Variety‘s Bill Higgins, the veteran party-coverage guy, reported in yesterday’s print edition that the WGA strike impasse has pushed Golden Globe after-party planners to the edge of the abyss. With the WGA intending to picket the GG awards and talent (i.e., prospective award-winners) reluctant to cross picket lines, party maestros are grappling with a growing possibility that the whole damn shebang could very well implode.

“Planners are studiously trying to avoid upsetting the HFPA by prematurely canceling their after-party,” Higgins writes. “‘We’re trying to determine the point of no return,’ one exec says. ‘Nobody wants to be the first person to drop out.'”
As Higgins points out, by late December invitations “are [usually] printed and the venues are booked for the Golden Globes after-parties, the cost of which range from $300,000 to $700,000.
“But this year the event planners who put on Golden Globe parties need answers. Are the Globes on or off? If there’s a picket line, will the stars cross it? And how does all this affect the $40,000 in matching chair covers and table linens needed for the event?
“For party planners, the key question is whether the nominees are going to attend. If the thesps won’t cross the picket line, then what’s the use? ‘It’s all going to come down to: Can the Globes come up with a feasible plan that the talent is comfortable with and don’t have to cross a picket line?’ a planner comments. ‘And I don’t know what that is.'”