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Ferrari tours, Superbowl tickets, Playboy parties
Earlier this year, Anthony Keaton gave his wife, Sheila, a spectacular birthday present: the ultimate girlfriends’ getaway for his wife and her best friend. The pair flew from the Keaton’s home on Merritt Island, Fla., to Los Angeles for an Oscar-themed weekend including tickets to the Elton John AIDS Foundation party to celebrate the Academy Awards.
While dining on filet mignon, the star-struck friends and Elton John devotees watched the Oscars and the goings-on at the celebrity table. Later, Keaton, a diehard fan of “24” and “American Idol,” met both Keifer Sutherland and Simon Cowell. Then she was introduced to sexy singer James Blunt—who also performed at the event—and his date, the model Petra Nemcova, and later mingled with Sharon Stone, Gloria Estefan, Sheryl Crow and Jon Bon Jovi.
See our slideshow of VIP Dream Trips.
“It was an out-of-this-world experience,” says Sheila, who lives near the Kennedy Space Center where her husband works as a security consultant.
Networking
Who are you going to call when you want tickets to an invitation-only Oscar party? Anthony Keaton called VIP First Class, one of a new crop of luxury lifestyle brokers. VIP First Class arranged the tickets, the limo and accommodations at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The pricetag for two? $10,000.
These companies use the connections and relationships they’ve developed over time with corporate sponsors, sports organizations, charities, celebrity event organizers and other insiders to arrange once-in-a-lifetime adventures that once upon a time were available only to the very wealthy and well-connected.
“The idea is that if you can’t have it all, you can buy a slice of the millionaire lifestyle utilizing someone else’s connections,” says Lalia Rach, Associate Dean of NYU's Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management. It’s like owning a timeshare in the high-life, or a fractional fellowship in the lifestyle of the rich and famous.
These "experience agents" can snag tickets to the Emmys, the ESPYs, the Superbowl, a movie premiere or the Playboy mansion. They can organize entrée to a hot club, restaurant or after party, arrange a meet and greet with Beyoncé, dinner with Hulk Hogan or a drive in a Formula 1 Race Car.
See our slideshow of VIP Dream Trips.
“We can arrange just about anything,” says Steve Sims, founder of Bluefish Concierge, one of the better known experience providers. Sims, a Brit of Irish descent, developed his “connection” cred in Hong Kong. He was, he says, “a useless financial planner” with a nose for ferreting out the best clubs and parties and an art for arranging entrée for colleagues and VIPs. Eventually he ditched his investment career to devote himself fulltime to fulfilling one-of-a-kind wants, wishes and desires.
Since opening the American office of Bluefish Concierge in 2001, Sims has arranged hundreds of experiences and arranged entrance to countless clubs and events around the world, including creating a stirring fantasy for a James Bond wannabe complete with a staged kidnapping by a devilish villainess and an eventual rescue by actors playing Navy Seals. The only thing that wasn’t make believe was the cost: $250,000.
See our slideshow of VIP Dream Trips.
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