Filantropia

Galas are the private face of the calendar and this site describes only their public one: the charity, the published format and date, the dress code the organizer states, the venue, and what the reporting says of the evening. Monaco's Rose Ball in March and Red Cross Gala in July, the amfAR Gala at Cap d'Antibes during Cannes, London's Serpentine Summer Party, New York's Robin Hood Benefit, the Palm Beach Red Cross Ball, the LACMA Art+Film Gala and the Naples Winter Wine Festival are the fixtures with the longest public record. The pattern is consistent across all of them. A museum, a hospital or a foundation attaches an evening to a date that already matters in its city, sells tables to fund a year of work, and publishes the cause, the venue and often the format while saying nothing about the room. That is the part this site records. Where an evening opens an exhibition, as at the Metropolitan Museum and at LACMA, the exhibition is public for months afterwards and is the way an ordinary visitor sees what the gala was for.