For Party Industry, Y2K Means Gold Mine

King Dahl has quite an evening in store for the 400 people spending New Year’s at the party he’s planning in Thousand Oaks.

The revelers, each dressed as a favorite character of the last century, will enter through a tent decorated with replicas of antique clocks, old phones and early 1900s lamps.

From there, they will file through a 20-foot-long smoke-filled tunnel lined with shifting gears and wildly spinning clocks. That will take them into the main party room, where black walls will set off the futuristic neon lights and the white and silver dance floor.

Food and beverage buffets will represent every decade, including a 1950s soda fountain and a 1970s disco.

If it sounds more like a movie set than a party, that’s just what party designer Dahl had in mind.

“There are more parties this New Year’s than ever and people are pulling out all the stops,” said Dahl, owner of King Dahl Event Design here.

Dahl is among dozens of Valley party planners and caterers reaping the benefits of a party-crazy crowd anxious to ring in the New Year with gusto.

The price? That too, is bigger than ever. Dahl is discreet when it comes to fees for specific events, but he said he typically charges $10,000 to $30,000 for his services--which includes the planning, custom props, floral arrangements and lighting.

All other costs--catering, valet parking, beverages--are extra.

“It’s a gold mine for anyone in this industry,” noted Joseph Marks, owner of Innovative Events in North Hollywood. “Everybody is anticipating this to be the biggest and best of all New Years’. You can basically name your price because there are still people who don’t have a party planner booked. Everyone’s benefiting from this.”

Party planners typically operate something like general contractors, taking responsibility for the party overall and arranging subcontractors for food, entertainment and other services.

If someone needs a dance floor, for example, Dahl will rent it and tack on a 15% surcharge for his trouble. But this New Year’s, he’s jacked that surcharge up to 20%. Most other planners are also raising their prices, saying bartenders, servers and entertainers are demanding more than double their usual rates.

“It’s supply and demand,” said Tarzana caterer Joann Roth, president of Someone’s in the Kitchen. “On the labor side, a lot of people don’t want to work, so if they do, they expect a high premium.”

Roth’s parties, the largest of which will be a dinner for 300, will include one with inside pyrotechnics at midnight. At two other events, guests will be picked up by limousine. Another will have three musical changes, from DJ to big band. Her fees are based on food costs, which will run about $175 to $450--per person.

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Higher labor costs aren’t the only reason for the inflated prices. Because this New Year’s is one in a millennium, many hosts want to celebrate with premium champagne and costly food such as lobster, caviar and filet mignon--served, naturally, on fine linens.

While waiters and suppliers may be cleaning up, party planners and caterers said they are not making that much more money this New Year’s.

“Everything is costing us more,” noted Roth, who is relying on a staff of 123 to work her four New Year’s parties. “It will be difficult to produce what we need to produce.”

Steve Roysner, owner of Parties At Your Door in Woodland Hills, said his clients are spending about $35 to $125 a person for dinner, which is what they would normally spend for a catered event. However, everyone is paying extra for servers and bartenders.

For example, at Tender Bartenders in North Hollywood, waiters and bartenders generally hire out at $25 an hour with a four-hour minimum, which goes up to $40 an hour for most holidays, said owner Tabi Cooper.

But this New Year’s, she said, her staff starts at $85 an hour with a five-hour minimum.

“And we may have to raise that,” she said.

Some caterers reported hearing of waiters and bartenders expecting a minimum of $100 an hour.

“They’re selling themselves to the highest bidder,” said Robert Glucroft, president of Be a Guest At Your Own Party in Sherman Oaks.

But because “it’s a premium night, people totally understand that it will cost them more,” he said.

Supply and demand economics also means that rentals of linens, tables and chairs, even china, are also higher, with a big demand for glitzy metallic or sequined linens and millennium mementos.

“We couldn’t get another table and chair if we wanted to,” said Roth.

The higher prices have frustrated party planners and caterers and their clients.

“This is all hype,” Marks said. “The flowers we get today are $8 a bunch, but just like at Valentine’s Day, they’ll go up to $30 a bunch.”

“After New Year’s, all that [millennium stuff] will be on the clearance shelf,” he said.

Roysner said unpredictable food costs made it difficult to give customers a cost estimate when they booked the date.

“Food prices are starting to skyrocket,” Roysner said. “It’s a little out of control, especially on higher priced items, such as filet, lobster, champagne and the fancier wines. Filet is going up $3 to $4 a pound a week.”

Despite the high demand for their services, most party planners and caterers are limiting their New Year’s Eve jobs to only two or three events, working for long-standing clients who may have booked them at least a year ahead.

“Every day I’m turning away business from regular clients,” said Roth, who will provide another 600 or so take-out dinners in addition to her four full-service affairs. “The problem is not so much food production as labor for on-site chefs, bartenders, etc. You can’t spread yourself too thin. ‘

One client called her on Jan. 2 to book for this New Year’s. “She said she wanted to be sure she could get us,” said Roth. “I said, ‘Don’t be silly.’ But by March, we had closed the date.”

Dahl said he turned down offers in Las Vegas, Palm Springs and San Francisco to stick to two shindigs close to home.

Party planner Cindy Hassel, owner of S & R Originals in Tarzana, a company started by her mother 28 years ago, opted out of the whole New Year’s thing because “It just wasn’t worth it.’ She said she began bidding on parties at the beginning of the year, including three in Los Angeles and one in Las Vegas.

“But we couldn’t get reasonable floral estimates. And then there was a concern about how do I get help for the tear-down. I have a very stable crew and no one felt it was worthwhile to get up early the next day.

“I’m a mother and a wife and I’m going to spend the evening with my family.”

WEB LINKS

Some sites to get into the Y2K spirit:

www.champagne.com: Learn how champagne is made at this Moet & Chandon site.

www.champagne-mumm.com: Post the best idea for a New Year’s Party, and Mumm’s will provide the bubbly.

www.foodtv.com/fn/features/newyear: New Year’s eats and hangover remedies.

www.usno.navy.mil/millennium: U.S. Naval Observatory site. Facts about the millennium; countdown clock.

www.millenniumsociety.org: Find out how to spend New Year’s at the Pyramids.

www.party-favors.com: Celebratory headgear and more.’