Eight-Day-A-Week Party People

You may have wondered what the life of a party planner is like. According to Marc de Gontaut Biron, when it is not overshadowed by preppie murderers, cocaine addiction or a gun-toting Christian Brando it can be “really, really nice”:

Since arriving in New York from Paris in 1983, Mr. Biron estimates, he has gone to seven or eight parties a week, and in his still thickly accented baritone, he registers offense when his math is questioned.

“You don’t have one party a night,” Mr. Biron scolded a reporter with less time behind velvet ropes. “You go to two or three parties a night, four or five nights a week.”

Mr. Biron’s schedule, last week at least, would seem to back him up. On Tuesday he stopped in at a roving party called French Tuesday, then met a friend for dinner at Balthazar. (He characterized the evening as a night off.)

On Wednesday he had dinner at Soho House in the meatpacking district, then went to Cain, a nightclub in Chelsea, where he stayed until the wee hours. Thursday night he gave a party at Fizz, a club on the Upper East Side. Friday he planned to play host to a table at Marquee, a club in Chelsea. On Saturday he was to preside over a table at Cain in Southampton.

At each spot it is Mr. Biron’s job to bring in 50 to 100 people who will buy cocktails by the bottle, for anywhere from $200 to $350.

Then again, the late nights and thousands of beautiful young European women can be occupational hazards in themselves:

While Mr. Biron meets women by the dozens, that creates another problem, keeping track of them. In his office he stood up from his chair, plunged his hands into his pockets and pulled out a clump of paper in each fist, business cards and napkin scraps with scrawled phone numbers. He opened his fingers, and the scraps fluttered onto his desk. “My God!” Mr. Biron declared. “Who are these people?”

The question hardly seemed relevant the next night at Cain, as the party reached its peak, sometime after 3 a.m. Mr. Biron leaned back against the banquette to survey the scene. Young women swirled around him. One in particular, dancing like a flame in front of him, caught his attention.

“She is hot, hot, hot,” Mr. Biron said, more with a connoisseur’s detachment than with any hint of lewdness. “The idea is to excite the people with the music and the beauty of the people. It’s a very superficial world, but it’s a very trendy world.”

Mr. Biron looked forlornly at the empty bottle of Absolut, and then at his watch. Four a.m. was bearing down on him like an out of control New York City garbage truck. He grabbed his blue blazer. It was time for bed.

“There’s a lot of parties tomorrow night,” he said. “A lot of parties.”