bashes, high teas and sundry cocktail kneezups start rolling in? Janice Breen Burns investigated the mechanics of pecking orders, parties and the crucial role of PRs in the social order. (This article first appeared in The Age. Pictured above, A-lister Lydia Schiavello wears Connie Simonetti gown)
There is a gatecrasher who has worked the so-called A-list parties of Melbourne for years; middle-aged, fashionably dressed, wily as a fox, and by many witness accounts, able to vaporise – “Where did she go…?” – whenever a kink in the cocktail buzz warns her a security team may be headed her way.
Among gatecrashers – and there are several who are well known on Melbourne and Sydneys’ jam-packed circuit of corporate and branded events – she is The Crash Queen, a royal pain in the party plans of dozens of event organisers and public relations consultants. (For expedience here, and because it is the – slightly incorrect -colloquialism by which they are known, I’ll continue to call those who plan parties and draw up guest lists, “PRs”.)
The Crash Queen slips through velvet ropes, along red carpets (even posing on paparazzi walls with knots of oblivious celebrities), past guards of PRs ticking legitimate guests’ names off their ipads. To them, she is not just irritating, she is a rogue element in their new social order. They are the social gatekeepers, after all, on guard at dozens of uber-cool and high glamour events to launch things, open places, and sell stuff. They rule the multi-branded party season, and the party season runs all year round.
They plan every event like a complex social maths equation, calibrating the guest mix for maximum client exposure and on-brand social media resonance and – dammit – gatecrashers will never compute in the KPIs! “Everyone’s there for a reason,” says Sydney PR Sally Burleigh, a luxury launch specialist for clients such as Audi and kaftan queen Camilla Franks. “Everyone’s at that event because they’ve got some sort of engagement with that brand.”
A decade ago, A-listers might have been plucked from among altruistic socialites, gifted professionals, elders of industry, celebrities, of course, and a smattering of models and other pretty people for decoration.Now – let’s abandon delicacy here – guests are vetted by demographic and the number and engagement of their social media followers. They are then allocated to guest lists where their use value can be best maximised and utilised by the hosting brands. The mechanics of this new “high society” is also extremely useful to guests, who use the brand’s hype to hype their own brand but, more about that later.
“Actually, there are no A-lists anymore,” says Kate Keane of Melbourne PR and events company, Kate & Co. “There’s no hierarchy of guests. We have one overall database and, depending on what the client wants to achieve, we pick the (guests from) that target demographic.” That means everyone on a typical PR database is actually “A-list” by brand: film and TV actors, reality TV stars, sports men and women, TV presenters and show hosts, social and fashion journalists who have risen above their column centimetres and, most the compelling, volatile and hotly desired category on any database, the waves of (invariably young) fashion uber-bloggers and social media “influencers”.
The latter are both the bedrock and frontline of any database worth its budgets and, just to keep PRs perpetually on their toes, they can rocket out of obscurity in a matter of months. “We keep an eye on who’s coming up,” says top Sydney PR Adam Worling whose clients include Carla Zampatti and David Jones. “It makes for a lot of churn in the database, a lot different to when I started 20 years ago and your database could be rock-solid for a decade. Now, there’s movement all the time.”
A radar for The New is handy PR equipment, but, so is a nose for fakery. “We get approached all the time by all sorts of people, a lot of bloggers,” Worling says. “Who wouldn’t want to be invited to so many amazing things? And, we’ll say, yes, send us though your statistics, tell us anything you’ve done for our brand in the past…but we’ll also be looking very carefully; we’ve had people make claims we find out are absolutely false, or they seem to have a solid following…”
Nebulous credentials don’t compute on the modern PR database which feeds on Numbers, Darling, Numbers!, or at the very least, fair evidence a potential guest’s celebrity star is on the rise. Melbourne blogger, illustrator and Insta-girl Alexia Petsinis, 22, for example, is “on the rise”. The charming, and strikingly chic RMIT fashion student, joined Voxfrock (which also offers mentorship to young wannabe bloggers) two years ago and after reporting several branded events, her own invitations started to trickle in.
Now, Petsinis’s popularity is quickening. In six months, her social media numbers have tripled, her party invitations are mounting to A-list levels. “Alexia’s carved a niche very quickly because she’s got a point of difference that is very attractive,” says Keane, one of the first to list Petsinis on her guest database. “There’s her looks, and the way she dresses which is different, and her illustrations which are very original; it all adds up.”
In fact Petsinis’s numbers are still comparatively modest; around 6,500 on Instagram, for example, but her fame is accelerating and a tipping point is inevitable. Her illustrations are increasingly shared on social media, she is photographed at party after party, and she dutifully hashtags brand after brand. She is shaping up as the perfect guest, an asset to any database. “I was really surprised,” Petsinis says. “I thought it would maybe take five or 10 years for this to happen but, it’s really nice that it’s happening now. Going to all these events is a nice platform to launch myself.” The Alexia Petsinis brand, in other words, swells as she attends more parties. It’s the flipside of this new social stratum’s two-way mechanics; self branding.
The Lydia Schiavello brand, for example (she’s our hero A-lister pictured above), is also a warm, attractive woman, an Italianate bombshell and prolific blogger linked to social media platforms fat with thousands of fans and followers. Where Lydia goes, they emoji. Schiavello is, consequently, an A-lister in high rotation, frocked up and out almost every night: galas, launches, dinners, lunches, brunches, teas, shows. She slots them between family – “I’m very grounded; they come first” and filming Foxtel’s mesmerising Real Housewives of Melbourne. “And, actually Janice, I don’t refer to myself as an A-lister,” she corrects me. “I just think of myself as lucky and grateful to be invited to so many incredible events.”
Schiavello is a practiced and charming guest; swings those hips, tosses that magnificent mane, flashes her chandelier smile, works the room like a matriarch with Sophia-Loren-esque style. “I do try to say hello to as many people as I can,” she says. “Because I genuinely love hearing their stories. It’s fantastic. For me, life is one long conversation….”
In fact, A-listers like Schiavello are a golden bonus for party PRs who not only have to tap a guest list’s potential social media reach, but magic up some memorable mise en scene and ambiance as well. “It’s about the décor, the food, the guest list, all working together,” says PR and events maestro John Flower of Hothouse Media and Events. He is by far the most experienced PR I spoke to for this story and his client list reflects it: Chanel, Dior, dozens more, as well as Swisse, The Logies and David Jones’ uber-chic marquee pitched at the Caulfied Cup. “You can’t just have a lot of beautiful people standing around looking at each other, or a lot of little islands, groups that don’t mix. You’ve got to have bridges dotted around too; a cross section of ages, people who are interesting and different, people who can carry on a conversation.”
Good guests, in other words, are diamonds on a good gatekeeper’s guest list. Bad guests, on the other hand, can be booted off – never mind their statistics – or “suspended” pending reputation repairs. “Let’s see; people who behave badly, or get drunk,” Flower ticks off the infringements, “Or they’re just anti-social and don’t cross pollinate…” Kate Keane adds the serial “no-show”; “Or, they show up and bring four people with them. Or, they’ve been in the media for bad behaviour or whatever negative reasons…”
Good guests however, are invited to their pick of low to high budget, cool to glamourous branded parties all year round. Little wonder The Crash Queen plots so cunningly to pluck her flute of free French off a waiter’s tray and slither, uninvited, perhaps even nerves jangling, through the bright fizz of A-list conviviality.
If only she knew what a spanner she is, in what extraordinary social mechanics.
Janice Breen Burns, jbb@voxfrock.com.au
