Met Gala 2024: The eye-watering price of tickets to Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion

Tyla at the 2024 Met Gala Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion event held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Photo / Getty Images

It seems even the pomp and glamour of Hollywood aren’t spared when it comes to the pinch of inflation, if not only when it comes to the cost of attending 2024′s Met Gala.

This year, a single ticket to the Vogue event at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art will cost attendees US$75,000 ($125,000) a person. The price is up 50 per cent from last year’s, which came in at an astronomical US$50,000 a ticket, reports Daily Mail.

According to the Met, a 10-person table costs a minimum of US$350,000.

One much-pondered question when the Met Gala rolls around each year is: who ultimately covers the bill for the A-listers who attend the carpet?

First off, guests must receive an invite to the Met Gala — not anyone can buy a ticket and attend, even those who can afford it.

Often, fashion houses purchase tables and invite high-profile figures they hope to host at the event.

Zendaya at the 2024 Met Gala's Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion exhibition. Photo / Getty Images

That is why even the biggest celebrities rarely fork out the full price tag for their place at the Met. The gala is essentially a fundraiser and has raised nearly US$223.5 million for the museum’s Costume Institute under Anna Wintour’s helm.

Last year, the event made about about US$22 million.

The Met Gala, which was founded in 1946, is a celebration of fashion, art, and culture, and has some of the biggest global stars descend on the carpet in all their glamour.

The Costume Institute exhibition this year is entitled Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion and will feature about 250 items drawn from the Costume Institute’s collection, to be gazed upon and adored for the first time by the biggest celebrities in the world.

The Met Gala is run by Vogue, the major international fashion magazine, and, despite its extensive red-carpet coverage, is a private event with a strict no-phone and no-social media policy inside.

Bad Bunny is one of the hosts at the 2024 Met Gala. Photo / Getty Images

Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, and Chris Hemsworth will be hosting the event this year as co-chairs alongside Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

The Vogue Met Gala livestream will be hosted by actor Gwendoline Christie, producer and actor La La Anthony, and model Ashley Graham. Emma Chamberlain is Vogue’s special correspondent.

About 450 guests attend the Met Gala every year, many of them significant figures in the pop culture sphere — think actors, musicians, models, fashion designers, athletes and even politicians.

“Some of the biggest names in the business regularly attend — from Beyonce and Gigi Hadid to Madonna and Rihanna,” its website says.