How the Met Gala’s Go-To Hotels Prepare for the Big Event

Located just a stone’s throw from the Met steps, the Mark is one of five historic hotels on Manhattan’s Upper East Side where you can expect to see your favorite celebrities as they head off to walk the museum’s red carpet tonight. These hotels—the Mark, the Pierre, the Carlyle, the Lowell, and the Surrey—have endeared themselves to the upper echelons of New York City for decades. That prestige, coupled with their proximity to the venue, make them covetable landing spots to set up camp before the big event.

Much like Los Angeles’s hospitality institutions during awards season, Manhattan hotels operate like well-oiled machines on this high-profile occasion. “Every moment is coordinated down to the minute, with our team working in close partnership with each guest's stylists and fashion houses to ensure timing, flow, and access feel completely seamless,” says Pradeep Raman, the Surrey’s managing director.

Prep started in earnest weeks ago, and the ramp up intensified last week. Walk into lobby of the Mark the weekend before the Met Gala, and you can expect to find staff arranging almost 10,000 blooms into floral arrangements across the hotel’s trademark black-and-white striped floors. Upstairs, rooms are transformed into satellite ateliers—where tailors and seamstresses from some of the most lauded fashion houses bead, embroider, and stitch the final details on the red carpet ensembles. Extra mirrors and hangers are already on hand. This year, the Surrey Hotel even implemented a special glam package that included a director's chair, makeup mirrors, and simple pre-set room service menus that area easy to eat when you have brushes and curling irons aimed at your head.

Over the years, many of these hotels have also become the unofficial spot to catch an early glimpse of the biggest Met Gala looks—a red carpet before the red carpet. Fans, press, and paparrazzi will often gather outside the lobby entrance of the Pierre or Carlyle, arrayed against the barricades with cameras and phones ready to capture the celebrities as they walk out to their cars. The Mark even custom makes their own Met-Gala specific red carpet that’s meticulously positioned by a crew of 10 staffers.

“The Mark has a red carpet because an attendee’s Met Gala debut begins here and is seen around the world,” the Mark’s director of marketing, Alexandra Haber, tells ELLE Decor. “It creates a sense of occasion the second guests step outside, while still preserving the privacy and precision we’re known for inside.”

These hotels are also where you’ll spot celebrities going to elaborate lengths to hide their outfits so the big revel can happen at the museum. In 2025, Cardi B hid her custom Burberry suit behind a shield of the brand’s signature plaid umbrellas as she left the Surrey.

“[The red carpet] was never about demanding attention, but about recognizing that the departure has become just as meaningful as arriving at the Met Gala itself,” Haber says.

How the stars exit the hotels is a carefully choreographed dance. At the Mark, a team of 40 oversee the elevators. They coordinate transportation down to the second. Communicating via walkie talkies and using an identification system wherein each guest is given a number, the team precisely times a car’s arrival with a star’s exit from the hotel’s signature black-and-white striped lobby, as a recent Financial Times feature on the hotel revealed. Sometimes, the team will even reverse the direction of traffic.

And the festivities continue after the Gala too. Many of the hotels, including the Carlyle and the Mark, host their own afterparties. (Cartier has historically taken over the Carlyle’s Bemelmans Bar for a sophisticated soiree.) Those that don’t host afterparties still orchestrate signature post-Met welcomes for guests returning from the evening’s festivities.

These moments demonstrate that these hotels aren’t just merely a place for the stars to get ready—they’re now extensions of.

By Megan Wahn