Every year, there are uncontrollable elements that force you to adapt. It was freezing cold with snow in Detroit. In Miami, we were given l2 hours for move-in at the arena because the NFL had an event there the previous night. That's $100K worth of carpeting, constructing bars/cabanas, creating a silent auction room with almost 100 items worth over $200K, building a massive DJ booth, and then making it LOOK like a party. By the time DJ Reach arrived at American Airlines, people were starting to filter in and there were guys with drills trying to put VIP booths together.
You can't help but be delirious at the end of the night -- Detroit was a 20+ hour day, Miami was exactly 24, and this year it was 21. Super Saturday Night is a 12-month project (they'll be looking for a Tampa hotel in a couple weeks) with a budget exceeding a million dollars. And it's always fucking incredible.
The Playboy Villa
Our home away from The Crown Building in New York is always a luxurious boutique hotel in the hottest part of the Super Bowl host city. Not really. We usually occupy about 90% of the rooms at the hotels we choose. That means all the Playmates can be impressed by me moving boxes and driving a rental car (Toyota Highlander).
This year, Mr. Charlie Romano was my bunk-buddy (we had a two bedroom, actually) and he managed to run amok in Phoenix as well (my exploits are documented here). He went to the Pepsi Smash in the VIP section. That's just how we roll when we're not blogging. We do it all for you.
On an early morning KMart run, I hit photographer James Trevenen's rental with mine while backing out of the hotel parking lot. It was hilarious. But the final KMart run yielded one of the greatest "you're not in New York" moments. The girl at the register asked us if we were French. It must've been Charlie's mohawk. Charlie and I don't look anything close to French. She must not get out of Phoenix very much. The "Playboy Villa" was in Phoenix, most of the other events were in Scottsdale, and the Playboy venue was in Chandler.
The Venue: Rawhide! Yee-haw?
I bet the Giants were pissed that we chose this spot because the nearest hotel (literally a 60 second drive) was their team hotel. They could probably hear the party on Saturday night. We had to convert a gigantic tented area into a party. It was no easy task. When I pulled up on Thursday, I couldn't even tell where it was going to be. Charlie and I drove all the way to the Western town -- the kind where they stage shootouts. We got back on the road and found another road that brought us past the petting zoo complete with a bison.
Relevent, our production company, had the place looking like the retro-themed Desert Oasis and Resort by the middle of the day Friday. I did everything from lift boxes, haul a thousand pounds of water, direct traffic, find salt, set up umbrellas, help get the wireless internet set up, move really angry-looking and sharp cacti, and get our college rep bus to the event (more on that below).
The Hero: The Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch
Bodypainter Mark Frazier and his team arrived at 10:30AM as we had specified in their contract. Mark is an amazing professional and I don't just say that because he may be my ticket to the Playboy Mansion (his interview is in a follow-up post). When he arrived at the venue, there was no power in our production area and his crew couldn't get started. Not a problem -- Mark and his crew relaxed and knew they could get it all done. One of the guys asked me to give him our PR girl's number so he could call her about inviting NFL player to the event. That's always iffy, but he ended up getting Leon Hall. So it worked out.
Arizona nudity laws require that the models have pasties and latex thongs. Mark Frazier says he hates working with pasties and latex thongs. I feel like that's almost a Chuck Norris level of bad ass in that statement. Possibly more. I saw the first girl done with my favorite design a little after before lunch. That was a nice diversion from the shit-hitting-the-fan pace we endure. One of my (female) co-workers was irked by the fact that "when the girls bent over, you could see their skin because their buttcracks weren't painted". I have an interesting job.
Mark and the team finished the job with plenty of time to spare. The girls looked amazing. I felt pretty pleased with my first of two major contributions to the party.
The Bus: Reppin' Playboy On Campus
I fucking love college marketing. There's no two ways about it. I love college sports. I love college girls. I love being irresponsible. I love having free time to waste. Other than the sports, those are becoming a much smaller part of my reality and it makes me sad. So my job "keeps me in the game" because I'm a sad old man. But this sad old man had to make sure that 50 beautiful girls from the University of Arizona made it to our party safely. I do a very good job.
Aside from the few hundred girl-only tickets that I sent out, the rep bus was my big contribution to "the ratio". I assigned two reps, Michael Knudten and Laurie Laird, the task of recruiting a bus full of girls. It doesn't matter how big the celebrity, the girls' entrance has been a show-stopper the past two years and this was no exception.
They arrived at about 9:30PM and I was able to meet them at about 10:00PM with the bus parked right in front of our entrance. Charlie and I tried to work our magic with the PR team running the red carpet but we just missed our opportunity to have them walk the red carpet. We were told that Common, our host, was arriving at that moment. He walked in wearing a grey suit with some bad ass grey shoes that looked like they were worth more than my life. As we were about to the unleash the hotness of the University of Arizona onto the red carpet, Nick Cannon arrived and bumped us again. I was about to step in and stop the line when I saw a police car pulling up. We were definitely getting bumped from the red carpet again because Hef was arriving with a police escort and his girlfriends. Seeing The Man himself walk into our event was probably the first time I've ever actually been starstruck. They were walking the red carpet for about 30 minutes since EVERY press member wanted to interview one of the girls individually (plus Hef was there).
After about an hour and a half of waiting, Mr. Romano and I made our way down the red carpet with a gaggle of hot coeds right on Mr. Hefner's heels. They literally entered the party after him as he had just finished his interview with Playboy Radio. You can check out the video of the girls below. We had a lot of NFL players at our event, so I suspect the bus did not go back full...
The Show: Party All the Time, Party All the Time, Party All the Time
By the time my duties with the bus were done, it was pretty close to midnight. I had my stint at the door coming up at 1AM. The party is really just something that happens while I'm running around. It's only 6 hours out of a long weekend of work. Still, we managed to pack in 2000+ attendees including a long list of athletes. Audrina and LC stopped by. Sadly, that's sort of exciting for me. I saw them in Cabo last year at a taco stand at 4AM though. I did get to climb into the DJ booth with Nick Cannon and DJ Reach for a few seconds. It was a pretty amazing moment because it was just as Nick Cannon had started on Stronger.
I ended up back at the door soon after to have some guy try to get in with a girl ticket (his girlfriend said that somebody ahead of him had "mixed up tickets"... right). Another two kids tried to convince me to let them in without tickets because they came with a lot of girls ... the old "we're with them". Sorry, guys. The fire marshal shut down the door at about 1:30 because we'd reached capacity. This happened in Miami at about 12:30. We could only let people in at a trickle after that.
Willis McGahee showed up at about 2AM and the party was pretty much done. I was happy that we had landed the Madden Bowl champ. He shook my hand and told me that he had brought a couple of family members. Nice guy.
We drove back to our hotel after 5AM and I ended up getting into my bed after 6AM having to pack when I "woke up". I got up at 7AM to make sure I was ready to go to the airport. Oh yeah, I heard there was a football game scheduled for Sunday. I did make it back just in time to see kickoff at my apartment.
Click here to see the Official Chris Duncan Playboy Super Bowl Party pictures!
Now, it's time to get ready for Spring Break...
