While still a time-honored tradition, the Vanity Fair Oscars afterparty is relatively modern compared to the actual Academy awards. The very first one happened as recently as 1994, at Morton’s Eatery in West Hollywood. In solidarity with the Writers Guild of America strike, the event was canceled in 2008. Since then, it’s been hosted regularly, changing venues multiple times, first to the Sunset Tower and then to a location at 8680 Sunset Boulevard, in West Hollywood.

More recently, it’s been held in the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, a bit more of a mouthful than ‘Morton’s Eatery.’ Mark Seliger remains the official photographer and portraitist for the event, though you may have already seen his work, which includes portraits of Barack Obama, the Dalai Lama, and Kurt Cobain’s head framed with doll heads and roses. 

Reportedly, the Vanity Fair after-party is the closest some celebrities can get to being in a casual setting. Fans, agents, and security are not present within the venue itself, so the world’s biggest stars can mix and mingle freely. Other Holidwood elites are often present, including art dealers, hotel magnates, and billionaires, like Jeff Bezos. While a guest’s plus-ones are somewhat limited, management is known to make exceptions for the night's winners. 

Despite the lavish attention dolled out to the Academy Awards, the very first one was not even televised. Similar to Vanity Fair’s modern variant, there was an after-party for the guests, with tickets going for $5. That is roughly $80 in 2023, so not that bad of a price to party with the biggest celebrities on the planet. These days, there are a multitude of awards for screen and stage, but the Oscars remain the most ubiquitous. Its cultural strength is so profound that in Italy, “Oscar” is used as a term for a variety of award ceremonies.

The famous Oscar statue, while gilded, is actually made of bronze. It weighs just under four kilograms and features five spokes at the base that represent the original branches of the Academy: actors, writers, directors, producers, and technicians, which explains why the original ceremony was only fifteen minutes long. It’s also only about 38cm tall, making it relatively easy to carry about through the many parties and after parties the recipients are no doubt invited to.

Since 1950, recipients of the award don’t actually own the statuette. If you are lucky enough to win one, first of all, congratulations, secondly, the Academy requires that you offer it back for $1. If you don’t agree to this, the Academy keeps the actual, physical award, though your status as the winner is not contested. This is why pre-1950 Oscars can and have been sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars in auctions.

You might be wondering who actually is the ‘Academy’ behind the awards. These days, it consists of around 7000 members across a number of filmmaking disciplines who vote on the various categories. There remains some controversy about the precise composition of the Academy. For example, in 2018, only 28% of members were women. Now, as anyone who has conducted even a bachelor's level study can attest, this is not a representative sample of the population.

The event itself is also a massive undertaking, with catering, broadcasting, security and all sorts of other behind-the-scenes aspects to be taken into account. Around 15’000 dishes need to be prepared for the thousand-and-a-half-long guest list. But, as a consolation, after a night of hard work, the Academy is famous for its lavish gift bags. As always in the world, those at the top get more, so presenters, winners, and even nominees are known to receive gift bags worth thousands of dollars. The item's value has gotten so high that the IRS has actually issued a statement about how to report them.