One of the best and oldest Halloween parties in Miami celebrates its fifteenth anniversary amidst surprises and novelties. What started in 1995 as an intimate house event in the exclusive neighborhood of Belle Meade, Miami, has evolved year after year into one of the most important and renowned Halloween celebrations in the city.
One of the best and oldest Halloween parties in Miami celebrates its fifteenth anniversary amidst surprises and novelties.
What started in 1995 as an intimate house event in the exclusive neighborhood of Belle Meade, Miami, has evolved year after year into one of the most important and renowned Halloween celebrations in the city.
For fifteen years, SAVE Dade’s annual Halloween fundraiser has laid its mark as the premier fall event on the social calendar of south Florida’s LGBT community. Each year, partygoers look forward to this festive night of extravagant costumes, prizes, dancing and electrifying music. This year, SAVE Dade’s largest fundraising event has been re-imagined as “Asylum.” “The concept was born out of the desire to incorporate the scary and eerie aspects that have become ubiquitous with Halloween, and the double meaning of the word ‘asylum’ as a place of sanctuary for the LGBT community and its friends,” explains SAVE Dade’s Executive Director CJ Ortuño.
Over the past years, the popularity of SAVE Dade’s party has grown to the point where it demanded a larger space. Locations have varied from places such as the Miami Children’s Museum, the New Orleans inspired Moore Building, and most recently, SoHo studios. The Design District has been the party’s home for the past few years, and it will be no exception this year; the visually stunning 4141 Building – located at 4141 NE 2nd Ave – is a venue that promises to be a state-of-the-art Halloween party, with over 12,000 square feet, two levels of industrial design space, soaring 40-ft ceilings, towering glass and steel elevators and two large skylights that create stark and dramatic visual effects. This concrete and glass venue holds the largest space outside any club in Miami. The Design District is a unique Miami neighborhood with over 130 art galleries, showrooms, bars and restaurants, and is host to frequent community-wide creative exhibits open to the public. This trendy, avant-garde atmosphere is the prime location for Asylum.
Asylum also promises to be an interactive event like no other: it will be part dance club, part horror house, part design lab, part masquerade ball and part performance art space. Guests will be treated to a cutting-edge light show, performances throughout the space, a costume contest and the latest in house and electronic music spun by world class DJ’s Ivan D, Charlmix and Sayho. VIP guests will be treated to a premiere level of entertainment and exclusivity with free, preferred valet parking, a free 8 x 10 color photo, a special 2nd story balcony VIP-only area, a separate chill lounge with its own DJ spinning, comfortable seating arrangements, an open bar and catered food service by Fratelli Lyon Driade, a modern interpretation of an enoteca and ristorante that combines classical Italian cuisine and wines with Driade contemporary furnishings. They will also have a concession cafeteria for the general admission guests.
This year, major companies have already agreed to sponsor Asylum, including Grey Goose, Coca-Cola, Bacardi and Presidente Imported Beer. Some of the media partners include The Wire Magazine, HotSpots, Ambiente Magazine, Biscayne Times, Sobe Social Club, SobeGayInfo.com and Mark’s List. SAVE Dade Guardian Soldiers Alberto Arias and Wood Kinnard are the underwriting sponsors of the VIP chill lounge and Valley Forge Fabrics will provide materials for decoration and design. Other sponsors include UUFF!, Rachel Robinson Fitness and Gretel Viñas Visual Communication.
Some south Florida celebrities already confirmed their commitment to Asylum, including channel 7 NEWS anchor Craig Stevens and MTV’s Road Rules reality TV star and personal fitness trainer, Rachel Robinson.
CELEBRATING WITH A CAUSE
Asylum is not just another Halloween party. As SAVE Dade’s largest fundraising event of the year, all profits raised from Asylum will help SAVE Dade continue its efforts to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals from discrimination.
Since 1993, SAVE Dade Inc, and its education arm SAVE Foundation, has helped raise awareness about issues important to the LGBT community and has been instrumental in achieving rights and protections for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities in Miami-Dade County. Honored for its human rights work by Amnesty International and by the Miami-Dade Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce as “Non-Profit of the Year,” SAVE Dade is proud of its successes in helping LGBT south Floridians lead productive lives without discrimination in their homes and workplaces. SAVE Dade works with local, county and state governments, as well as the community to affect policy change that improves the quality of life for everyone.
CJ Ortuño, SAVE Dade’s executive director confessed he is very happy with the results brought by the new communications campaign. “We hope that Asylum will help us consolidate the reputation and recognition that our annual Halloween fundraiser has earned throughout these fifteen years as the best Halloween party in South Florida. In the future, instead of saying ‘I’m going to SAVE Dade’s Halloween party’, people will say ‘I’m going to Asylum’, concludes Ortuño, “and everyone will know what that means and want to be there.”
Asylum is October 31st from 8 pm to 2 am at 4141 NE 2nd Ave, Miami, FL. Tickets are on sale now at $35 general admission and $90 VIP through the 30th. Prices at the door will be $45 for general and $100 VIP. Free preferred valet parking for VIPs is only available if VIP tickets are bought on or before October 30th and also only available with a two ticket purchase. To purchase tickets, visit www.103109.com, www.SAVEDade.org or call (305)751-7283. For more information you can e-mail questions to asylum@SAVEDade.org.
