Snap, Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, held its lavish New Years Eve party at the L.A. Live complex in downtown Los Angeles. The highlight of the night: A surprise performance by Drake.
TMZ reported earlier that the party cost around US$4 million, with Snapchat employees getting flown in from all over the globe for the massive bash. Snap declined to confirm that number, but a spokesperson says that Snap CEO Evan Spiegel himself personally sponsored Drake’s appearance.
Taylor Lorenz of The Daily Beast reports via Twitter that the party was under a strict order of secrecy — the Snapchat app itself blocked any photos sent from the L.A. Live complex, and employees were told not to share any photos otherwise, either. We’ve reached out to Snap to confirm.
Snapchat blocked all snaps coming from Microsoft theater and surrounding venues where their giant NYE party was held last night and employees were explicitly told that they were not allowed to post anything from the party — even on Snapchat
— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) January 1, 2018
Regardless, some photos and videos of the night did appear on Instagram, and they show that Snapchat threw a massive, formal bash. Captions on some of the Instagram posts seem to confirm the “no photos” rule at the party.
Snap Inc. was celebrating a year that saw its long-awaited IPO. It’s now a US$17 billion company that posted US$561 million in losses for the nine months ending September 30th, 2017.