Passport to the World New Year’s Eve Ball

Although this event sounds amazing, their customer service is no where to be found. due to medical reasons I will not be able to attend. I have tried several times to reach the event organizers but I haven’t heard back and cannot find a phone number for them anywhere. I am still waiting to hear back… I hope they care enough to get back to me before the event.

This NYE party was really rad. A well-​mannered and diverse crowd are sprinkled through more rooms than I could count. Come ready with your walking and dancing shoes to see it all or just find the nook that is special for your party. The jams keep going until 2am which for such a huge event hosted inside a hotel is pretty spectacular.
Important Fun-​Fact: The Passport to the World party also gives back to the community. You can buy your tickets through the non profit of your choice and 10% of proceeds goes back to the organization. Great way for non-​profits to promote their work!
Its friendly, fun-​loving, down to earth people getting dressed up to celebrate the New Year with live entertainment, quality djs, and music to match every taste preference. With the dropping of the most balloons (yes, it’s silly though isn’t everything fun just a little bit silly???) in the entire City, this is the one party you do not want to miss.

Figuring out where to celebrate NYE has always been a little tricky. It almost seems it’s either an amazing night or far from. Starting the new year this way is always extremely disappointing — at least for me it is.
I first attended the Passport to the World NYE Ball a couple years ago. It’s now my go-​to NYE spot every year! First of all, the place is gorgeous! I love being in chic places like this for special holiday events. Also, easy access to drinks is undeniably important and while there are a lot of people, there are a TON of bartenders — so most of the time it’s wasn’t a huge hassle to get a drink. There are also quite a few photographers roaming around; my friends and I ended up finding some great pictures of us posted on the event page — great way to commemorate the night. I’ve come to realize though that the biggest influence for a great night is being surrounded by great people. The majority of people that attend this event are classy professionals that are all dressed up (very nicely) for a fun night. I managed to get quite a few of my friends to join me last year and we all had a blast. I will most definitely be attending again to bring in 2016!

Wow!!! What a ride!!!
We decided to attend Alist’s Passport to the World NYE 2014 this year. We figured the event would be a blast since it is in SF. Yup!!! Should have been great but…
First of all. Since they had everything spread out between various upstairs and downstairs ballrooms… You had to walk alot. I mean alot!!! Try doing that in heels. God! by the stroke of midnight most girls were bare-​foot!!! Way too many
people for the venue.
Age range of the group was mid 20’s to 30’s. With a sprinkling of 40+. I guess with age comes wisdom. As in it is not wise to attend this event and be able to walk out in your shoes. Good thing I brought my flats as backup!!! :-). Most of the women were dressed to the hilt in holiday finery and short minis. The guys could have done better.
We got there early since we read that the Will-​call line and entry lines would be long. I’ve been to events in the City. Be there early or wait in line forever.
No will call line. Entry line was short and they had these random people walking the line taking your ticket stubs and giving you wrist bands while you waited to enter the event on Post St.
We thought it strange they would hire homeless looking people to do this but. What-​ever!!! It’s San Francisco. Hummm. Was that the «Bush Man» that took my ticket?
The dancing didnt get really started till well after 11pm. Till then, most folks just stood inline to
get drinks (hosted bar… But with limited choices on liqueur) or just milled and walked around between the ballrooms… Yup… Walked… Oh, yeah I did mention that already… Very very limited seating. We saw lot’s of folks just sitting on the floor.
It went something like this… Get in a long random line to get drinks. Walk over to the shortest line for bathroom with two drinks in-​hand (spill some of it due to bumping into folks). Wait in line at the
bathroom. Repeat. We were lucky to befriend folks that had a room at the hotel, so were able to sneak into the first floor lobby area to do our business there :-).
I looked for complementary champagne to toast the New Year and none was to be found. WHAT!!! By the time it hit midnight, the main floor was just covered with spilled drinks, cups, and ice cubes… Yup, I felt really bad for those bare-​foot girls ;-)… At least they had ice cubes to sooth their aching feet!
By 12:30am, the party started to wind down. Really??? Come-​on, this is the «City» isnt it??? Big fail!!! Next time I’ll just stay at the Hilton or Hyatt in Sactown. jeeze!
The party raged for 1.5hrs tops… Most of that spent in some random line and not worth the $ 100+ per person. I’ll go else where next year.
x.X

All through the past several years since I’ve been living in CA, I’ve had some exciting NYEs to some very lowkey ones. I really wanted to end 2013 by going to a big NYE party of which I decided to go with this AList Passport to the World.
The Westin St Francis is a beautiful venue and the party consisted of several different areas all with specific themes. My favorite has to be the Parisian one cause they played EDM & loved the Eiffel Tower.
General admission tickets included all beverages so of course I tried to drink as much as I can. Bad idea. Needless to say, I’m glad for the EMT people there & for my friend who came to help me out that night.
There were so many people there that I’m pretty sure most of my time was spent in some line for everything from coat check to the bar to the restrooms to getting to each area.
It was definitely an experience & a night to remember. Would I do it again? No. I would much rather go to a party where it’s not all you can drink. Just way too much man. –_–

THE place to be in SF on NYE by far! Nice and spread out, so it never feels too crowded, variety of great entertainment, amazing crowd, and they event put a portion of the proceeds toward very deserving charitable causes. Started out 2013 right last year, and I will be there again to kick off 2014!

