All the ways in which Vogue makes money with the Met Gala

Even before being a parade of over-the-top dresses worn by half of Hollywood's famous and fashion elites, the Met Gala is a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York. But that doesn't mean that Vogue, the event's historic organizer, hasn't found ways to monetize the enormous attention it generates. After the cancellation of the gala in 2020 and the 2021 edition that, according to BoF, generated $16.4 million, Met Gala is one of the most talked-about events of the year - the same year in which not only the print medium but also in which the classic mechanism of ads in fashion magazines was challenged by digital media.  The most monetizable moment of the evening is, of course, the red carpet for which Vogue began selling advertising space back in 2015.

But over the years, the costs for advertising placement have been increasing in correspondence with the development of digital channels through which the Met Gala is told: last year, for example, Vogue sold its two livestream ad spaces of the event for $1 million each. The price tag can get even higher if you add to these spots the amplification of content by influencers and celebrities on Instagram, which, by the way, is one of the event's sponsors.

Another source of profits is Vogue's liveblog, which not only posts live content but also hosts a vote in which the public can award their favorite outfits - even on the page the ads are sold at a high price. The high cost of ads is not exaggerated: in past years the Met Gala red carpet generated a media value of $543 million, higher than the Super Bowl, with a live broadcast that had 16.5 million views with another 8.2 million views on content about the event in the three days following. Beyond the profits generated by advertising, the Met Gala continues to raise money to finance performances through the sale of exclusive tickets: according to the Evening Standard, a ticket costs $35,000 and a table $200,000 to $300,000. When Yahoo! wanted to attend the gala in 2015, on the other hand, rumors spoke of a $3 million outlay. Either way, that's a wildly far cry from the $1,000 price tag that tickets had in 1995, the first year Wintour came to direct the event.