Inside the Paris Olympics’ Most Luxe Spectator Experiences

The Olympics are always full of firsts, but this year there’s one happening outside of the competitions.

The Paris Summer Games are offering a new program where everyday spectators can buy luxe hospitality packages for an extra-luxe experience, The New York Times reported on Friday. Costing hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars, the options encompass everything from premier seating to Michelin-starred food to stays at five-star hotels.

“Anyone can buy these packages to make their experience memorable,” Will Whiston, the executive vice president of the Olympics and the Paralympics for On Hospitality, the Games’s official hospitality partner, told the Times. “Our goal is to create different levels to meet different types of demand.”

At the high end, you could spend some $40,000 on an all-inclusive package, as one Tokyo-based woman did for her and her mother. Their trip, for example, came with access to Gustave 24, On Hospitality’s most exclusive lounge in Paris, which is not at the site of a sporting event. Rather, it’s located on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower, where chefs offer up small plates while a pianist plays soft music. (The company brought in 80 chefs with 23 Michelin stars in total for the Olympics, the Times wrote.)

Elsewhere, guests paid up to $15,000 for access to On Hospitality’s other lounges. Base-line amenities are the same at all locations, but others feature events like wine tastings and discussions with athletes. At the equestrian arena in Versailles, you can shell out up to $3,500 a day for the Golden Garden Hospitality Experience, which includes car service, Champagne, dedicated staff, a welcome gift, and more.

“This is really good from a low-stress-level point of view,” Patrick Nero, a spectator from Washington, D.C., who was enjoying the Clubhouse 24 lounge, told The New York Times. “We felt that if we were going to come all this way, we were going to do it in style.”

Another Clubhouse 24 guest, who asked to remain anonymous, put it more succinctly: “Luxury is always better than no luxury,” the Los Angeles resident told the newspaper.

And what better city to experience that Olympics luxury than Paris?