Wow, I am so surprised by the positive reviews on here. I went to this party in 2011 and it was not at all worth the money (I hate to be so negative), but it’s true. You don’t get what you are promised. Before you go for all the positive reviews here and buy a ticket, check out this Unilocal link:

For some reason none of those negative reviews are listed on this page, but they absolutely should be. I really regretted the $ 100+ I paid for this party and won’t ever go back!

There are a lot of options when it comes to where to celebrate your New Years. It can be tough to commit to an event when you feel like you want to wait to be sure the party you are going to is the best one in town. Well this is it. The one. The only. The Hottest New Years Ball in SF.
It’s not a rave with sketchy backstage drama. Its not a crowded club with an uneven male to female ratio. Its not a dive bar with popcorn on the floor. And it’s definatey not a stuffy pretentious affair.
Its friendly, fun-​loving, down to earth people getting dressed up to celebrate the New Year together. Its live entertainment, quality djs, and music to match every taste preference. It’s fun backdrops, bright ball drops, and photo booths. Its dancing, moving, and partying till the sun comes up. It’s a one of a kind memory filled evening that’s full of style and grace. This event is the one you’ve been waiting for. Buy your ticket now to be a part of the coolest and classiest New Years Eve Ball!

By far the absolute BEST SF Party of the year. This party has been around for years and improves every year. They really take feedback into consideration each year and aim to make the party classier and more fabulous every year. Living in SF, I used to go out of town every NYE but now I stay. No lines, amazing entertainment, plenty of room, & fabulous beautiful people. What more could you want for NYE? Also, both GA & VIP tickets get you what you’re paying for. This is the one party I’ve been to where paying that additional $ for VIP actually gets you VIP amenities. I’m getting all my friends on board; you should too!

I had fun but I also spent 70% of my night in some kind of line… you would think that since they’ve done this party many years in a row that they would have it down but nope you would be wrong. Will call is not marked and it’s downstairs in the buliding and then you have to go outside to the line which the security yelled at us to go to another line because the line was shorter, LIE. Twice as long and we got redirected to three different lines. WTF. Line for coat check was ridic, bathroom was ridic, bartenders were rude and old/​crotchety.
Loved having so many rooms to explore but that was about it. Half the people were amazing and sweet while the other half seemed to be born with a silver spoon in their mouth yet their mouths needed to be washed out with soap. Hmm, odd mix. haha.
Anyways, maybe I’m just not into this scene anymore but that’s my two cents. I would rather pay less elsewhere without an open bar and watered down drinks and not spend half my night in lines.

this party was an amazing time last year… had a bunch of rooms with everything you could possibly want… plus open bar all night was a definite bonus. Ill be back in town for the second year this year… even had a fashion show that was pretty cool, was a nice change of pace. hope to see you there… cheers and happy new year.

If you’re in San Francisco for the NYE, THIS is THE place to BE!!! It’s the most spectacular event in the city, not to mention the biggest event (with plenty of space to spare for everyone’s comfort).
Well-​dressed people, eight themed ball rooms with plenty of entertainment options for every taste, live performances, live art, live fashion show!!! It doesn’t get any better than that… or does it? Well it actually does, the admission includes an all night premium hosted bar (open bar) with plenty of bars and staff on hand to get the drinks in your hands and back to enjoying your party in no time. Did I mention the massive balloon drop at midnight? Well, yeah that too, and a lot more…
This is my third year in a row celebrating at this amazing venue. If you’re going to go to a party, why not go to the BEST, after all, on a special occasion like this YOU deserve THE BEST!!!
See you on NYE @ the Westin St. Francis in San Fracisco!!!
Happy Holidays!!!
Stefan

Expect a few thousand well dressed people ready to ring in the new year at San Francisco’s world famous Westin Hotel. Expect everything BIG, if you want to do something this year that will be memorable for years to come I suggest getting tickets. This is my 2^nd time attending, when you look into the abyss of people it’s an amazing feeling. Oh did I mention open bar: o)

This is what New Years Eve is all about. Having an event at a Landmark Hotel property in San Francisco, Union Square with a well dressed crowd, multiple rooms & styles of music to dance to… plus very nicely done fashion show, yes… on NYE! We experienced an amazing celebration at the level NYE should be in San Francisco. We can go to a club or our favorite lounge any other night but not an experience like this.