Primarily for reasons of discretion and privacy. The VIPs were held in public restaurants. First you need a restaurant with a liquor license and the private space apart from the restaurant proper suitable to accomodate the crowd. You may recall that Iggy had a bartender serving drinks. Bartenders need to be paid (and therefore deals need to be struck with them on what their tips will be),
Personally i would prefer to held the party in a PRIVATE place. Either a room you can rent (with no outside interference) or maybe even a house/chalet you can rent for 1 or 2/3 days. Obviously the concerns of the civilians were always there when the parties were held in "public spaces". There was such concerns at the Berri with the hotel guests and the 1 or 2 parties that were held at a place im not sure of the name but had a civilians bar under us. I get that finding a suitable place could be the biggest challenge but hey, i wouldn't mind it. I would really aim for something private.
Thus why im saying the BYOB approach could be suitable. At the Berri from what i understand the room was provided free of charge and the bar was making the money on the achool sold. Seem like a fair deal to me and why we had so many parties there. If you allow BYOB (Bring your own beer) you don't need a liscence to sell alchool. Otherwise if you make peoples pay an all inclusive fee (drinks included) im not sure its 100% legal but it could be hard to prove against you as during the party there is no evidence you are selling.. Actually you are not, you sold an acces to your party... the drinks are graciously provided by you
(kinda like escorts don't sell sexual services, but companioship, what happen between 2 consenting adults... )
As for the barmaids... i really hope im not gonna anger anybody saying that, but i don't see why its of any concern. If you have them, let them keep the tips they make, pay them if needed a "salary", but hell just in tips they probably gonna make over a weekly pay of a regular job for 1 night of job. In a BYOB approach the best would be to let peoples serve themselves their own beer. I trust that peoples wouldn't start "stealing beer" from others as it would be pretty low IMO. At GG2 we all had our own beer and i don't remember anybody stealing mine.
Maybe im having a big vision and im wrong, its entirely possible, but im feeling you making it appear as much more complicated than actually needing to be. Montreal is a big city, their must be rooms to rent that allow the renter to be "independant" (as no personal from the place provided).
As for Hungry's question, it may very well possible it was "Poupoune Lya", i remember meeting her in a few parties, i just don't remember for sure if she was the person at that specific one, i think i may had fanboy too much over Erika
Sad to learn about her psoriasis problem (Lya) , i remember her to be beautifull, i wanted to see her for a while, but never happened. I did spent a fair share ammount of talk to her at one of the early GG event and again at one of the 2 halloween events from mtlgfe (think it was the second that was held in tandem with unicorn) . She was really nice.
and who knows maybe one day Halloween Mike csn pick up where Iggy left offf , everything is possible . He’s intelligent enough , is definitely trustworthy and most importantly he’s passionate about them which is the most vital
Thanks for the kind words. Who knows what the futur hold indeed. But it does not depend to me much. Im just down to provide my help on that, but ultimately its the peoples in the industry that would be the one deciding if they want to do it or not.