Bronson van Wyck Throws “A Pharaohs Ball” in Ibiza
The hospitality impresario multiplied a triangle of reasons to celebrate into a once-in-a-lifetime event inspired by the land of the Pyramids
August gave Van Wyck & Van Wyck CEO Bronson van Wyck triple causes to celebrate: the solar eclipse, his sister Mimi’s 50th birthday, and the anniversary of Cleopatra’s infamous appointment with the asp. The totality of the eclipse hit Ibiza during the late European dusk, but the hundreds of guests had already begun to gather along the beach long before sunset. The sky could not have timed itself better: the eclipse phased into a sunset over the Mediterranean that led directly into the spectacular festivities.
“A Pharaohs Ball” was a grand gesture of grateful generosity on van Wyck’s part. “Long before hospitality became an industry, it was a way of life and a way to exchange friendship, love, and respect. The ancient Greeks called it Xenia, the sacred duty of welcoming and caring for others,” he explained, adding, “We were raised in the same belief. For my family and me, giving a party is an expression of love and gratitude for the people in our lives. Every five or ten years, we gather the people we love and try to give something back—not simply food and wine as it once began, but an experience that expresses how grateful we are to have them in our lives.”
Even an event designer with van Wyck’s résumé is apparently unwilling to declare the art of party giving solved. “The minute you think you know everything about throwing a great party, you probably stop being very good at it. So we like to practice sometimes by doing it for ourselves,” he said, adding, “We love history and art; the two disciplines always seem to underlie everything we do. We combine these with graciousness and generosity. Add in ancient Egypt and Ibiza, Cleopatra and disco, nature and technology, the sacred and the slightly ridiculous.”
There was plenty of all of the above at Sa Pedrera, a former stone quarry in Sant Antoni that became the setting for van Wyck’s version of ancient Egypt by way of the space age. Against the rugged excavated walls, the design team installed a monumental pyramid modeled on the proportions of the Great Pyramid of Khufu, a sphinx, rows of Egyptian columns, and a Cleopatra tableau. Mirrored surfaces and metallic effects caught the light, while projections sent hieroglyphics, Egyptian gods, tomb paintings, and other moving images across the stone.
Ibiza itself came first. “When we read that the first total solar eclipse in more than a century would happen in Ibiza, an island we both love, and at sunset no less, a great party became inevitable,” van Wyck says. Cleopatra then supplied the connective tissue between celestial event, location, and theme. She was useful not merely as a spectacular historical figure, but as one whose afterlife in the popular imagination has long since become almost as significant as the woman herself. Van wyck continued, “Cleopatra gave us exactly what we wanted: real history underneath, and this enormous mythology on top of it. That’s a pretty wonderful place to start a party—or anything, really—from.”
Ancient Egypt served less as a dress-code restriction than as a jumping-off point, with gold lamé, mirrored fabrics, queens, pharaohs, cobras, jackals, and the occasional visitor from considerably beyond the Nile Valley. “Our friends took ancient Egypt and mixed it with glamour and disco and science fiction,” van Wyck says. “Some were beautiful, some were sexy, some were completely absurd. Their choices were the point: reveal yourself by who or what you choose to transform into. There’s no better icebreaker than revelation.”
Among the guests were Charlotte Tilbury, Adrien Brody, Georgina Chapman, Frédéric Arnault, Anthony Vaccarello, Olivia Palermo and Johannes Huebl, Riccardo Tisci, Darren Star, Giovanna Engelbert, Celerie Kemble, Thom Filicia, Steven Gambrel, and James Blunt. Weeks before they arrived in Ibiza, the party had already begun announcing itself through an anonymous Instagram account.
Nicki French, the singer whose dance rendition of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” became an international hit appeared as Selene, goddess of the moon. Kimberly Nichole performed a reworking of “House of the Rising Sun,” while Sophie and the Giants and Ronia Alvarado joined the musical lineup, the latter taking on the virtually mandatory “Walk Like an Egyptian.”
The sheer amount of production involved makes van Wyck’s favorite part of the night slightly counterintuitive: the point at which he effectively loses control of it. “There’s always a moment when suddenly this thing that for months has existed in your head and on drawings and spreadsheets has become somebody else’s memory,” he says. “The party no longer belongs to the host: it belongs to the guests. That moment is beautiful.”
The pyramid was apt thematics for a party with three raisons d’etre: there are three sides and corners to a triangle, and a pyramid is a triangle made three-dimensional. There is a math pun in there somewhere regarding the nature of the festivities, but it got lost in the dancing.