Australian grand prix boss Travis Auld isn’t kept up at night by your usual major event issues, like marketing, or ticket sales. The Formula 1 grand prix is too popular for that.
But what does cause Auld to toss and turn is a party.
Specifically, the grand prix launch event known as Glamour on the Grid, which celebrated its 10th anniversary on Wednesday night and has gradually evolved into something closer to a safari for social media influencers than a celebration of the world’s richest and fastest sport.
Melbourne once did this sort of thing better than almost anyone.
Before Glamour on the Grid, there was GP @ 23; the launch party at Crown’s Club 23, famously owned by the late Shane Warne. And before that was the Grand Prix Ball – a black tie affair created by the late Ron Walker.
The Victorian premier would present the trophy to the reigning world champion – as John Brumby once did for Fernando Alonso – and the guest list read more like the Cannes Film Festival than a corporate networking function. Hollywood royalty turned up; the drivers actually attended. Naomi Campbell used to fly in, for goodness’ sake!
Australian Olympian Peter Bol was among the guests.Credit: Eddie Jim
It was elegant, exclusive and unmistakably big league – and it’s exactly what Auld would like the launch event to be again.
Somewhere along the journey, however, the guest list expanded to about 800 people and the paddock started filling with a very modern Melbourne archetype: the B-grade influencer, or Binfluencer.
You know the type: permanently within five metres of a photographer, and possibly aware of Red Bull more as something you drink than a team that wins world championships.
Their F1 knowledge could comfortably fit on the back of a Pirelli tyre, but they know precisely where the step-and-repeat wall is – and which angle works best for the ’gram.
So this year Auld decided to do something about it. The guest list was slashed from 800 to 450. The thinking was simple: fewer ring-ins and more people who know the difference between a pit stop and a champagne stop.
For years the glitzy launch party had developed a reputation as a kind of velvet-roped sardine tin – celebrities, sponsors, influencers and other vaguely important people squeezed shoulder-to-shoulder under a haze of champagne and perfume.
Not this time.
The first thing I noticed when I walked into the party was space. Actual space! The crowd was thinner, the room calmer and the whole thing felt – dare I say it – glamorous again.
A quick 360-degree pan of the room early in the night turned up sightings of Bec Judd, Nadia Bartel, Jacqui Felgate, power couple Andy Lee and Bec Harding and Lara Worthington. People whose fame doesn’t come from their TikTok follower count.
Baker Boy, James Parr, Aurie Indianna and Tayla Harris enjoy the party.Credit: Eddie Jim
The first couple of hours of the party unfolded on the starting grid itself – oysters and champagne served on the asphalt.
Then came the music. When the grand prix launch party was at its peak, the musical acts were sublime. In 2018, there was a surprise appearance from Mya, who sung Case of the Ex (if you don’t know this song we can’t be friends). The next year Sneaky Sound System performed quite literally in the middle of the dance floor.
I tried to recall the artists from the intervening years. But the fact that I couldn’t speaks for itself.
This year we heard from Aussie sensation Kita Alexander, who performed her smash hit Atmosphere, featuring global DJing giant Fisher. She was excellent.
Then the party moved into the lounge, where one long table in between the track and the paddock lounge was lined with what looked like an army of wine glasses — each one waiting patiently for a pour of Penfolds Grange. In most rooms that would be the centrepiece, but here it felt almost casual, like someone had simply forgotten to mention that Australia’s most famous red was being handed out like mineral water.
A pasta station sat improbably on the starting grid itself — because if you’re going to eat carbs, you may as well do it on the exact spot where 22 Formula 1 cars will launch at 300km/h on Sunday.
Inside, the food had a theatrical edge. The Gilded Grill featured a live yaki-style cooking station where chefs worked through cubed wagyu, Hiramasa kingfish, bluefin tuna and Ora King salmon. Somewhere nearby, Grill Americano’s tiramisu was quietly solving problems for people who had perhaps overcommitted to the champagne earlier.
More interesting, though, were the people drifting through the room.
Crown Melbourne’s new CEO Ed Domingo, fresh from New York and still adjusting to the Melbourne habit of discussing football within 45 seconds of meeting someone. He revealed he had already picked a side: Hawthorn. A brave choice depending on your perspective.
Nearby was Luisa Dal Din, the hugely popular podcaster and radio voice, attending her first Glamour on the Grid and looking slightly amused by the whole spectacle.
But if I had to pick one thing where there was still room for improvement, it would be the gift bag.
The glittery, blue eye shimmer from Mecca was a bold shade and surely not everyone’s colour, this reporter. The Crown slippers looked like they’d been grabbed from the minibar cupboard. And I’m not sure how much demand there is among adults for a pocket square with a car on it.
For newcomers, it’s a strange initiation. One moment you’re chatting over oysters on the Formula 1 starting line, the next you’re in the paddock lounge drinking Grange with half of Melbourne’s corporate class.
So if the question is whether glamour was back on the grid? The answer is yes.
So much so, that, with apologies to The Social Network, my advice would be drop “the grid”. Just call it Glamour. It’s cleaner.
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