10 Fun Ways to Liven Up Red Carpets

Hermès opened its new Beverly Hills flagship store with a Bounce-produced party so transformative, it almost felt like an entirely other place and time. And that's exactly what the production and design team behind the nuanced bash was going for: “We wanted it to transport you, so when you were walking into the space, you were really taken into another world. We were trying to achieve a sense of disbelief that you would experience while watching a film or a piece of theater,” said Hermès senior vice president of communications Peter Malachi. About 700 guests found a private warehouse in Culver City reimagined with dreamy vintage Hollywood and French flair, the original inspiration for which was drawn from a scarf specially commissioned for the new store. The red carpet arrivals backdrop mimicked the iconic Hollywood hills and sign.

The Watermill Center, Robert Wilson's artistic laboratory in the Hamptons, is known for incorporating unusual elements into its annual benefits, and in 2007 the night began with a live-action take on the logo-filled photo backdrop, which had actors in frog costumes holding signs with sponsors' names. “We've never had a step-and-repeat before, and we thought that if we had that, it had to be our own version,” said Watermill Center public relations and special events manager Natascha Theis. Artist Andrey Bartenev designed the installation.

Relativity Media's 21 and Over was filled with drinking scenes, of course. So when the movie had its premiere party at the Regency Village Theatre in Westwood in February, event producers brought its hard-partying plot line to life with an unusual arrivals wall. Jade Alex, Relativity Media's director of events and special projects, worked with Best Events to create a 60-foot wall that comprised some 3,700 red plastic cups. Stationed alongside the red carpet, the cheeky fixture served as a backdrop for press photographs of stars such as Justin Chon and Skylar Astin.

With a headliner like Kanye West and sponsor Cartier helping to underwrite the event, the Museum of Modern Art had no trouble drawing a big crowd for its annual Party in the Garden in 2011. But as in years past, the institution's planning team sought to widen its base of supporters even further and find new ways to keep the spring fundraiser fresh. To bring guests straight into the cocktail area and create more of a grand backdrop for the arrivals, the planning team used the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden's gates as the event's entrance, and marked it with a striking leafy topiary embellished with MoMA and Cartier logos.

Prabal Gurung and Target launched their design collaboration with an elaborate carnival at New York’s Pier 57 dedicated to love, the inspiration behind the vibrant collection. Held in February, the pre-Fashion Week event served as a sneak peek to the limited edition line of apparel and accessories before it hit Target stores. On the fantasy city street where the carnival took place, a flower shop–style setup played double duty as the step-and-repeat. Inspired by a scene in the Prabal Gurung for Target TV commercial, the buckets of fresh flowers stood on tiered platforms, creating a wall of florals with small signs carrying the Target and Prabal Gurung logos rising from within.

Paramount's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was 147 minutes of intense, nonstop visual and aural stimulation. So naturally, the studio's event team arranged a premiere along those same lines in 2009. The event, part of the Los Angeles Film Festival, added drama on the red carpet by incorporating the Optimus Prime truck prop.

Guests at the Performa benefit in New York in 2011 entered Skylight Soho to find a long red carpet and a swarm of fake paparazzi waiting, but the effect left some feeling more unsettled than glamorous. As guests walked on the carpet, the group of 45 hooting performers with flashing cameras would roar in a moment of arrivals-zone authenticity not seen in regular TV and magazine coverage. Some of the guests ate it up and posed—the artsy crowd had plenty of people clearly dressed to be noticed—while others hurried past to get into the party proper.

The United Kingdom premiere of Django Unchained in January illuminated London's Leicester Square with enormous LED panels that led to the screening at the Empire cinema. The outdoor arrivals, which spanned the north side of the central London pedestrian plaza, saw six 12-foot-tall screens splash the name of Quentin Tarantino's film and images of the characters overhead as stars Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, and Kerry Washington walked the white-colored red carpet. To provide the displays, producer Premier tapped XL Events, which built each piece from 12 lightweight, semitransparent tiles. XL also supplied 72 LED tiles used for a screen that served as the backdrop for a stage where interviews with the cast took place.

For its annual film benefit in 2011, the Museum of Modern Art honored director Pedro Almodóvar. As a subtle way to acknowledge the Spanish heritage of the director, the organizers added red-hued touches to the minimalist space. To switch things up, MoMA reconfigured the layout, receiving guests through the 54th Street side of the museum rather than the 53rd Street entrance. This new perspective gave producer KCD the opportunity to make a statement in the arrivals and check-in area while not detracting from the modern space and the night's honoree. The celebrity arrivals area was marked by an enormous wall designed by Raul Avila with more than 20,000 red roses.

At Warner Brothers Television Group's party to celebrate the opening of the studio’s new exhibit "Television: Out of the Box" last year, the arrivals carpet was striped to look like TV color bars.